title. 20F, and i honestly don't think i ever formed a healthy self-image. i attended a K-12 school with a small student population and a severe endemic bullying problem so the same 15 individuals i met as a toddler were the classmates alongside whom i graduated high school. my school was actually known throughout the surrounding area for having a bullying issue and i got dealt a pretty bad hand in those terms. bullying and social exclusion followed me from kindergarten all the way up to high school. my only friends were my cousins up until sixth grade. i know this by itself doesn't sound all that bad but feeling like an alien and an outsider as a six-year-old girl messes you up. i wasn't a "quiet" or "weird" kid or anything like that- just literally a normal young girl- but a lot of the other kids in my grade just came in with these vicious, catty personalities which didn't mesh well with the sunshiney, always-assuming-the-best-in-people attitude i had as a young child. my parents were also working class and i didn't always have the trendiest items/wasn't "hip" to what was popular and that certainly didn't help. i never really formed any sort of self-image during those formative childhood years because all that time was just spent feeling awful about myself and trying to figure out what i had to do to earn acceptance. my most formative memory is just spending years and years trying to figure out why i couldn't be accepted by the other kids in my grade and trying absolutely everything to no avail. additionally, i wasn't exactly able to build a strong self-image at home because my father was largely emotionally absent and hypercritical. (he was never abusive in the slightest, but was just very rigid, not emotionally involved, would criticize every single thing etc). i internalized a lot of those criticisms and still have an incredibly overactive hypercritical voice. then when i was 11 i got involved with an excessively-competitive intensive sport which involved adult male coaches who (as i now recognize) were incredibly abusive. think those eastern european gymnastics coaches in the 50s. i was training 30-35 hours a week by the time i was 13 and my life resembled an Olympic training regimen. because i already was so incredibly weak in self-esteem i internalized and accepted all of the abuse from the coaches while other children told their parents and were removed from the environment. i felt like this sport was a place where i could be competitive, included and treated like a mature adult- a break from the constant exclusion i was experiencing from my peers at school. i couldn't figure out how to quit because the coaches' validation (which was few and far between) had become the only thing remotely resembling a self-image i had. i couldn't relate to any of my peers or the few friends i did have because i didn't have a normal teenage life where i could go to the mall or hang out with friends; all of my waking moments involved crippling anxiety due to these adult men who i spent the majority of my time around. they screamed at, insulted, threw things at, and took delight in physically hurting the young children involved in the sport. i felt like i didn't own or control my life and i had a sense of being completely isolated because i didn't know how to get out of or even define the situation. i finally left at 15 (in the middle of my freshman year of high school) and within a month of leaving developed some sort of mental health/trauma response (which i am still unable to identify because i never got any sort of psychological help due to being afraid of seeming "weak"). i started having regular anxiety attacks (something which i had never experienced before), throwing up daily, having nightmares and losing my hair. growing up although i was always insecure i had never dealt with any mental health issues and i am neurotypical so this was all absolutely new for me. the fact that this was something i had never felt before all arising so abruptly at once- seemingly overnight- made the experience scary and unfamiliar, and i felt like i was losing my control of my mind and body at 15, right when teens are meant to be naturally growing into and forming healthy relationships with their bodies. it was around this time when the usual teenage drama of high school really took off and due to the mental health issues i had begun to experience i found myself involved in typical teen drama which led to me losing my entire friend group multiple times over. my high school years were full of painful drama, friendship breakups and a plethora of unhealthy actions which i now recognize as desperate efforts to regain some sort of sense of control over my life and self-image. i got rejected from my dream ivy league university which i had wanted to attend since i was a child (the university where my father works) because my grades had dropped after my experience in the sport- not a lot, but just enough to remove me from the ivy league range. i enrolled in my state university and entered my first relationship which swiftly ended due to my baggage from childhood/the fact that my insecurities made me unable to accept the fact that someone genuinely liked me. i got my life together (in some sense) in college and now am an honors program + dean's list student on a pre-law track, set to graduate with phi beta kappa and magna cum laude distinctions as well as a near-perfect gpa and membership in a national honors society for my area of study. i still have absolutely zero self-esteem or even any idea of what it feels like to have a healthy relationship with myself. my opinion of myself (physical appearance, personality etc) is so negative and distorted that i have absolutely no idea what i look like or how people perceive me. i have been told that i am attractive but i honest-to-God just don't know. i criticize myself brutally for every decision i make and i can't go a day without comparing myself to other people. nobody knows that my self-esteem is so awful because i seem on the surface to "have it all together". i don't want to go to therapy or counseling because i feel like my parents would see me as weak or incompetent and even if they didn't i know that i would see myself that way. the mental health issues i dealt with in my teen years are (for the majority) gone now but only because i've had to develop my own coping mechanisms (some healthy, others not so much) and most of it has just come down to toughing it out and pushing it all down inside. i have this weird overachiever complex where i purposefully will put myself in painful/uncomfortable/excessively difficult situations in order to "prove" that i can overcome them and feel like i'm proud of myself/have accomplished something, if that makes sense. i'll stay awake 72 hours consecutively studying for an exam and skip meals just to score the highest in the class on zero hours of sleep and an empty stomach and the more uncomfortable/unpleasant it is the better i end up feeling because it seems like i've accomplished something/like i'm being "disciplined". everyone just thinks that i'm an overachievereally good student and so i feel like if i actually did tell someone about how bad i feel on a daily basis i'd be dismissed with "but you have it all together!!" etc etc. idk how to fix this or if it even can be fixed but i would appreciate some sort of advice. i want to be able to just enjoy my life.

The Flying Dutchman was shattered into pieces. Various bits of wood and large chunks of the ship were scattered across the sea. Jormungandr breathed heavily, poisonous blood pouring out of countless wounds in his body and turning the sea purple.
Odin had a wide smile on his face, not bothering to hide his joy at Jormungandr's impending death. The rest of the gods were grimacing.
"Looks like Jormungandr wasn't strong after all," one said.
"He's just some overgrown snake," another stated.
"Odin just sent him in here to die. He's a damn coward that's willing to let us gods lose if it can save his son's life," a third mocked.
On what was left of the ship's crow's nest, the Captain stood. He laughed as he hoisted a canon over his shoulder. There wasn't a single wound on his body. Humanity and the other archetypes cheered the Captain on.
"You can do it!"
"You've got him on the ropes! Take him out, now!"
"Finish this, Captain!"
"I've got you now, beast!" the Captain declared. "Greatest of all sea monsters! Your death will be my greatest achievement!"
"You still call me a sea monster?" Jormungandr glared.
"Hey! You should be proud of yourself! Nothing but the sea could have made something as glorious as you!"
The Captain motioned around himself.
"Look at the glistening waves, the shining water, the vastness. Isn't the sea beautiful? Have you ever taken a moment to enjoy it?" he asked.
Jormungandr looked around. The Captain was right. Jormungandr had been so consumed by rage and hatred that he had never tried to enjoy the ocean.
A sense of peace came over Jormungandr. He saw the waves, the water, and how vast the ocean was. It made him feel small. Jormungandr liked that feeling. The sea made him feel nostalgic, reminding him of when he was a normal-sized sea serpent. These waters made him forget about his hated current form.
"After this, I will stay on the surface more often," Jormungandr decided.
"There is no after this, I'm afraid," the Captain aimed his canon. "This is the end for you."
The canon ignited with a loud explosion. Flushed with new energy, Jormungandr smacked the cannonball aside with his tail. It slammed into the mast under the Captain, destroying it.
There was a crash as the Captain fell and collided with the bits of the ship below. He stood up, blood from minor scratches on his face, and grinned. The Captain grabbed the mast of the ship like a pike.
"Alright, Jomungandr, I'm coming for you!" the Captain shouted.
"I'd be willing to surrender, but it's...death or glory, you called it?" Jormungandr asked.
"Yes! To win glory in victory or die at sea! That is the only path I can take!"
The Captain jumped into the water and swam at Jormungandr, fighting back against the poisonous blood in the water. Normally, the sea serpent would have dodged the attack. However, it was filled with pain from its countless wounds. Jormungandr was not fast enough, and the Captain's weapon pierced deep into the monster.
Its blood poured out like a waterfall, crashing onto the Captain. His veins bulged, his body cringed inward, and his mouth opened to let out a scream of agony. Instead, poison flowed into his mouth and down his throat.
He thought he could close up the wound with the mast to keep blood from coming out. The Captain thought that he'd die smiling if he died in this battle.
Instead, his body faded into a green mist as he died in agony.
"Unfortunate. Truly unfortunate," Herman Melville wiped away his tears.
"So long, Captain," Robert Louis Stevenson clasped his hands in prayer.
"Heh," Blackbeard gave a sad smile. "He died like a true pirate."
"Yes. Charging headfirst into glory or death," Ching Shieh agreed. "Though, dying of old age is better in my opinion."
For a moment, silence overtook the arena. Heimdall flew to the water's surface to confirm the Captain's death. Then, he spoke into his horn.
"The winner of Round 2 of Ragnarok is the gods!"
Jormungandr vs. The Captain.
Victor: Jomungandr.
Match Length: 18 minutes and 38 seconds.
Deciding Move: Captain's Charge.
Humans 1 - 1 Gods.
Who do you think is fighting next?

Hi! I'm a current junior and I'm trying to build a college list. Please let me know what colleges you would recommend me to apply to :>.
Demographics: Female, Asian, HS in NY (would say it's pretty competitive)
Hooks: first-generation, low-income
Intended Major(s): Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (or environmental sciences) and minor in Philosophy
ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1570 SAT, 780 W and 790 M
UW/W GPA and Rank: 4.0 unweighted, idk what my weighted GPA after junior year would be yet
Coursework: 5 honor classes 9 APs (7 more senior year)
List of APs: Sophomore year: APWH (5), AP Physics 1 (5), Junior year: AP Lang, AP Calc BC, APUSH, AP Psych, AP Biology, AP Stats, AP CSA, Senior year: AP Lit, AP Chem, APES, AP Macro, AP Micro, AP French, AP Gov
Awards:

• USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) Honorable Mention (top 20%)
  
• Some regional science research fair awards
  
• Science Olympiad Ornithology (bird science) event, Medaled
  
• 1st place for animal rights essay contest (top 10 in around 350? I think)
  
• New York Times Contest Winner (one 11 people out of ~2000) work was published there
  
• Scholastic Art and Writing Awards two Silver and one Gold keys
  
• National French Contest, three gold medal one each year (>= 95 percentile of contestants)
  
• Some regional business competition awards
  
• Investing scholarship winner, only winner in NY for that time
  
• Presidential Volunteer Service Award Gold Medal
  

Extracurriculars: Include leadership & summer activities

• Research project with a professor at a local university on ornithology (bird science)
• Research project with a professor at a medical institution on air pollution
• Research project with a professor at a top liberal arts university on ornithology
• Research project with a professor at a Quebec university on ornithology
• Research project with a professor at an ivy on pain relief- published in student journal
• President of environment club
• PTSA council delegate
• Founder and President of an organization that aims to spread awareness of restrictions in education
• President of free tutoring organization
• Secretary for French Teacher
• Mentor in a mental health program at my school (I help underclassmen navigate mental health issues and HS)
• Writer for school newspaper club
• Volunteer at environmental center
• Past volunteer at a reading non-profit where I taught underprivileged children how to read through Zoom
• Some other volunteer events
• Columbia Science Honors Program
• NYU Collegiate Seminars Program
• The Junior Academy Team Leader
• Kode With Klossy web development camp
• Veterinary Medicine Career Exploration Program

Essays/LORs/Other:
I haven't started writing my essays yet, but my English teacher really likes my writing.
English Teacher- I think it would be pretty good. I always participate and he has said I'm a great student numerous times.
French Teacher- I think it would be pretty good as well. I work as her secretary, and I engage in frequent small talk with her.
Biology Teacher- I think she likes me, and I am one of her best students.
Thank you in advance, and please let me know what you think!

Adrianna Lawrence / NewsNation - Nexstar Media / May 3, 2024 / 12:11 PM CDT
CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — The former judge who presided over the Alex Murdaugh case said while he worked as the judge overseeing the six-week double murder trial last year, he feels like people were judging him.
NewsNation affiliate WBTW had a one-on-one conversation Thursday evening with former Judge Clifton Newman. The former South Carolina circuit court judge delivered remarks at Coastal Carolina University’s commencement ceremony as the keynote speaker.
Newman focused a large part of his speech on his experience overseeing the Murdaugh case.
“And I was the main focal point and representative of our system of justice here in South Carolina so that was the burden that was placed on me to bear,” Newman said. “And that’s the way it goes.”
CCU students, family, and faculty gathered at Brooks Stadium to celebrate the Class of 2024 at its university wide graduation.
While Newman served as the keynote speaker, he also received an honorary degree of Doctor of Public Service. On March 3, 2023, in Walterboro, S.C. Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of killing his wife Maggie and son Paul.
Newman sentenced him to two consecutive life in prison sentences.
“For the murder of Paul Murdaugh, whom you probably love so much, I sentence you to prison for murdering him for the rest of your natural life,” Newman said during sentencing.
Newman said the Murdaugh family goes back to a long line of lawyers, attorneys, and solicitors.
Alex Murdaugh was no exception, Newman calling him “legal royalty in South Carolina” during his keynote address.
“From the outside, he represented the pinnacle of success,” Newman said. “But on that day, Alex was appearing before me as a defendant on trial for murder.”
Newman was born in Kingstree S.C. and served as a judge for more than two decades. He said it was a surreal experience growing up in a small town to being in the national spotlight.
“I don’t want to say it’s a dream come true, but it certainly is an amazing journey,” Newman said.
During his address, he said you have to be ready to meet the moment and rise to the occasion. He said he feels he did just that during the Murdaugh trial.
At Murdaugh’s sentencing hearing, Newman shared an emotional thought with him.
“I know you have to see Paul and Maggie during the nighttime when you’re attempting to go to sleep,” Newman said. “I’m sure they come and visit you.”
Newman explained to WBTW where this compassion for someone who was convicted of murder came from.
“Well, it’s painful. There are no winners, there is nothing to cheer or celebrate,” he said. Newman adds it was unfortunate for Murdaugh’s family, the legal community, and the country.
Newman was recused from the case and soon retired. He said his retirement stemmed from a state mandate requiring it once you reach the age of 72.
He said he turned 72 a few months after the trial, but his presence is still felt in the legal community.
“I continue to work as an active retired judge and also do arbitration and mediation,” Newman said. “So, life is good.”
Newman said he’s also been invited to speak at other graduations like South Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina.
SOURCE: Click *here** for the article via NewsNation online*.

I stared, mouth dry, heart pounding, at the message from my boss – That awful combination of words that my coworkers and I pray we never see:
“You’re in the running for Employee of the Year.”
For him to send something so callous via email – that was just rubbing salt in the wound.
My eyes glazed over the wall of text that followed. I didn’t need to read the details – I’d cleaned enough of the prior winners off the walls and ceiling of the soundproofed breakroom to know exactly what the award entailed.
After that initial, deep pang of fear faded, denial flooded in to take its place.
I wasn’t just hitting my sales quota, I was blowing it out of the damn water – selling big ticket items daily. I never forgot to place the stickers with my barcode on the products, either, so when my customers checked out and it was scanned at the register, the sales should’ve automatically been linked to my employee ID.
We don’t receive commission – there are other ‘incentives’ to keep our sales up. I hadn’t been watching the numbers because I knew I was making sales left and right – I would've never even dreamt that I was at risk.
It was just a glitch with our computer system, I decided with a nervous laugh. It had to be – something IT could probably sort out in no time.
When I finally regained control of my legs, I wobbled to my manager’s office.
There was no miscalculation, he assured me. It was my employee ID that ranked at the bottom.
“The barcodes never lie, Graham.” He didn’t even bother making eye contact.
I was circling the drain figuratively, and if I didn’t get my shit together – literally – soon enough.
I begged him to review the camera footage – I knew he'd be able to see me making all those sales. “Don’t worry,” he added, with a smile vacant of anything remotely resembling happiness, “One way or another, we all contribute to the success of our company.”
I suppose that by then, he was long desensitized to the pleas of the desperate.
As I left his office, I assured myself that this wasn’t a death sentence.
Not yet.
I had another month until they recalculated our final standings, before shit would get real. Before I’d be given a limp handshake and an empty ‘Thank you for your devotion to the company’ as I was led down the hallway. Before I’d meet what lives behind the usually padlocked door in the shadowy corner of the breakroom.
Before I’d learn what it truly meant to sacrifice myself for the good of the company.
Word spread fast around the office.
Kevin gave me his smug, shit eating grin – maybe he thought that with me out of the picture, he’d finally have a shot with Elise.
Elise… I just desperately hoped that hers wouldn’t be the name drawn afterwards – the one selected to hose what’s left of me off the breakroom floor and down the stained, rusty drain.
As required, I began parking in my new designated space at the far end of the employee lot – the faded sign indicating ‘Reserved for Employee of the Year’ nearly swallowed up by the encroaching tree line. It added an extra ten minutes to my walk to our store, and I dreaded that added time in the oppressive Texas heat. The rational part of me knew that was soon to be a moot point, though.
One way or another, in another month, I wouldn’t have that parking spot. If I were lucky, I’d live to see another summer – live to see some other poor bastard’s car parked there.
If they hadn’t already heard the news, when the rest of my coworkers saw my car in that space, they knew what it meant. Don’t get too attached.
They started avoiding me like the plague. I didn’t blame them.
We all knew what would be coming next if my sales didn’t improve – it's the same thing that happens every time:
We’d gather for the mandatory meeting on the closing night of the fiscal year, all eyes on the sorry son of a bitch that had ‘won’ – the room so quiet that you could hear their muffled sobs. They’d receive what barely constituted a handshake from my manager while he muttered – dead-eyed – his appreciation for their devotion to the company.
Next, they’d be ushered off to the breakroom to meet ‘corporate’. No one tried to run – not after what happened in ‘19. Instead, the winner would always turn back, shooting us a desperate, final look – eyes pleading for someone, anyone, to intervene. Of course, no one ever did.
Once the door closed behind them and that sound-proofed room swallowed up the last of their sobbing, begging – it was over. The rest of us would be sent home and I'd try to shower away that disgusting feeling – that sick sense of relief that someone else was sent to their death, and not me.
Cal – the nicest guy I’d ever met – he was the bottom performer two years ago.
He’d fallen so ill that he’d nearly wasted away and eventually, couldn’t work anymore. He must've thought that freed him from his contract – if he left, if he never came back into work, he’d be okay.
He must not have read the fine print in our hiring paperwork.
Although, to be fair, if any of us had read it, we'd never have signed it in the first place.
Cal was a warning to the rest of us, that there is no quitting in our line of work. If they have to track you down and find you (and I promise you that they will find you) – well, wouldn’t you prefer to go with your dignity, with the company compensating your loved ones – rather than be pulled from your home, kicking and screaming into the night?
Gina was employee of the year in 2023. Gina, with the kind smile, whom Kevin had set his sights on before Elise – and, just like Elise, she wanted nothing to do with him.
I still remember that day, the day they released the final numbers. The way Gina’s mouth hung open in confusion, shock.
When she finally managed to form words again, she too insisted that there must be some mistake. We all vouched for her to management – I’d personally seen her make so many sales.
Our manager simply reminded us that the barcodes never lie.
My name was the one drawn for breakroom duty that next morning, to pick up what remained of her smile and her simple gold wedding band, to be returned to her family. In one business week, they received a box containing a check, and everything left of her that wouldn’t fit down the drain.
Once the numbers are finalized, once your employee barcode has been slapped on that innocuous looking pink slip, well, your fate is sealed.
Kevin, in all his years at the company, has never parked on the far side of the lot. He has never even come close to becoming Employee of the Year, even though he couldn’t sell a bottle of water to a man dying of dehydration. He is sleaze incarnate and doesn’t even have the charisma to mask it.
I never understood how he did so well, but I couldn’t afford to think about him.
I had myself to worry about, and the glitch in the system. Any time I found myself in the breakroom, that ancient wooden door was an unwelcome reminder of the impending one-way trip it held for me.
I took special care to keep an eye on my sales, working my ass off, pulling double shifts. I pulled up the numbers as the end of month drew near, and couldn't believe it.
I was still dead last.
Somehow, there were days where less than half of my sales had been recorded to my employee number.
I didn’t understand.
I waited for the opportunity to sneak into the manager's office, and pull the footage myself.
I’d show the boss that something had gone wrong with the calculations, that the system was broken.
I finally got my chance. At first, I triumphantly watched myself make sale after sale – far more than had been credited to my account. For the first time in a month, I felt a sense of relief. I had evidence, and that had to count for something.
I switched feeds, to the camera nearer to the registers so I could confirm that the codes were being scanned. I'd seen several scanned successfully, and reached to turn off the recording. That's when I saw it.
Saw him.
Kevin.
It was subtle. I didn't realize what he was doing at first, until I recognized the pattern. Even then, I had to rewind and watch again for it to click.
It happened for nearly half of my sales that day. I saw him Intercepting the customers before they could check out – before I could get credit for my sales. And while he chatted them up, he discretely slapped his employee barcode over my own.
I confronted him that night – I was furious. He just smiled, smugly gave me that line about how the barcodes never lie.
He didn’t give a shit that he was sentencing someone else to death.
Hell, maybe he even enjoyed it.
Kevin had stolen credit for Gina’s sales – and god knows who else's.
Fucking. Kevin.
The day our numbers were to be finalized, he had the audacity to place his barcode over mine on a huge sale I’d made – he made no attempt at hiding it – right in front of me. He flashed me a grin as he did.
I caught up with the customers before they checked out and they kindly allowed me to peel the sticker off. I stuck it in my pocket to show my manager.
I pulled the video, too, and I stormed into his office, refused to leave until he watched it. I studied him as his eyes moved across the screen and if he was upset or shocked, he certainly didn't show it.
Finally, he met my eyes, and at the sight of the pain in his – well, for the first time, I felt a sense of relief.
Until I realized why he looked so miserable. Until he whispered, “I'm sorry, Graham. Someone has to receive that award tomorrow. It's out of my hands.”
I wordlessly handed him that damn barcode sticker of Kevin’s that I’d peeled off. He studied it for a long moment before he handed it back to me with a mere, “Why don't you hold onto this.”
I told Elise what had happened over lunch, and as much as I appreciated her outrage on my behalf, I was already resigned to it. I'd mainly wanted to warn her because I had a sick feeling she'd be the one Kevin went after next.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't devastated when, that night, my boss called me into his office and informed me of the final standings. Yeah, I knew it was coming, but I guess it's just human nature to hold onto denial – hope – until the bitter end.
For what felt like an eternity, we stared at each other in silence. The presence of the pink slip of paper lying on the desk between us, said more than enough.
Finally, my eyes drifted down to the form.
He’d already signed, but the space where my barcode – the series of vertical lines spelling out my death sentence – should’ve been placed, was empty.
I never knew how this part went, since it always took place behind closed doors. No one that ever filled out that form lived to tell the rest of us about it.
“I need you to place a barcode here before I send the form to corporate.” he said, eventually.
I opened my mouth for one final, impassioned plea for my life, but he interrupted me. He spoke each word slowly, softly.
“I’m leaving the room now. I need you to place a barcode here, before I send the form to corporate.”
He stared at me for a long moment, waiting for my barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement before leaving me alone in the office.
They processed the paperwork, and announced the Employee of the Year that next day.
Yes, I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched the smug grin fade, the blood drain from Kevin’s face as he stared in shock at the outstretched hand of our manager – as he was thanked for his devotion to our company.
I felt it again as I watched him plead all the way to the breakroom, as our manager spoke to him the same mantra we’d all heard before.
The barcodes never lie.
But I thought of Gina, of the countless others, and by the time I heard the door slam behind him – the guilt was already gone. In its place, the relief of knowing the rest of us were safe.
Well, at least until next year.

I stared, mouth dry, heart pounding, at the message from my boss – That awful combination of words that my coworkers and I pray we never see:
“You’re in the running for Employee of the Year.”
For him to send something so callous via email – that was just rubbing salt in the wound.
My eyes glazed over the wall of text that followed. I didn’t need to read the details – I’d cleaned enough of the prior winners off the walls and ceiling of the soundproofed breakroom to know exactly what the award entailed.
After that initial, deep pang of fear faded, denial flooded in to take its place.
I wasn’t just hitting my sales quota, I was blowing it out of the damn water – selling big ticket items daily. I never forgot to place the stickers with my barcode on the products, either, so when my customers checked out and it was scanned at the register, the sales should’ve automatically been linked to my employee ID.
We don’t receive commission – there are other ‘incentives’ to keep our sales up. I hadn’t been watching the numbers because I knew I was making sales left and right – I would've never even dreamt that I was at risk.
It was just a glitch with our computer system, I decided with a nervous laugh. It had to be – something IT could probably sort out in no time.
When I finally regained control of my legs, I wobbled to my manager’s office.
There was no miscalculation, he assured me. It was my employee ID that ranked at the bottom.
“The barcodes never lie, Graham.” He didn’t even bother making eye contact.
I was circling the drain figuratively, and if I didn’t get my shit together – literally – soon enough.
I begged him to review the camera footage – I knew he'd be able to see me making all those sales. “Don’t worry,” he added, with a smile vacant of anything remotely resembling happiness, “One way or another, we all contribute to the success of our company.”
I suppose that by then, he was long desensitized to the pleas of the desperate.
As I left his office, I assured myself that this wasn’t a death sentence.
Not yet.
I had another month until they recalculated our final standings, before shit would get real. Before I’d be given a limp handshake and an empty ‘Thank you for your devotion to the company’ as I was led down the hallway. Before I’d meet what lives behind the usually padlocked door in the shadowy corner of the breakroom.
Before I’d learn what it truly meant to sacrifice myself for the good of the company.
Word spread fast around the office.
Kevin gave me his smug, shit eating grin – maybe he thought that with me out of the picture, he’d finally have a shot with Elise.
Elise… I just desperately hoped that hers wouldn’t be the name drawn afterwards – the one selected to hose what’s left of me off the breakroom floor and down the stained, rusty drain.
As required, I began parking in my new designated space at the far end of the employee lot – the faded sign indicating ‘Reserved for Employee of the Year’ nearly swallowed up by the encroaching tree line. It added an extra ten minutes to my walk to our store, and I dreaded that added time in the oppressive Texas heat. The rational part of me knew that was soon to be a moot point, though.
One way or another, in another month, I wouldn’t have that parking spot. If I were lucky, I’d live to see another summer – live to see some other poor bastard’s car parked there.
If they hadn’t already heard the news, when the rest of my coworkers saw my car in that space, they knew what it meant. Don’t get too attached.
They started avoiding me like the plague. I didn’t blame them.
We all knew what would be coming next if my sales didn’t improve – it's the same thing that happens every time:
We’d gather for the mandatory meeting on the closing night of the fiscal year, all eyes on the sorry son of a bitch that had ‘won’ – the room so quiet that you could hear their muffled sobs. They’d receive what barely constituted a handshake from my manager while he muttered – dead-eyed – his appreciation for their devotion to the company.
Next, they’d be ushered off to the breakroom to meet ‘corporate’. No one tried to run – not after what happened in '19. Instead, the winner would always turn back, shooting us a desperate, final look – eyes pleading for someone, anyone, to intervene. And, of course, no one ever did.
Once the door closed behind them and that sound-proofed room swallowed up the last of their sobbing, begging – it was over. The rest of us would be sent home and I'd try to shower away that disgusting feeling – that sick sense of relief that someone else was sent to their death, and not me.
Cal – the nicest guy I’d ever met – he was the bottom performer two years ago.
He’d fallen so ill that he’d nearly wasted away and eventually, couldn’t work anymore. He must've thought that freed him from his contract – if he left, if he never came back into work, he’d be okay.
He must not have read the fine print in our hiring paperwork.
Although, to be fair, if any of us had read it, we'd never have signed it in the first place.
Cal was a warning to the rest of us, that there is no quitting in our line of work. If they have to track you down and find you (and I promise you that they will find you) – well, wouldn’t you prefer to go with your dignity, with the company compensating your loved ones – rather than be pulled from your home, kicking and screaming into the night?
Gina was employee of the year in 2023. Gina, with the kind smile, whom Kevin had set his sights on before Elise – and, just like Elise, she wanted nothing to do with him.
I still remember that day, the day they released the final numbers. The way Gina’s mouth hung open in confusion, shock.
When she finally managed to form words again, she too insisted that there must be some mistake. We all vouched for her to management – I’d personally seen her make so many sales.
Our manager simply reminded us that the barcodes never lie.
My name was the one drawn for breakroom duty that next morning, to pick up what remained of her smile and her simple gold wedding band, to be returned to her family. In one business week, they received a box containing a check, and everything left of her that wouldn’t fit down the drain.
Once the numbers are finalized, once your employee barcode has been slapped on that innocuous looking pink slip, well, your fate is sealed.
Kevin, in all his years at the company, has never parked on the far side of the lot. He has never even come close to becoming Employee of the Year, even though he couldn’t sell a bottle of water to a man dying of dehydration. He is sleaze incarnate and doesn’t even have the charisma to mask it.
I never understood how he did so well, but I couldn’t afford to think about him.
I had myself to worry about, and the glitch in the system. Any time I found myself in the breakroom, that ancient wooden door was an unwelcome reminder of the impending one-way trip it held for me.
I took special care to keep an eye on my sales, working my ass off, pulling double shifts. I pulled up the numbers as the end of month drew near, and couldn't believe it.
I was still dead last.
Somehow, there were days where less than half of my sales had been recorded to my employee number.
I didn’t understand.
I waited for the opportunity to sneak into the manager's office, and pull the footage myself.
I’d show the boss that something had gone wrong with the calculations, that the system was broken.
I finally got my chance. At first, I triumphantly watched myself make sale after sale – far more than had been credited to my account. For the first time in a month, I felt a sense of relief. I had evidence, and that had to count for something.
I switched feeds, to the camera nearer to the registers so I could confirm that the codes were being scanned. I'd seen several scanned successfully, and reached to turn off the recording. That's when I saw it.
Saw him.
Kevin.
It was subtle. I didn't realize what he was doing at first, until I recognized the pattern. Even then, I had to rewind and watch again for it to click.
It happened for nearly half of my sales that day. I saw him Intercepting the customers before they could check out – before I could get credit for my sales. And while he chatted them up, he discretely slapped his employee barcode over my own.
I confronted him that night – I was furious. He just smiled, smugly gave me that line about how the barcodes never lie.
He didn’t give a shit that he was sentencing someone else to death.
Hell, maybe he even enjoyed it.
Kevin had stolen credit for Gina’s sales – and god knows who else's.
Fucking. Kevin.
The day our numbers were to be finalized, he had the audacity to place his barcode over mine on a huge sale I’d made – he made no attempt at hiding it – right in front of me. He flashed me a grin as he did.
I caught up with the customers before they checked out and they kindly allowed me to peel the sticker off. I stuck it in my pocket to show my manager.
I pulled the video, too, and I stormed into his office, refused to leave until he watched it. I studied him as his eyes moved across the screen and if he was upset or shocked, he certainly didn't show it.
Finally, he met my eyes, and at the sight of the pain in his – well, for the first time, I felt a sense of relief.
Until I realized why he looked so miserable. Until he whispered, “I'm sorry, Graham. Someone has to receive that award tomorrow. It's out of my hands.”
I wordlessly handed him that damn barcode sticker of Kevin’s that I’d peeled off. He studied it for a long moment before he handed it back to me with a mere, “Why don't you hold onto this.”
I told Elise what had happened over lunch, and as much as I appreciated her outrage on my behalf, I was already resigned to it. I'd mainly wanted to warn her because I had a sick feeling she'd be the one Kevin went after next.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't devastated when, that night, my boss called me into his office and informed me of the final standings. Yeah, I knew it was coming, but I guess it's just human nature to hold onto denial – hope – until the bitter end.
For what felt like an eternity, we stared at each other in silence. The presence of the pink slip of paper lying on the desk between us, said more than enough.
Finally, my eyes drifted down to the form.
He’d already signed, but the space where my barcode – the series of vertical lines spelling out my death sentence – should’ve been placed, was empty.
I never knew how this part went, since it always took place behind closed doors. No one that ever filled out that form lived to tell the rest of us about it.
“I need you to place a barcode here before I send the form to corporate.” he said, eventually.
I opened my mouth for one final, impassioned plea for my life, but he interrupted me. He spoke each word slowly, softly.
“I’m leaving the room now. I need you to place a barcode here, before I send the form to corporate.”
He stared at me for a long moment, waiting for my barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement before leaving me alone in the office.
They processed the paperwork, and announced the Employee of the Year that next day.
Yes, I did feel a pang of guilt as I watched the smug grin fade, the blood drain from Kevin’s face as he stared in shock at the outstretched hand of our manager – as he was thanked for his devotion to our company.
I felt it again as I watched him plead all the way to the breakroom, as our manager spoke to him the same mantra we’d all heard before.
The barcodes never lie.
But I thought of Gina, of the countless others, and by the time I heard the door slam behind him – the guilt was already gone. In its place, the relief of knowing the rest of us were safe.
Well, at least until next year.

Context: I thought that AEW did a great job with the Continental Classic 6 months ago and I want to try to book the next one (as I imagine they will be doing this again). For this booking, I will be doing the men's continental classic in 2024. Now for this, we are changing one major thing for this tournament compared to what they did last year. The winner of this tournament will get a shot at the AEW World Championship at the Revolution PPV. The finals of the Continental Classic will take place at World's End. The world champion in this fantasy booking for around this time is Will Ospreay. All of these matches take place on episodes of Dynamite and Collision respectively (I won't book what match takes place on which network) , I'll just be booking the tournament week-to-week. Below are the competitors listed for each block.
EDIT: My first draft exceeded the character limit for a post so I will be trimming down match details
Gold Block:

• MJF
  • Just made his return recently, defeating Adam Cole at the latest PPV to settle their rivalry. Now has his sights set on winning the tournament and challenging for the World Championship.
• Konosuke Takeshita
  • The Don Callis family has representation in this tournament as Takeshita has been taking the AEW world by storm the last few months, being the stand out in the Callis family. Konosuke Takeshita is Don Callis's chosen one and declares that Takeshita will be bringing the World Championship to the family.
• Jack Perry
  • Has been put in thanks to the Elite, looking to bring the World Championship to the Elite.
• Dax Harwood
  • Playing the Mark Briscoe role of this tournament. Storyline-wise, he's been placed in this tournament by the Elite to keep the FTR from being able to compete for the Tag Team Championships. Cash encourages him to make this the biggest mistake of the Elite's life.
• Darby Allin
  • Since returning from injury in May, has been on fire with key wins over The Elite in Anarchy in the Arena, Jay White, and Big Bill. Looking to get back in the title hunt.
• Eddie Kingston
  • Last year's winner looking to go back-to-back, this time for a new prize. (I know he is injured in real life, i'm hoping he is recovered by then).

Blue Block:

• Kenny Omega
  • Has returned from injury and looking to get right back on track after being put in this tournament. (The Bucks tried to keep him from the tourney but was overruled by TK)
• Kazuchika Okada
  • The Elite have two members in to try to ensure that the World Championship goes to the Elite. Commentary puts over his familiarity with this kind of tournament).
• Chris Jericho
  • Seen as the veteran in this whole tournament, looking to make a statement and show his followers of the Chris Jericho "Learning Tree" how to succeed at the highest level and compete for a World title at this stage of his career.
• Ricky Starks
  • Has also returned from injury recently and considers himself a master of tournaments (puts over his win in the Owen Hart tournament) and looks to win this one, and win the gold.
• Malakai Black
  • The House of Black has been kicking all sorts of ass for the last several months and has a lot of momentum on their side. Malakai Black (the leader of the House of Black), will be part of this tournament to win the tournament, beat Will Ospreay, and continue to strengthen the momentum of the House of Black. The House always wins.
• Penta El Zero Miedo
  • Was originally going to be PAC, but a week before the tournament, PAC was mysteriously attacked and deemed unable to compete (storyline). While AEW investigates to find out of PAC's attacker, Penta El Zero Miedo steps in on PAC's behalf to compete.

Scoring: Win=3 points, Draw=1 point, Loss=0 points
20-minute time limits for each match
Outside interference is prohibited! No one is allowed at ringside (breaking these rules result in a point deduction)
Gold Block: Week 1

• Eddie Kingston def. Dax Harwood
  • We kick off the tournament with our first matchup in the Gold League between last year's winner of the Continental Classic, Eddie Kingston, going up against Dax Harwood. These two have a competitive match, with Dax pushing Eddie to his limit, but Kingston wins with the Spinning Back Fist. The two shake hands after the match and Eddie continues to celebrate his win.
• Konosuke Takeshita def. Darby Allin
  • For this match, Darby takes control early in the match, going at a very fast-pace, hitting dangerous and high flying moves to keep Takeshita at bay. However, Darby goes for one too many high risk moves and it costs him, as Takeshita hits his Power Drive Knee to pick up the victory. Post-match, Takeshita brawls with Darby and throws him off the stage, sending him crashing into some tables, as medical personnel tend to Darby.
• MJF def. Jack Perry
  • Before the match, there is a backstage segment between the two, as Jack Perry talks about how he remembers what MJF told him a long time ago and how he did in fact cut the goody-two-shoes act, but, instead of ruling AEW together, Jack has surpassed MJF and will prove that tonight. MJF tells Jack that Jack hasn't done anything yet to think that he has surpassed him and that being a top guy is more than just a cute arm band saying "scapegoat" and being friends with the EVPs. Max says that if he thinks that he is on MJF's level, that he can prove it in the ring against him. Jack is not amused. These two will main event whichever show they're on as they go back and forth. Both of them are using dirty tricks against each other and it appears that Jack has learned from their last encounter. Jack works over the shouldearm of MJF that comes into affect when MJF goes for Salt of the Earth but can't keep it locked in. The match ends after Jack attempts Salt of the Earth on Max but is able to turn it into a roll up and hold onto Perry's tights to secure the pinfall victory (because he's still a scumbag, but our scumbag). MJF gains 3 points and smiles and winks at a very frustrated Perry as he walks up the ramp, telling Perry that he still has much to learn.
• Gold Standings after Week 1:
  1. Konosuke Takeshita: (3 pts)
  2. Eddie Kingston: (3 pts)
  3. MJF: (3 pts)
  4. Darby Allin: (0 pts)
  5. Dax Harwood: (0 pts)
  6. Jack Perry: (0 pts)

Blue Block: Week 1

• Ricky Starks def. Chris Jericho
  • Starks and Jericho go about 13 minutes. Jericho uses veteran trickery to get an advantage at times but Ricky is able to take control at times, showing how good he truly is. In the end, Jericho goes for Judas Effect but Starks ducks it and running against the ropes and hitting Jericho with a second spear. Starks immediately picks Jericho back up and hits his finish, Rochambeau and gets the pinfall victory. Starks gets his first 3 points of the tournament.
• Malakai Black def. Penta El Zero Miedo
  • Malakai and Penta square off against each other and go a little over 10 minutes. The whole match is a sprint, as Penta tries to be more aggressive after being familiar with Malakai from their past encounters. The match ends after Penta goes for his package piledriver but is countered as Malakai then hits Black Mass to Penta, getting the pinfall victory. Malakai Black gets his first 3 points of the tournament.
• Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada (TIME LIMIT DRAW)
  • This is the main event of a very special episode of Dynamite. These two go back and forth with plenty of callbacks to their previous matches, but Okada specifically targets the midsection of Omega (who has had his surgery). Both men go for their finishing moves multiple times in the match but is countered by the other man. In the end, Omega goes for the One Winged Angel after hitting several V-Triggers. Okada is able to counter once again, hitting a knee strike to Omega's midsection (that sends Omega to his knees, that one really hurt him). Okada hits his finish, Rainmaker but is down as he is completely exhausted. He crawls over to the pin but before he can get to him, the bell rings as the time expires, ending the match in a draw (a callback to their first match). Commentary puts over how this may affect both men for the rest of the tournament. Both men are awarded 1 point.
• Blue Standings after week 1:
  1. Ricky Starks: (3 pts)
  2. Malakai Black: (3 pts)
  3. Kazuchika Okada: (1 pts)
  4. Kenny Omega: (1 pts)
  5. Chris Jericho: (0 pts)
  6. Penta El Zero Miedo: (0 pts)

Gold Block: Week 2

• MJF def. Dax Harwood
  • These two have an old-school, classic wrestling match as Dax, again, pushes his opponent to their limit and give them their best as MJF has to dig deep to pull out a victory. Both men have their opponent in submissions, testing the will of their opponent as both fight to stay alive. In the end, after missing with a Diving headbutt from the top rope, MJF rolls Dax towards the apron and hits Heat Seeker to get the pinfall victory. After a tense stare post match, Dax finally offers his hand to MJF, MJF with a little hesitation, accepts it and the two shake hands after the match. MJF now has 6 points total and Dax is still scoreless.
• Eddie Kingston def. Darby Allin
  • Darby is BARELY cleared to compete for this match, and it's even encouraged by doctors backstage that Darby pull out of this match to which Darby will of course refuse. During the match, it is clear that Darby is less than 100% and Eddie takes most of the match. Eddie, knowing that Darby is in bad shape, is concerned and tells Darby to stay down (not in a heelish way, but more in a concerned way. He doesn't want to beat Darby this way and hurt him even further). Darby just keeps on fighting, taking advantage of Eddie not putting him down and hitting come back offense, resulting in close near falls. In the end, Kingston finally puts Darby down after slapping Eddie to stop patronizing him and gets another 3 points. Eddie shows his respect to Darby after the match.
• Jack Perry def. Konosuke Takeshita
  • Its a heel vs heel matchup but Jack will be wrestling heel while Takeshita wrestles a babyface style. Perry again is using dirty tricks but it doesn't faze Takeshita, who has been prepared by this in his training with Don Callis. It seems that when it is a fair fight, Takeshita is the one that is getting the upper hand, hitting the more significant moves during the exchanges. In the end, Takeshita goes for his Power Drive Knee but misses Jack, colliding with the turnbuckle instead (he sells the knee) and then, Jack Perry rolls Takeshita up, grabbing the tights of Takeshita, and picking up the pinfall victory. Takeshita and Callis (who now has entered the ring once the match was over) are fuming and argue with the referee who did not see what had happened. Jack Perry celebrates as he goes up the ramp and the Young Bucks congratulate him. Perry is on the board.
• Gold Standings after Week 2:
  1. MJF: (6 pts)
  2. Eddie Kingston: (6 pts)
  3. Konosuke Takeshita: (3 pts)
  4. Jack Perry: (3 pts)
  5. Darby Allin: (0 pts)
  6. Dax Harwood: (0 pts)

Blue Block: Week 2

• Malakai Black def. Chris Jericho
  • Jericho cuts a promo before his match saying that last week didn't go the way that he wanted but to not worry, because he is at his best when he is the underdog and he will still find a way to come back and win this entire tournament (he says this in a babyface way but is still clearly a heel, continuing that story they are doing in real life). Malakai Black beats Jericho in about 13-15 minutes with the Black Mass after countering the Judas Effect with Black Mass. Malakai Black gets another 3 points.
• Kazuchika Okada def. Penta El Zero Miedo
  • These two go a little over 15 minutes and Penta has his moments, but ultimately falls to the Rainmaker as Okada gets the pinfall victory. Okada get 3 points. Penta looks frustrated, as he has now lost twice already in the tournament.
• Kenny Omega def. Ricky Starks
  • These two go back and forth as Ricky is very close to victory at multiple points (this match is designed to showcase Ricky and elevate him), especially at one point, hitting a spear which Kenny sells like death as that spear looks to very much damage his midsection. Starks goes for the pin but Kenny kicks out at 2.9. The ref starts to check on Kenny, who looks to be in serious pain but Starks knows that he is almost out of time and sets up for the Rochambeau to which Kenny counters into a roll up but is kicked out at 2. After being unable to connect with the One-Winged Angel because of his midsection, Ricky goes for his finish again but Omega pins Starks after hitting a small package rollup, countering Ricky's finish. Ricky Starks is shocked and frustrated that he lost but then tends to Kenny who is still on the ground, and helps him to his feet. Starks helps him to the back.
• Blue Standings after week 2:
  1. Malakai Black: (6 pts)
  2. Kazuchika Okada: (4 pts)
  3. Kenny Omega: (4 pts)
  4. Ricky Starks: (3 pts)
  5. Chris Jericho: (0 pts)
  6. Penta El Zero Miedo: (0 pts)

Gold Block: Week 3

• Konosuke Takeshita def. Dax Harwood
  • There's a moment backstage between Takeshita and Don Callis as Don tells Takeshita its time to get serious, and that he needs to go out there and prove why he is the Alpha. Callis tells Takeshita to not disappoint him again. Dax and Cash interrupt the two men as Dax tells Takeshita that while he has no love or respect for Jack Perry, he says that him losing via cheating was karma coming to bite him. Dax says that after doing what he did to Darby, compromising him for possibly the rest of the tournament and aligning himself with Don Callis, any misfortune that happens to him will be of his own doing. Callis says that while Dax is a very accomplished tag team wrestler and respects his accomplishments, he tells Dax that he doesn't have the singles resume to address them in any manor. Callis says that Takeshita is looking for a bounce back, and says that Dax will be the perfect man to make an example of tonight. Dax tells him to tell Takeshita to bring his best, because if he doesn't, Dax will expose him. The two have their match, and despite Dax's best efforts, Takeshita picks up the win.
• Jack Perry def. Darby Allin
  • Jack Perry attacks Darby before the bell rings, the official asks Darby if he can continue and Darby says yes. Jack Perry takes advantage of Darby being less than 100% but is also being cocky, talking trash and taking his time, rather than going for the win right away. Darby takes advantage of this by being able to hit comeback offense and take control of the match at a certain point. After an accidental ref bump where either Perry or Darby hit the ref with an accidental elbow. Darby gets the Last Supper in (and would have gotten the 3-count) but the ref take a little bit to get back up from the strike, and when counting the pin, Perry kicks out at 2. Perry picks up the win after hitting a sneaky low blow to Darby and hitting his finish, Blindside Elbow to get the pinfall victory.
• MJF def. Eddie Kingston
  • Before this match there is a vignette promo from Eddie Kingston where he talks about the importance of winning this tournament and how happy he is that he is off to a hot start but doesn't have his eyes off the prize. He continues by acknowledging his opponent MJF and how different the two are. Kingston says that MJF has always had everything he has ever wanted and grew up different than how he did, he calls MJF privileged, saying that he hasn't had to work to the degree that he has to get what they have achieved in their careers. Kingston finishes by saying that against him there is no easy way out, and that if he is going to win, he's going to have to earn it and tells MJF that he doesn't respect him. He has to earn that too. MJF responds in a backstage interview telling Eddie that even though its true that he grew up different than Eddie to not disrespect and try to minimize his accomplishments and the work that he has put in to achieve his success. He tells Eddie that he doesn't care whether or not Eddie respects him, but that Eddie will have no choice but to respect the fact that he is better than Kingston. MJF nearly loses after teasing using the diamond ring but choosing not to which results in Eddie hitting a spinning back first for a 2-count. MJF ends up hitting the Heat seeker and pinning Eddie. MJF offers his hand to Eddie to shake his hand. Eddie refuses and just walks to the back. (Backstage, Renee tries to get a word with Eddie, but before Eddie can say anything, he is attacked by the Young Bucks and Jack Perry, trying to get an advantage in next week's match).
• Gold Standings after Week 3
  1. MJF: (9 pts)
  2. Eddie Kingston: (6 pts)
  3. Konosuke Takeshita: (6 pts)
  4. Jack Perry: (6 pts)
  5. Darby Allin: (0 pts)
  6. Dax Harwood: (0 pts)

Blue Block: Week 3

• Penta El Zero Miedo def. Chris Jericho
  • These two men are desperate to get their first points in the tournament and stay in contention as they beat the hell out of each other. Jericho starts to use dirty tricks to try to gain an advantage and Penta is wrestling a lot more aggressively and brutally than we're used to (for those who are Lucha Underground fans, he's wrestling like the first few seasons in this match). In the end, Penta picks up the win after Jericho fails with his dirty tricks, getting caught with his feet on the ropes at one point. Penta low blows him after a ref bump, hitting his finish right after. Penta celebrates as commentary says Jericho now is eliminated from winning. Post-match, Jericho attacks Penta, frustrated of this result. However, Penta is able to get the upper hand of the brawl and Penta looks to tease going for the arm snap spot he does where he wrenches back on his opponent's arm, but then decides to spare Jericho, letting go of the arm and walking to the back.
• Kazuchika Okada def. Ricky Starks
  • This is another 15+ minute match designed to showcase Ricky Starks as he comes as close as anyone has so far of beating Okada up to this point. Ricky has many counters to the Rainmaker, even countering one Rainmaker and hitting a spear after for a close 2 count. Ricky seems to have an answer to all of Okada's best moves. However, Okada is able to counter Rochambeau and finally hit the Rainmaker and get the pinfall victory. Okada gets 3 points and Starks has dropped his last two matches, still at 3 points total.
• Malakai Black def. Kenny Omega
  • Kenny looks to be in rough shape for this match. Malakai relentlessly goes after Kenny's midsection, throwing kicks and knees targeting Kenny's injury. Kenny is able to hit big moves and have moments where he looks to be taking control, but before he can fully take control of the match, Malakai hits a heavy strike to the midsection of Omega, flooring him and sending him down to the mat. Kenny is able to fight back and hit significant offense but at another point, Black hits Black Mass to the midsection, sending Omega to the floor and nearly getting counted out. In the end, after Kenny attempts a One-Winged Angel, Kenny hesitates as his midsection is compromised thanks to Black's strategy, Black spits the mist into his hands and rakes Omega's eyes (The ref doesn't see as they are dealing with an exposed turnbuckle that Malakai exposed earlier). As Kenny is blinded, Malakai hits Black Mass, and gets the pinfall victory. Commentary puts over that this may be Black's biggest win in his career and the biggest win in the tournament so far. The final shot is Malakai sitting cross legged in the ring with the biggest smile on his face as referees and doctors check on Kenny.
• Blue Standings after Week 3:
  1. Malakai Black: (9 pts)
  2. Kazuchika Okada: (7 pts)
  3. Kenny Omega: (4 pts)
  4. Ricky Starks (3 pts)
  5. Penta El Zero Miedo (3 pts)
  6. Chris Jericho (0 pts)

Gold Block: Week 4

• Jack Perry def. Eddie Kingston
  • Eddie comes out with a fury, immediately brawling with Perry to start the match after the attack from last week. Perry is able to use Kingston's anger to capitalize on his mistakes and take control of the match at times. Perry targets Kingston's previously injured leg from back in May, slowing Kingston down from being able to hit any major offense. At one point, Eddie is able to hit his Spinning Back Fist out of nowhere to Jack but isn't able to cover him right away because of his leg, but still crawls over to go for the pin. Perry kicks out at 2.9. Perry goes to the top to attempt a cross body but Eddie moves and Perry connects with the ref instead. Eddie gets back up and hits a second Spinning Back Fist and covers Jack (visual 3-count) but there is no ref to count the pin. Eddie is frustrated, knowing that was his best chance up to this point to get a crucial win. Eddie picks Jack up and goes for the Northern Lights Bomb, but his leg gives out, Jack Perry hits a low blow and then follows it up with his Blindside Elbow finish and gets the pinfall victory as a new referee enters the ring to count the pin. Jack Perry has earned another 3 points in a crucial match as now he is in a good spot in the tournament and Eddie looks crushed (though not eliminated yet, he needs a lot of things to happen to have a chance).
• Darby Allin def. Dax Harwood
  • These two go back and forth in a hard hitting match and Dax comes as close as he has gotten to winning any of these matches. Dax nearly wins multiple times but Darby is able to get his Last Supper pin and beat Dax. Darby gets 3 points. Backstage, Cash is trying to motivate and support his tag partner until Jack comes into frame, laughing and talking trash to Dax, telling him that he is showcasing that he was the weak link in FTR and that he will be sure to credit Dax in his victory speech when he beats him next week. As Jack leaves, Dax is fired up, finding the motivation that he needed as Cash tells Dax that this is the opportunity to make the Elite pay for putting him in the Continental Classic.
• Konosuke Takeshita def. MJF
  • MJF in a backstage interview before the match calls Takeshita, "Take-a-shit-a", and tells him that though he has been very impressive since they last had their encounter, he will show that when they step in the ring together, no matter what day, he (MJF) is the alpha. MJF says that there is nothing Takeshita can do to stop him from winning this tournament and in the ring, MJF will show Takeshita that he is better than him, and deep down, he and Don Callis knows it. These two have a main-event level match as they go back and forth, with both men looking to come close to winning at different times. Takeshita looks very intense and motivated for this match, wanting to not only secure a very important win, but get revenge on MJF who has insulted him and beaten him in the past. In the final stretch, MJF puts on the Diamond Ring and waits for Takeshita to get to his feet, but, before he can connect with a punch, the ref catches MJF in the act and takes his ring. The ref makes his way over to the corner to hand the ring off to the ring announcer at ringside, but Takeshita picks up MJF and drives him towards the turnbuckle, they collide into the ref, who drops the ring in the process. As the ref tries to get back to their feet, Takeshita puts on the Dynamite Diamond Ring and waits for MJF to get to his feet. Takeshita nails MJF with the ring, knocking him out right before the ref could see. Takeshita covers MJF and gets the pinfall victory in a shocking upset. Takeshita celebrates wildly as Don Callis comes running in the ring, hugging Takeshita and celebrating as if they have won the tournament already. Commentary puts over that this is the biggest win of Takeshita's career and has put him in a great position in the Gold League. Takeshita nails MJF one more time with the Power Drive Knee and leaves with MJF's diamond ring.
• Gold Standings after Week 4
  1. Konosuke Takeshita: (9 pts)
  2. MJF: (9 pts)
  3. Jack Perry: (9 pts)
  4. Eddie Kingston: (6 pts)
  5. Darby Allin: (3 pts) (eliminated from winning)
  6. Dax Harwood: (0 pts) (eliminated from winning)

Blue Block: Week 4

• Kenny Omega def. Penta El Zero Miedo
  • Kenny is looking to bounce back and secure a victory in order to stay alive in this tournament while Penta is trying to build off his win from last week and secure a victory over Omega to stay alive in this tournament and keep his momentum going. Penta shows a more hard hitting style, using precise strikes to target certain parts of Omega. In the final stretch of the match, after hearing that there is a minute left in the match, Penta abandons the arm break spot that he was teasing and picks Kenny up to attempt a Package Piledriver. However, Kenny counters out of the Package Piledriver, hits a V-trigger and follows it up with the One Winged Angel and gets the pinfall victory. Kenny celebrates his win as he is still alive and Penta is sitting in the ring, furious that he is now eliminated from winning the tournament. The ref tries to tend to Penta but Penta shoves the referee, shouting at him in spanish and looks like he may attack but Fenix comes out to calm him down. There's a tense stare between the two and then Penta superkicks the ref as he gets back to his feet. Penta storms to the back.
• Kazuchika Okada def. Chris Jericho
  • Chris Jericho cuts a pre-match promo, doing the whole style that he has been doing lately where he pretends to be a Babyface but is a Heel where he talks about how the tournament hasn't gone the way that he had hoped but he will be looking to have the biggest wins in the tournament when he beats Okada and Omega back to back. Jericho says that he will show his followers, fans, and the wrestlers in the back what it's like to be the greatest of all time and the Learning Tree. Jericho tries to use some dirty tricks to slow down Okada but in the end, after a little over 10-12 minutes, Okada wins with the Rainmaker, getting the pin. Okada is in a good spot while Jericho is still winless in this tournament as now, even he is looking frustrated.
• Ricky Starks def. Malakai Black
  • A big match with big stakes for both of these men as Black can secure his place in the finals with a win over Starks and Starks needing to win to still have a chance to win this tournament. Malakai takes most of the match but Ricky gives him a fight, nearly pinning him with a spear. In the end, Malakai Black signals to hit Black Mass but Starks counters it into a jackknife pin, 1...2...3! Starks has pulled the upset win over Black! Starks gets 3 points and keeps himself alive in this tournament and Black (who would have guaranteed himself being in the Blue League finals with a win) now has to win next week against Okada. Black is furious, spitting the black mist into the eyes of Ricky Starks, blinding him as Starks screams in pain. Malakai then hits Black Mass to Ricky, and walks to the back as referees and doctors tend to Starks.
• Blue Standings after Week 4:
  1. Kazuchika Okada: (10 pts)
  2. Malakai Black: (9 pts)
  3. Kenny Omega (7 pts)
  4. Ricky Starks (6 pts)
  5. Penta El Zero Miedo (3 pts) (eliminated from winning)
  6. Chris Jericho (0 pts) (eliminated from winning)

Gold Bock: Week 5

• Konosuke Takeshita def. Eddie Kingston
  • This is a must-win for both Takeshita and Eddie, but even more so for Eddie, who must win to have a chance (though it's a slim one anyway). Eddie comes out with a fury, trying to catch Takeshita off-guard. Takeshita goes for a lariat but misses as Kingston connects with a Spinning Back Fist (after only a minute has gone in the match) and goes for the quick, shocking pin but Takeshita kicks out at 2. The rest of the match is a hard hitting affair with Kingston refusing to stay down, even enduring some of Takeshitas best moves (Blue Thunder Bomb for a close 2-count, Spinning Falcon Arrow where Kingston gets his foot on the ropes, etc.). Kingston at another point hits a second Spinning Back fist but Takeshita rolls to the outside, avoiding the pin attempt. In the end, after attempting the Northern Lights Bomb, Takeshita counters and chop blocks Kingston's leg. Takeshita hits Eddie Kingston with the Dynamite Diamond Ring (the ref doesn't see it) and puts Kingston away, getting the pinfall victory. Takeshita and Callis celebrate the win and await their opponent for the finals and Eddie just looks crushed.
• MJF vs Darby Allin (TIME LIMIT DRAW)
  • MJF can guarantee his spot in the finals with a win over Darby but after Darby won last week, he will be looking to win again especially against a familiar foe from his past. The two go back and forth, MJF working over the arm of Darby to set up for his Salt of the Earth submission but Darby is going for high-risk moves, even hitting a few of them to get himself back in the match. MJF looks to hit a tombstone piledriver on the apron but Darby counters it into a Scorpion Death Drop (Sting's old finish) and then hits the Coffin Drop to MJF on the apron, taking both men out for a little bit. With a minute left in the match, after Darby kicked out of the Heat Seeker, Darby attempts a springboard Coffin Drop but MJF moves out of the way going and goes for a rollup pin, which Darby kicks out at 2. Darby attempts Last Supper, but MJF kicks out at 2. MJF finally is able to get Darby into the Salt of the Earth after attempting it all night, and Darby is in serious pain and trouble. Darby can't get to the ropes but refuses to tap. MJF starts to bend and twist the fingers of Darby but Darby again, refuses the tap. Commentary puts over that MJF might break the arm of Darby if Darby doesn't tap and then the bell rings. The ring announcer makes an announcement, declaring this match, a draw. MJF looks devastated, knowing that a win tonight would have guaranteed him a spot in the Gold League finals. Now, his fate is in Jack Perry's hands when he takes on Dax Harwood later in the night. MJF is pissed off backstage, trashing an area of the backstage area in frustration. Jack Perry shows up (with the Young Bucks by his side) as he laughs, telling Max that he blew it, he choked when it was all on the line. Perry said that he's going to go out there and win, and when he wins and goes to the finals, he's going to win the whole tournament and eventually become the AEW World Champion (and says that he'll be an even greater champion than MJF). Perry leaves to prepare for his match.
• Dax Harwood def. Jack Perry
  • Jack Perry is a cocky prick during this match as he thinks this is a shoe-in to win. Jack seems like he is more focused on showing off and trying to embarrass Dax rather than trying to win the match. Dax starts to fight back and give Jack some serious problems. With a minute left and feeling the pressure, Perry attempts a brainbuster but Dax turns it into a small package rollup and gets the 3-count, pinning Jack Perry! Jack Perry is shocked, now officially being eliminated from the tournament as he argues with the referee (and so do the Young Bucks as they come down to the ring). Dax leaves up the ramp and celebrates with Cash. They have succeeded in making the Elite pay.

Blue Block: Week 5

• Ricky Starks def. Penta El Zero Miedo
  • Ricky Starks needs to win to stay alive and hope for the best with the matchups later tonight as Penta is now playing the role of spoiler. Penta seems to be wrestling different than we are used to, wrestling more like a Heel focusing more on his brutality than his high flying move-set. Ricky refuses to stay down. Eventually, after being frustrated he can't put Ricky away, starts to set up his arm break spot, having the worst intentions in mind as commentary says that this could seriously injure Ricky. Before Penta can snap the arm back, Ricky counters and hits a spear. Ricky then picks Penta up without hesitation and hits Rochambeau to get the pinfall victory. Ricky celebrates his win in the ring as he has done all he can and now awaits the results (he needs Jericho to beat Omega and Okada to beat Black). Penta is as FUMING and attacks Ricky Starks after the match, hitting him with a superkick and then the Package Piledriver to Ricky. Penta has lost it, as he starts to set up the arm break spot but as a ref tries to intervene, Penta hits the ref with a Package Piledriver as well! Rey Fenix comes down to the ring and tries to once again, calm Penta down but it doesn't work as Penta has now turned on Fenix, hitting him with a Package Piledriver too (he has truly turned Heel). Ricky starts to move a little bit and Penta notices Starks. Finally, he hits his Arm Breaker (snapping the arm back, whatever the move is called), injurying Starks as he screams in pain. Commentary puts over that Penta may have just broken Ricky's arm and Penta leaves. (so, with this, if Ricky is leaving for WWE, you have an angle that writes him off for good. If Ricky decides to return to AEW, you have a story waiting for him).
• Kenny Omega def. Chris Jericho
  • This is a must-win for Kenny Omega, as he could potentially be in the finals as long as he wins tonight. Jericho says that this match is personal for him. Jericho says that not only does winning this match mean he doesn't go the whole tournament without scoring any points, but also gets revenge on the man that betrayed him and left him stranded in the tag division when he abandoned the Golden Jets (Kenny needed surgery but Jericho, being self-centered, sees it as Kenny abandoning him and being selfish while Jericho has done nothing "but be completely selfless, wanting to be a teacher and mentor, not a deserter). Jericho uses all of his dirty tricks in the book to try to beat Kenny. Jericho even successfully hits the Judas Effect on Kenny but Omega kicks out at 2.9! Jericho has the Walls of Jericho on Omega but Kenny gets out of it eventually being able to hit multiple V-triggers on Jericho. In the end, Kenny Omega is able to counter the Codebreaker, putting him in a powerbomb position but then is able to shift Jericho around on his shoulders and has him in position to hit the One Winged Angel and gets the pinfall victory. Kenny is officially in the Blue League Finals, awaiting to see who his opponent (or opponents) will be. Jericho just sits there in disbelief, he has not won any matches and has scored 0 points for the whole tournament. He looks over by ringside to see Big Bill, who is looking over at Jericho. Big Bill looks disappointed, shaking his head, and walking straight to the back, without his mentor by his side.
• Kazuchika Okada def. Malakai Black
  • This match has very high stakes as Kenny Omega is now guaranteed to be in the Blue Block finals after beating Chris Jericho. If Okada wins, then it is he and Omega facing off one-on-one in the finals of the Blue block. If Malakai Black wins this, then the Blue Block finals turns into a triple threat match of Omega, Okada, and Black. These two have a very competitive back-and-forth match as Okada looks to avoid Black Mass and the Black Mist at all times and Malakai goes after Okada's arm, targeting and weakening it to affect his finish, Rainmaker. At one point, after missing Black Mass, Okada is able to hit Rainmaker on Malakai but grabs his arm in pain after using it to hit Rainmaker (but it's also the same arm that Malakai has been targeting the whole match). Okada goes for the pin but Black has his foot on the bottom rope to break the pin right before the ref counts 3. At another point, Malakai is able to hit Black Mass out of nowhere on Okada but can't get the pin as Okada rolls out of the ring after being hit with Black Mass just before Black can go for the pin. Malakai rolls him back in the ring and goes for Black Mass again but it's countered into a Rainmaker, but that's countered into a knee strike. Black goes for a lariat but Okada counters and finally hits a second Rainmaker (again, Okada sells the pain of doing his finish) and gets the pinfall victory over Malakai Black as both men are spent. The match is official between Omega and Okada.

Final Standings (Gold and Blue):

• Gold Block:
  1. Konosuke Takeshita: (12 pts)
  2. MJF: (10 pts)
  3. Jack Perry: (9 pts)
  4. Eddie Kingston: (6 pts)
  5. Darby Allin: (4 pts)
  6. Dax Harwood: (3 pts)
• Blue Block:
  1. Kazuchika Okada: (13 pts)
  2. Kenny Omega: (10 pts)
  3. Ricky Starks: (9 pts) (breaks tiebreaker with Black)
  4. Malakai Black: (9 pts)
  5. Penta El Zero Miedo (3 pts)
  6. Chris Jericho: (0 pts)

Gold Block Finals:

• MJF def. Konosuke Takeshita
  • In an interview before the show, MJF addresses Takeshita by his real name (no longer calls him "Take-a-shit-a") and says that he has gotten so much better since their last encounter, but with everything on the line, he won't be able to put down the Devil. These two open the very special episode of Dynamite, "Winter is Coming". They have another great match, throwing everything they have at each other to try to put their opponent away. Takeshita comes very close, but in the end, after failing to hit MJF with the Diamond Ring, MJF makes Takeshita tap to the Salt of the Earth. Post-match, MJF takes his ring back.

Blue Block Finals:

• Kenny Omega def. Kazuchika Okada
  • These two have a face-to-face backstage with the theme of the encounter being, who is the true "best bout machine". These two have a classic that they are absolutely capable multiple times over of having as they also main event a special episode of Dynamite, "Winter is Coming". Omega and Okada again go a long-time and nearly go to another time limit draw. This match comes down who will make the first mistake. After a long battle, Kenny wins with the One-Winged Angel, putting away his biggest rival and going to the finals.

Continental Classic Finals: AEW World's End

• Kenny Omega def. MJF
  • The match is very similar to their first match on Collision. These two hit each other with everything they have, even showing some new moves that we haven't seen them hit. In the end, after going for the One Winged Angel for the entire match, Kenny finally hits it on MJF and gets the pinfall victory. Kenny has won the Continental Classic. They shake hands and then MJF nails Kenny with a low blow and leaves.

(MJF goes on to be a heel from this and Kenny Omega will face Will Ospreay in the main event of Revolution for the AEW World Championship)
What did you think? Did you like it? Did you not like it? What did you specifically like or dislike about it? Let me know!

I'm planning the usual retro gaming session with my friends. I want to go for something like an Olympics theme: Players compete in several competitions in a row and score points which determine the winner in the end.
Constraints:

• Ideally three players; but two is also fine if a single game is short enough to take turns
• Anything up to PS2 era, but ideally not earlier than NES
• Button smashing or agility or mixed
• Doesn't need to be Olympics per se; any other (real or fantasy) theme is great

What would you recommend?

"Oh, we'll invoke lush clichés about the lonely heroism of Olympic athletes, the pain and analgesia of football, the early rising and hours of practice and restricted diets, the preflight celibacy, et cetera. But the actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them: basketball geniuses who cannot read, sprinters who dope themselves, defensive tackles who shoot up with bovine hormones until they collapse or explode. We prefer not to consider closely the shockingly vapid and primitive comments uttered by athletes in postcontest interviews or to consider what impoverishments in one's mental life would allow people actually to think the way great athletes seem to think. Note the way "up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life–outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of human life to one chosen talent and pursuit. A consent to live in a world that, like a child's world, is very small. "
​
-from The String Theory

This time the goal was max pain to all you Hands and Zard players.
The deck list: Pokémon: 4 Arceus VSTAR BRS 123
4 Arceus V BRS 122
3 Hisuian Goodra VSTAR LOR 136
3 Hisuian Goodra V LOR 135
2 Squawkabilly ex PAL 169
1 Radiant Charizard CRZ 20
Trainer:
3 Ultra Ball
2 Switch
1 Bianca's Devotion
2 Arven
2 Jacq
1 Lost Vacuum
1 Miriam
3 Professor Turo's Scenario
2 Technical Machine: Devolution
2 Super Rod
1 Hero's Cape
4 Nest Ball
3 Professor's Research
2 Boss's Orders
Energy:
4 Basic {Metal Energy}
4 Double Turbo Energy
4 Basic {Water}
1 Basic {Fire}
1 Jet Energy
Gameplay: inspired by some recent ArcTina builds using squawk and sieze is the name of the game. The first turn is all about getting that damn parrot on the board and Arceus in the active with a double turbo.
Happens in about 60% of games with Nestballs and ultra balls.
From there it’s about charging up Goodras to run roughshod over the field. I also throw radiant Charizard in there to eff with the prize maths. There is nothing more satisfying than crushing zard with zard in the late game.
Bianca’s devotion is in there too as Goodra proves awkward for most decks and is often left with <30 hp. It’s not always useful, but when it is, it’s an instant game winner often nullifying 2 attacks from your opponent.
Throw in Prof Turo to maximize pain and pull injured mons and you got yourself a 60% win rate with a super solid build vs. meta.

Hi all. In light of some of the posts regarding suicide/depression that have been shared recently, I thought I’d share a post I came across on LinkedIn earlier that may give some perspective or encouragement (and please don’t clown me for using Linkedin). I’m just gonna paste what the guy wrote here for those who don’t have a LinkedIn, but here’s the link for his direct post. Also, I don’t know this guy. I was just touched by his story:
“Today I graduated from the University of Toledo with my bachelors degree in Social Work. I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a near perfect 3.96 GPA. Seventeen years ago I dropped out of the same school. Let’s go down memory lane.
2005: got a full ride to UT to play D1 NCAA baseball
2006: tore my rotator cuff
2007: dropped out, fully addicted to pain pills
2008-2015: went to 28 rehabs, was arrested 13 times in 4 states and was convicted of felonies in 3 states, overdosed 3 times, was homeless, and nearly took my own life. Lost custody of my son and was divorced while incarcerated.
2015: got clean and started team recovery while in rehab
2016: volunteered and gave back to the community
2017: LCMHRSB advocate of the year
2018: 20 under 40 award winner
2019: developed a master 5 year plan
2020: got engaged
2021: got married
2022: launched team Recovery Treatment Services
2023: had a baby
2024: graduated college and got all criminal history expunged from my record.
What else is happening? I’ve traveled the world since I became sober. My first book is coming out any day now. I’m going right back to school next month to get my masters degree. Team recovery has nearly 100 employees and will have 250 beds for detox, all the way through outpatient treatment by the end of this year. I built a real estate portfolio over the last 4 years that consists of 80 residential apartments & homes, and 50,000 sq ft of commercial space. I’m building my wife her dream home. I’m happy, healthy, have a sponsor, work the 12 steps, and I’m almost 9 years sober.
I share this sort of stuff because people need to know that addicts aren’t necessarily bad people. We shouldn’t give up on them. There is ALWAYS hope, and if you need hope, I hope this post gave you a little.
I was a dropout, now I’m not. I was a felon, now I’m not. I was alone, now I’m not. I was a liability, now I’m not. I was an addict….. I still am…. And I always will be. I am who I am today because I fully understand what that means.”
—
For all of us here who are struggling, ready to give up, feeling like we failed in life, I promise that things can turn around. There are kind people in this world who believe in and are willing to help you. There are opportunities you could’ve never imagined. There is laughs and love and life to be had. This is just one man’s story, but yours matters too. Ultimately, let the darker days be a part of your story, not the final chapter.
edit: formatting

Walltext warning.
https://preview.redd.it/jqkbps8k721d1.png?width=2720&format=png&auto=webp&s=dae3208bdc52335dec7ba86a13a0208ffad19b77
TL:DR: We still don't know what made Wakana feel so depressed, and even if he finally invited Marin to a date, things are getting worse, and also Non-chan returned.
Before we begin. it's worth mentioning that the manga is still in monthly schedule, and its coming a week later than usual. Also this is a short chapter, but with a nuclear impact.
The huge success with Haniel's cosplay is making everyone talk about it. Also, Shiba Tokio prasing the cosplay with a retweet was a huge boost to it. His editing team also started a tireless search looking for both Marin and Wakana. This will be important for them later, since the world is now looking for those people who made the world shake.
https://preview.redd.it/o4ndk9kl721d1.png?width=1360&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b2b08417739dc117c7ffa78cd4309ff94e478bc
Going back to our couple, there's a short online chat between them. Last chapter, Marin avoided talking with Wakana about why he was so deppresed at the end of Comikon because they had an unexpected family meeting. Now it appears that she wanted to talk about it after asking him if he was asleep. After he wakes up, Marin tries to ask him about the topic. Now theres two possibilities here:

• The first one is that I see most likely to happen: Wakana didn't notice that she noticed his expression in Comikon, and thought she wanted to do another cosplay.
• The second that I highly doubt: Wakana playing dumb and trying to avoid the topic. I don't see it happening because he still is open to Marin with many things (like he refusing to watch her in Veronica cosplay, being in pain after she suggested using "dirty tricks" with the bunny suit, etc).

https://preview.redd.it/nqg0p5y5821d1.png?width=1360&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a7dee6918573c702b7345588c267de86bff67d3
Now there's the huge W. Wakana tells her that he's going to go to hina dolls festivals, and he invites her. This is the first time Wakana asks her for a date, instead of cosplay or to make food for her. While this is a great step, there's no doubt that this move was totally influenced by his thoughts back in Comikon. It's clear that Wakana likes her too, but his low image of himself doesn't allow him to go further (until now, at least)
Notice that Marin's phone has the photo with Wakana and his friends. Also, his eyes are very tired, so probably he invited her after crying/being scared like in the final page of 101.
Of course, Marin accepts. This was her first time going to something like this, making us remember Wakana's first time going to the fireworks' festival. Although both enjoyed visiting the hina dolls exhibitions, the lack of communication in their relationship is making them feel horrible. Marin really wants to ask him about what happened, but she's waiting until they are in private. But now, they are wearing masks, hiding from each other, and then we got one of the most heartbreaking panels in the manga:
...
Whatever Wakana thought back then, I see him in a similar situation. The fact that he ignored his low selfesteem, and invited her to meet him, it gives me the idea that he also wants to talk about it. Not to confess his romantical feelings, but about what he realized in that moment.
After that, Wakana plans to show Marin the hina dolls his family makes (asking his cousing for help), since she has only seen the tools. I see this as a good sign, since he was going to show his most special stuff to her, with one of his family members present. Then we get him sharing something very personal about him: Hina dolls helped him overcome his parents deaths, and he's very grateful with Gramps for showing them to him. And that he wants to become a kashirashi, before Gramps dies (the fact that he shares something like that with her, makes me think that he won't keep secret what he thought in Comikon, because he trusts Marin very much).
Marin is in shock about this, and after Wakana apologized and said that hina dolls were his main focus, she's even more worried. She knows very well what his dreams are, and she supported him the moment he mentioned it to her in the earliest chapters. But also, she could fear that their friendship will end because she fears that Wakana is upset about not reaching his Haniel's perfect image. Still, it was a moment that made Marin feel more scared and not wanting to mention the Comikon Incident.
https://preview.redd.it/ze0akbi3921d1.png?width=1360&format=png&auto=webp&s=c67e3f3cd62d34a80581d7d6f0a1c1ec07cabe92
Now, we have 2 main enemies coming back from nowhere and ruining important moments:
After Wakana told Marin about his future, he asks her what she wants to do after highschool. After a brief flashback with the professional recluiter, she's going to mention the pro offer, but surprise, fucking Phone-kun attacks again.
https://preview.redd.it/nzzgaai0b21d1.png?width=616&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1b283abeebd993fe910eb8b2697bb6acc88532e
Since she didn't want to talk about his expression in Comikon in public, its obvious that she was going to mention the pro offer. Still, I don't see her accepting it:

• She has the modeling job
• She mentions that cosplay is a hobby for her
• She only wants to do this with Wakana, and accepting the offer will mean that this would end not only that, but their relationship, since it would be so awful to leave him just like that.

Now, the insane chapter ending that (naturally) no one expected:
evil marin
I noticed Fukuda was bringing back forgotten characters, like Marin's dad and Wakana's cousin (or even Nowa, althought she isn't really forgotten). I was joking a few days before the chapter released, when I said that Non-chan might come back, but I really never expected it to happen. It was a lucky guess, or that's what I want to believe. But here we are, the main reason of why Wakana became isolated from the world, suddenly in front of him, Marin, and his family.
Obviously something is going to happen here. I want to think that Wakana kept in secret from his family about what she did to him, but if she was a close friend, his family would have noticed that she suddenly stopped being with Wakana and that something about that happened. Regardless of that, they are suddenly in front of each other for the first time in years. If she has matured, Non-chan will apologize for what she did to him, but Marin definitely will be furious if she knows what she did to Wakana.
Hina dolls were the thing that made Wakana feel safe and happy when he lost his parents, and Non-chan just attacked him in his most vulnerable part. He's strong, but that sudden appearance out of nowhere could leave him paralyzed. Even if Wakana has matured and forgives her, she probably won't stay in his life, since Marin has been the one who took him out of the trauma Non-chan caused to him.
https://preview.redd.it/dklw5xk3c21d1.png?width=614&format=png&auto=webp&s=50b0a2d7587b3bfff3ee494682e24e8f748fdca4
And to those fuckers who think there's going to be a love-triangle with Marin, Wakana and Non-chan, I'm sorry (not at all) to inform you that Wakana won't fall in love with the person who caused a huge damage to his life. And Non-chan just showed up, why would you think she has feelings for him?. Even if she falls in love with him later, just read this paragraph again. Also, Marin is not going to leave Wakana. The fact that they are both in pain right now and that she got a professional cosplay offer, doesn't mean that she will ignore all the things Wakana has done for her.
And this concludes the chapter. Like before, we got more questions than answers (and it personally makes me excited). And we have to wait another month (and week) for the next chapter. The shortness of this chapter got compensated with the huge impact it made. Now, at some point, either Marin or Wakana are going to talk, and there's going to be a huge discussion about that situation, but we trust they solve this together and the prize will be that they finally start going out as a romantical couple. And no, I don't expect romantical progression for a few chapters.
Winners have to go through pain to reach their goals and be happy. And Wakana definitely will endure and overcome all of that pain.
Also we got another Yukata Marin in the illustration lets goooooooooooooo.

”Stop.”
I really needed the bathroom.
For fifty painstaking minutes, I had been staring at the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster, uncomfortably shifting side to side in my seat so much that I was starting to get weird looks.
2:52pm.
Eight minutes, I thought dizzily, squeezing my legs together.
Which was just two chunks of four minutes.
Four chunks of two minutes.
The pain started like normal stomach pain, the kind I could deal with.
I swallowed two Tylenol with lukewarm soda.
But this was different.
This kind of pain was contorting and twisting my gut so much, I had to keep leaning onto my left buttock for relief.
I must have done it so many times, I caught the attention of the guy sitting next to me. Roman Hemlock who was half asleep, dark blonde curls hanging in half lidded eyes, his chin leaning on his fist. He shot me a look. I couldn't tell if it was Are you okay? or Can you stop moving around so much?
From the single crease in his brow, the slight curl in his lip, I guessed the latter.
It's not like Roman was helping.
For half the class, he'd been tapping his foot on the floor, then his chair leg, and to complete the orchestra, his fingers joined in, tap, tap, tapping on the edge of his desk. I didn't know if it was a bored thing, an ADHD thing, or he was trying to keep himself awake. It was easy to tolerate without the pain, but with it, the boy’s incessant tapping was more akin to a dentist drill splitting my skull open. I already felt nauseous, the sad looking chicken nuggets I forced down at lunch making an unwelcome appearance at the back of my throat.
It was too fucking hot, the stuffy summer air glueing my hair to the back of my neck. The material of my shirt was making me cringe, sticky against my skin.
Tipping my head back, the lights were too bright. Every sound was too loud. Imogen Prairie, who was sitting behind me chewing her gum a little too loudly.
Kaz Samuels scribbling notes like a maniac.
I could hear every stroke of his pencil, every time he paused, looked up at the presentation, and continued writing.
When I leaned forward in my chair, I could smell exactly what Isabella Trinity had eaten for lunch, the stink hanging in the air.
It became a case of sucking in my stomach and taking slow, deep breaths.
I’d never had these kinds of stomach cramps before. But it didn't take me long to figure out what they were.
I was yet to start my period at the grand age of sixteen, which meant this was it.
After countless sessions with the doctor, and feeling like a social outcast among my group of friends who started their periods in middle school, it had finally happened. The cramps in my gut that felt like my torso was being ripped apart, was in fact me entering womanhood. When my breath started to quicken, my mouth watering, I raised my hand, biting my lip against a cry.
Fuck.
Something lurched in my gut, a wave of nausea crashing into me.
I was going to throw up.
“Mr Brighton.”
Roman spoke up before me, waving his arm. “Can I use the bathroom?”
The teacher’s answer was always the same. Which was why I had been crossing my legs for the entirety of the class, unable to focus on anything but my gut trying to twist itself inside out.
Mr Brighton leaned against the wall, his eyes glued to the PowerPoint awash in our faces. We had been staring at the exact same slide for maybe five minutes now, and our physics teacher was yet to speak, his gaze somewhere else.
Mr Brighton was my Dad’s age, a greying man in his early fifties who always wore the exact same suit with the exact same stain on his collar.
The man was about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Normally, I would drift off myself, lulled into slumber by the low drone of his voice.
But the pain ripping me apart was keeping me awake.
“Mr Brighton.” Roman said, louder. His voice snapped me out of it. “Can I use the bathroom?” He paused, exaggerating a loud sigh. ”Please?”
The teacher straightened up, folding his arms.
“Mr Hemlock, you know the rules. Why didn't you go before class?”
“I didn't need to go an hour ago, did I?”
“You will no longer need to go to the bathroom, Mr Hemlock.”
Roman made a snorting noise.
“What?”
The low murmur of my classmates collapsed into white noise.
Glancing at the clock, I was anticipating the school bell.
The sickness swimming in the pit of my belly was reaching dangerous territory.
2:52pm.
Something ice cold trickled down my spine.
It was 2:52 the last time I checked, and five minutes had surely passed.
This time, I waited a whole minute and counted the seconds under my breath. The clock still didn't move. The ticker was frozen halfway between three and four.
Slowly, the same realisation began to hit the twelve of us. The clock on the wall had stopped. But it wasn't the only thing that had stopped. The cool breeze drifting through the window was gone.
The sound of birds outside, and the cheer squad practising their routine.
Everything had stopped. Trying to ignore a sickly slither of panic twisting its way through me, I checked my phone under my desk. There was a text from my Mom lighting up my notifications. When I tried to swipe it open, nothing happened. My lock screen was frozen, stuck at 2:52pm.
With my hands growing clammy around my phone, I stared at the time, willing it to move, to flick to 2:53.
But nothing happened, the numbers stubbornly staying at 2:52.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Roman’s voice brought me back to reality, though I was sure I'd dropped my phone. I heard it hit the floor with a sickening crack. Whatever he was saying, though, faded into dull murmur, when I turned toward the window.
Something was wrong outside.
The cheer squad were nowhere to be seen.
Being on the top floor gave us a front row seat to their practice sessions.
I stopped watching when their flyer did a death defying flip, almost breaking her neck. 2:52pm. I couldn't see the cheer squad. But I did see Jessie Carson mid-sprint across the track field, strawberry blonde curls suspended in a halo around her.
I could see exactly where she had frozen in place, her left foot hovering off of the ground, her right foot driving momentum. It wasn't just Jessie who had stopped. The dirt she was kicking into a cloud behind her was hovering, caught in mid-air.
Studying the faces around me, my mouth went dry.
Roman Hemlock, mid-argument with our physics teacher.
His eyes were wide, lips curved into what would have been a yell.
Fuck.
Was I the only one?
But then Roman blinked, and I realized the boy wasn't frozen. He was trying to think of a comeback. “What do you mean I won't need the bathroom anymore?”
“Mr Hemlock, please lower your voice.”
“Why? You can't dictate to me when I do and don't need the bathroom, dude!”
Moving onto the rest of my class, the others were still moving.
It was too quiet, though.
Yes, Roman was still tapping his foot.
Imogen was still chewing her gum.
Kaz was still scribbling notes like a psychopath.
But they were the only noise I could hear.
I wasn't the only one confused. The classroom had pricked with a sense of urgency. Kids were checking their phones, their gazes glued to the clock. Even Roman, who was still arguing, was starting to notice. I watched his gaze lazily roll to the clock on the wall.
I pretended not to see his cheeks visibly paling.
We had all come to the exact same terrifying conclusion.
2:52pm.
Time had come to a halt, and somehow, we had not.
“Is that clock broken?” Roman interrupted, leaning forward in his chair.
Kaz twisted around, settling the boy with an eye-roll.
“Check your phone, dumbass.”
“I broke my phone.”
Imogen threw her iPhone at him, narrowly missing hitting him in the face.
“Everything is frozen,” She said, her voice shuddering. “It's not just the clock.”
I waited for Roman’s response. For once, though, he was speechless.
“Well done, Imogen. That is correct.” Mr Brighton spoke up, tearing a piece of paper from a workbook and striding over to the door, glueing it over the glass window. When we started to protest, some of us were shouting, while others bursting into tears, he calmly took out his key and locked us in.
I should have been surprised that our teacher had spontaneously decided to take his entire class hostage, but the rumor mill had been churning.
According to Becca Jason, the guy’s wife divorced him and took his kids.
I could feel myself sinking into my chair, phantom bugs filling my mouth.
So, this guy had nothing to lose.
Taking his place in front of his desk, the man settled us with a patient smile.
“From now on, you will stay inside this room.” He said. “In case you haven't noticed, time is currently frozen at fifty two minutes past two. The thirteen of us are tucked into the twenty first second, and will be, for the foreseeable future.”
I could tell the others wanted to argue, but we couldn't deny that time had stopped. Kaz was staring down at his frozen phone, Imogen hyperventilating behind me, Roman glaring at the clock, chewing on a pencil. We wanted it to be a prank, a joke, some kind of glitch in the matrix that would fix itself.
But then a whole minute passed by. Followed by another. Kaz threw his phone on the floor, hissing in frustration. Imogen let out a wet sounding sob.
Roman’s pencil split in his mouth, slipping from his fingers. We couldn't pretend it wasn't happening or call our teacher out on his BS, because it was everywhere around us. The sudden absence of outdoor ambience, birdsong, planes flying overhead, and traffic outside the school gates. Everyone and everything had stopped, and we were the only ones left.
This was a nightmare, surely.
My physics class were some of the most boring and pretentious people in the school, and somehow the world had been reduced to the twelve of us inside our classroom. We were scared, of course we were. But reality had stopped making sense, crashing and burning in a single second. We had no choice but to listen to our teacher. “Now, before you freak out, it may not feel like it, but the twelve of you have also stopped.”
Mr Brighton held out his own hand, and placed it on his heart.
He was right.
I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, I had failed to realize my period cramps were gone.
“Do me a favor, and press your hand over your heart.”
“You mean like, in a culty way?” Imogen whispered.
“Obviously.” Roman grumbled, halfway out of his seat. He was hesitant, though, in case our teacher was armed. It only took one glance from our teacher, and he slumped back into his chair. “This crazy fucker clearly wants to play mind games with us.”
“No, I'm just asking you to feel for your heart.”
I felt for mine, and there was nothing, my stomach twisting.
Roman stabbed his fingers into his neck, feeling for a pulse.
He tried his wrist.
Then his heart.
Nothing.
“The twelve of you are currently in a state of stasis,” the teacher explained to us, “You are not alive, nor are you dead. Your bodily functions are also on pause, such as your heartbeat and your pulse. In this state there will be no need for food and water, or going to the bathroom.” His gaze found a ghastly looking Roman, who looked like he was going to faint. “Your minds, however, as you can see, are working as usual.”
“But why?” Imogen demanded in a shriek.
Mr Brighton’s lip curled. “I would rather not answer that question.”
“Because you're lonely.” Roman spoke up. He swung back on his chair, narrowed eyes glued to the teacher.
“Your wife and kids left you, so you're asserting power over a group of sixteen year olds. Which is kinda fucking pathetic.”
Mr Brighton’s expression darkened, and something slimy crept up my throat.
The worst thing any of us could do was threaten him. He had taken kidnapping to a whole new level, and we were alone with this psychopath, trapped inside a second. I waited for the man to stride forward and attack the kid. But he didn't. Instead, the teacher leaned back on his desk. “Yes.” The man nodded.
“I suppose you could say I am.”
“But why us?!” Kaz hissed.
“Because you are children.” Mr Brighton responded casually.
He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards Roman’s desk. The rest of us leaned back. I tried to pull my desk with me, but it was glued to the floor. Frozen. Mr Brighton’s shoes went click-clack across the hardwood floor.
“You are right,” the man said in a murmur, “I am lonely. My wife and kids did leave me, and I have nobody left to control. I have nobody else to contort and use to my advantage.” Reaching Roman’s desk, he leaned in close until he was nose to nose with the kid.
“Congratulations, Mr Hemlock. You have just earned yourself detention.”
Roman stayed stubbornly still, but he was visibly afraid. I could see him very slowly backing away. Roman was all bark and no bite. He was a loud mouth, sure, but he was also the least confrontational person in the class.
“What?” He spluttered. “You trap us in a time loop or time trap, or whatever, and you still want to act like a teacher?”
“Stand up.” The teacher ordered.
“What if I don't?”
Mr Brighton’s expression didn't waver. “You said it yourself. I can and have trapped you inside a single second. What else do you think I'm capable of?”
Roman stood, kicking his chair out of the way.
“What are you planning on doing to me, old man?”
The teacher maintained his smile. “Stand up straight, and close your mouth.”
To my confusion, Roman Hemlock did all the above.
He straightened up, and closed his mouth.
“Do not fight me.” The teacher said calmly, “Do as you are told, and follow me.”
The boy did exactly as instructed.
His jaw slackened, that rebellious light in his eyes fizzling out.
I think that's when we all collectively agreed that going against this teacher and trying to escape was mental suicide.
“I will use Mr Hemlock as an example to all of you,” Mr Brighton said, turning to the rest of us. “If you break the rules or are derogatory in any way, you will be given detention.”
He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, forcing him to walk towards the supply closet. Roman moved like a robot, slightly off balance, his gaze glued to thin air, like he was tracking invisible butterflies.
"Your time in detention will depend on the severity of your rule-break.” He opened the door, gently pushing Roman inside, and following suit. When the door closed behind them, there was a pause, and I remembered how to breathe.
Kaz Samuels slowly got up from his desk, inching towards the closet.
“This guy is a certified nut.” He announced.
He turned towards us. “Whatever he's doing to Hemlock, we’re probably next.”
“He stopped time.” I spoke up, my own voice barely a croak. “He’s capable of anything.”
“But how did he stop time?” Kaz whistled, tipping his head back. The boy was slow, his fingers grasping each desk as he slid down the aisle. “He said he was lonely, right? But why take it out on us? What did we do to him?”
“Check his desk for a weapon!” Imogen whisper-shrieked.
Kaz nodded, striding over to the man's desk, his hands moving frantically, shoving paper on the floor. He took an uncertain seat on the man's chair. “There's nothing here,” he murmured, lifting stained coffee mugs and ancient textbooks. “It's just…test papers.” Kaz ducked from view, trying the drawers.
“He's a fan of Pokémon,” he said, “There's a tonne of Pokémon cards,” Kaz straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “No sign of a weapon, though.”
He picked up a ruler, waving it around. “This could work. If we plunge it in his eye.”
“Try his laptop!” Imogen was halfway out of her seat.
Kaz did, slamming the keys. “It's locked.”
“Look harder!” Ren Clarke threw a pencil at him.
“I am!”
After a minute of searching, Kaz grabbed a single piece of paper.
He held it up, and I squinted.
It was a list of our names, with several of them highlighted.
“Fuck.” Kaz dropped the list, his expression crumpling. The stubborn bravado facade transforming him into our sort of leader dissipated, hollowing him out into exactly what he was. Just a scared kid. Kaz’s hands were shaking.
“Mr Brighton’s got a hit list.” He whispered. “He's going to kill us.”
“How do you know that?” I found myself asking.
Kaz slowly dropped into a crouch, picking up the paper and holding it up.
“Look.” He pointed to a capitalised name at the top of the list highlighted in red.
ROMAN HEMLOCK.
There were six names highlighted in red, including mine.
CRISTA ADAMS.
As if on cue, Roman’s cry rang out from the supply closet, suddenly, freezing us all in place. Kaz jumped up, adapting the expression of a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide, almost unseeing.
He fell over himself to tidy up the desk, putting everything back where he had found it, sliding the list between a pile of test papers. Kaz took slow, stumbled steps back, his feverish gaze glued to the closet, before turning and making a break for it and diving into his seat.
“Brighton’s got a hit liiiist,” Kaz said, in a mocking sing-song, “And we’re all on it.”
What followed was deathly silence. I think we were expecting Roman to cry out again. But when he didn't, the class started to stir. Some kids started praying to a god they didn't believe in, while others were in varying states of denial, trying to call their parents with dead phones.
I wasn't sure what parts of me had stopped, but I was still alive, still felt like my lungs were deprived of oxygen, my chest aching. I'm not sure how long I sat there, trying to find my voice, a shriek trying and failing to rip through my mouth. Being kidnapped and held hostage is one thing, but being imprisoned inside a single, never ending second, was an existential hell worse than death. Slowly, I pressed my palm over my heart once again. Then I breathed into my cupped hands.
I was expecting it, but no longer being able to feel my own heartbeat and breath, was fear I didn't think was possible. The kind that glued me to my seat, hollowing me out completely until I was nothing, an empty shell with no heartbeat, no breath, no thoughts, except denial, followed by acceptance.
And finally, regret.
I regretted not hugging my mother goodbye before I left for school.
I regretted acting like a spoiled brat when my parents refused to drive me halfway across the country so I could attend Coachella.
I regretted stepping inside Mr Brighton’s fourth period physics class.
Mr Brighton reappeared, slamming the door behind him and locking the boy inside. Part of me flinched, while the rest of me remembered not to move a muscle. I was barely aware of time passing. Or it wasn't. Time had stopped, so now long had I been sitting there?
I could no longer measure the passage of time with hunger or thirst, and my body felt the same. I wasn't stiff or tired or achy. Looking out of the window, the sky was the exact same crystal blue, every cloud in the exact same place.
Jessie Carson was still frozen mid-run, strands of dark red hair caught around her.
“What's wrong with you guys?” Mr Brighton chuckled, and I twisted back to the front, a shiver writhing down my spine. “Why don't you give me a smile?”
The teacher returned to his desk, and I was already subconsciously sitting up straight in my seat, forcing my lips into a jaw-breaking grin, following Brighton’s instructions. In the corner of my eye, Imogen was sitting very still, forcing an award-winning cheesy smile, while Kaz grinned through gritted teeth.
“Mr Hemlock just earned himself two weeks inside the supply closet.” he said casually, perching himself on the edge of his desk. The man studied each of us, taking his time to rip every shred of us apart.
Mind, body, and soul.
I struggled to maintain my stupid smile, shoving my shaking hands in my lap.
“Would anyone like to join him, or are you going to follow the rules?”
The rest of us stayed silent. I don't think any of us breathed.
Our teacher nodded to Kaz, inclining his head.
“Samuels. Are you all right?”
Kaz’s smile faltered slightly. He shifted in his chair. I could see sweat trickling down his right temple. “Uh, yeah.” He swiped at his forehead, like he couldn't believe he was sweating. “Yeah, I'm good.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed. He moved toward his desk, and we all held our breaths. Mr Brighton seemed to study his hit-list, lips curving into a frown.
His gaze flicked to the boy, and then the paper.
He knew, I thought dizzily.
Mr Brighton knew the kid had been rummaging through his desk. But this was all about control. The teacher was using fear to control us, to manipulate our thoughts without having to get physical. He could have called out the boy right then, but Brighton was settling with mental torture instead. He just wanted to make my classmate squirm.
Without a word, the man folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. “Mr Samuels, you are sweating,” our physics teacher said, mocking a frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
Kaz hesitated, tapping his shoe in a rhythm.
Being one of the smartest kids in the room definitely gave him an advantage.
I could already see the cogs turning behind half lidded eyes. Kaz was weighing each scenario, sorting them into positives and negatives.
The positives of answering would mean he was one step towards being in the clear, but there were two negatives.
Brighton would question him if he had left his seat, and then demand how his hit-list had magically moved across the desk.
Talking back was surely a rule-break, as well as outright lying.
Opening his mouth would get him in trouble, either way, and Kaz knew that.
So, he just nodded, forcing an even bigger smile.
Brighton’s lips pricked, his gaze straying on Kaz. “Good!” He cleared his throat, turning to the class. Kaz slumped in his seat with a sharp breath, resting his head in his arms. If Mr Brighton noticed, he didn't say anything. “Ignore the sweating. It should stop, along with hunger and thirst.”
Our teacher seemed to be able to manipulate everything in his vicinity.
Time.
Minds.
And slowly… contorting us into his own.
In the single second we were trapped inside, I felt days go by in a dizzying whirlwind that was like being permanently high. When I stood up, I felt like I was floating.
When I sat down, hours could go by, even days, and I wouldn't even feel them. I did try and count the days, initially, scribbling them on a scrap piece of paper, but somewhere around the thirteenth or fourteenth day, I lost count. The world around us never changed, in permanent stasis, and maybe that was sending us a little crazy.
After a while of being stuck at our desks, Mr Brighton allowed us to wander the classroom, as long as we stayed away from the door. I lay on the floor for days, counting ceiling tiles.
Sometimes, Imogen would join me.
I couldn't sleep, but I could pretend to sleep, imagining a world that was back to normal. I didn't feel hungry, but my brain did like to remind me of food at the weirdest times. I was aware of weeks passing us by, and then months.
I never grew hungry or tired, and my bodily functions were none existent.
I couldn't remember what pain felt like, or the urge to go to the bathroom. Even the concept of eating and drinking became foreign to me. Putting something in your mouth and chewing to sustain yourself?
That sounded odd.
The only thing that was changing was our slowly unravelling metal state.
I don't know how it started. Weekends and Tuesdays blended together. On one particular SaturTuesday, I was hanging upside down from my desk, watching Kaz and Imogen doodle on the whiteboard.
Kaz had a plan to escape, but after a while, his ‘plan’ to distract the teacher, had gone nowhere. After passing notes between us, the twelve of us had decided that we needed a weapon.
That was maybe a month ago. I wasn't sure what mind games our teacher was playing, but Kaz Samuels, who we were counting on to be our brains, was slowly falling under his spell. Their game had been going on for three days. The two of them were having a competition to see who could draw the craziest thing.
Mr Brighton was at his desk as usual, marking papers.
Imogen was drawing a weird looking ‘skateboard’ when the doors to the storage closet flew open.
Roman Hemlock appeared, and to my surprise, wasn't a hollow eyed shell.
He held up his hand in a wave, his lips forming a small smile.
“Yo.”
Roman’s reappearance was enough to snap us out of it. Kaz and Imogen stopped arguing, the rest of the class going silent. I sat up, blinking rapidly.
I was sure our collective consensus was that Roman Hemlock was dead.
Mr Brighton lifted his head and gave the boy a civil nod. “Mr Hemlock will be rejoining us,” he said, his gaze going back to marking papers. “Please make him feel comfortable. I'm sure he's very excited to be able to talk to you again.”
Instead of going to his desk, the boy immediately joined the others, snatching the marker off of a baffled looking Kaz, and drawing an overly artistic sketch of a penis. I wasn't sure what confused me more. The fact that Roman Hemlock had some serious artistic skills, or that he seemed suspiciously fine for someone who had been locked in the storage closet for two weeks with no social interaction.
With my last few lingering brain cells still clinging on, I studied the boy.
There were no signs of bruises or scratches.
His eyes seemed normal, not diluted or half lidded.
Unable to stop myself, I jumped off of my desk and joined the others, where Kaz was already interrogating the guy.
“WHAT–”
Imogen nudged him, and he lowered his voice, leaning against the wall. “What did he do to you?”
Roman shrugged, rolling his eyes. “Relax, dude. He didn't do anything to me.”
“Then what was that yell?” Imogen hissed.
The boy cocked his head. “Yell?”
“You yelled out,” Kaz folded his arms, narrowing his eyes. He was already suspecting one of us had been compromised– or worse, brainwashed into compliance. Kaz stepped closer, backing Roman into the desk. “You cried out when you first went in there,” he murmured, “So, what was that?”
Something in Roman’s eyes darkened. “Oh,” He said, his lip curling. “That.”
Kaz’s expression softened. He rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Yeah,” He whispered. “What did he do to you?”
Imogen shoved Kaz out of the way, shooting the boy a glare.
“You don't have to tell us, you know.” She said in a small voice. “If it's too traumatising, or he did something you don't want to talk about–”
Roman cut her off with a laugh, and suddenly, all eyes were on him.
The remaining nine of us were eagerly awaiting an explanation.
“Are you fucking serious?”
When Kaz didn't respond, Roman gathered us in a kind of hustle, the four of us grouped together. I felt like I was on the football field. Still, though, if the guy’s goal was to look as suspicious as possible, he was doing a great job.
Roman studied each of us, one eyebrow cocked. When Mr Brighton glanced up from his work, Roman shot him a grin, lowering his voice to a hiss.
“You seriously think our fifty year old physics teacher has been abusing me in the storage closet?
“Then why did you cry out?” Kaz demanded. “Did he hit you?”
Roman stuck out his bottom lip. “I'm pretty sure he didn't hit me.”
“So, you cried out for no reason.”
“Why are you covering for him?” Imogen poked his forehead. “Are you lobotomised?”
Roman wafted her hand away. “Stop prodding me, and no, I'm 100% good.” He backed away from us, like we were observers, and he was the zoo attraction.
“I won't be, if you keep treating me like I'm senile.”
“Okay, fine,” Kaz sighed. “Just answer one.”
“Shoot.”
“When you first went in there, you made an unmistakable sound of distress–”
“Not this again,” Roman groaned. “Of course I yelled! I was shoved into a pitch black storage closet on my own! What, did you expect me to stay silent?”
Kaz didn't look convinced, Imogen nervously sucking her teeth.
The boy leaned back, resting his head against the wall. His eyes flickered shut.
“Stop looking at me like that, there's nothing to tell you,” he murmured, “Brighton didn't do shit to me. I was just freaked out.” Prying one eye open, he fixed us with a glare. “I am so sorry for reacting like a human. Next time, I'll make sure to attack him and pin him to the ground.”
It's not like we believed him. I don't think Roman believed himself.
Something significant had changed in him. He was no longer argumentative, like half of his personality had been torn away. Roman set a precedent. Because once he was following instructions and walking around with a dazed smile, others began to follow. I can't remember how much time had passed since I thought about escaping.
Days and weeks and months had collapsed into fleeting seconds I only noticed when I wasn't playing games.
I wasn't aware of my own lack of sanity until I found myself, on a random SaturWednesday. I was laughing, gathered with the others on the floor, around a Monopoly board. The game had been going on for almost a week.
Reality hit me when I was laughing so hard I tipped back.
I can't remember why I was laughing. I think Imogen told a bad joke.
“Hand it over.” Roman, who was the King of Monopoly, held out his hand, demanding my last 250 bucks. I remember noticing his smile, my foggy brain trying to find hints that he was in some kind of trance, or being controlled by Brighton. But no. His smile was real.
Genuine.
To my shock and confusion, so was mine.
I wasn't in a trance or any type of mind manipulation. I was completely conscious.
Was this… Stockholm syndrome? I thought dizzily.
Was I enjoying this?
My thoughts were like cotton candy, disconnected and wrong, and they barely felt like my own. My gaze found Imogen and Kaz, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder, enveloped in the game.
They looked exactly the same, their hair, clothes, everything about them staying stagnant. It was them themselves who had drastically changed. I had never seen them look so carefree. Imogen was a hotheaded cheerleader, and Kaz was the smart kid who gave himself nosebleeds from overworking himself. But now, they were laughing, nudging each other, caught up in an inside joke. Blinking slowly, my gaze strayed on them.
Sure, it could be manipulation. It could be brainwashing. But it could also be real.
Kaz caught my eye, raising a brow.
“You good, Christa?”
Shaking my head, I nodded.
Again, my smile felt real. Like I was having fun.
“Good. It's your turn.”
I picked up the dice, throwing them across the board.
Two sixes.
“I can already see her landing on one of my hotels.” Roman murmured. He sat up, resting his chin on his knees. “As the clear winner, I have a proposition.”
Ignoring him, I moved my piece– immediately landing on Park Place.
“I'll give you 500,” Roman announced, “If you give up New York avenue.”
“That's all I've got!”
Imogen nudged me. “Don't do it. If you give him New York Avenue, he only needs one more.”
“One thousand.” Roman waved the notes in my face.
“My final offer.”
When I reached for the cash, he held it back.
“New York Avenue, he said, with a grin.
“And your pride.”
Reluctantly, I handed my only property over.
Kaz threw the dice and moved his piece, and I half remembered we had an escape plan. “Community chest.” Kaz picked up a card. “Go straight to jail.”*
Roman spluttered. “That's karma,” he said, “For stealing from the bank.”
“You were stealing too!”
We had a plan.
We had…. a plan.
After discussing it in detail, Imogen and I were going to try and get onto Brighton’s laptop. It wasn't a perfect way to escape, but it was coherent.
So, what happened?
We were going to get out, so what… what was this?
Kaz’s earlier words hit me from months ago.
“Mr Brighton *is the thing keeping us here,”* he explained. “If we kill him, I'm like, 98% sure we’ll go back to normal.”
“Okay, and what if he dies and we’re *stuck?”* Imogen whisper-shrieked.
“I said 98% for a reason. Yes, there's a small chance his power will die with him. But there's a bigger chance that its effects will die when he does.”
Ren nodded slowly. “Right, and where exactly did you learn this information?”
“You'll feel a lot better if I don't answer that.”
“Okay.” Ren gritted his teeth. “So, we just need to find a weapon, right?”
“And don't tell Hemlock,” Kaz rolled his eyes. “I don't care what he says, that boy definitely had his mind fucked with. Hemlock is a liability. If we tell Roman, he tells Brighton, and we’re screwed.” Kaz nodded to me, then the others. “Keep your mouths shut.”
Presently, I wasn't sure the boy wanted to escape.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes over to Mr Brighton, who had joined us to play.
He was happily marking papers, taking part when he could.
It felt…right.
Not like we had been forced or manipulated, but more like he belonged. Part of me wanted to question why I felt like this, but I found that I didn't care. I didn't care that we were essentially dead, in a never ending stasis and stuck inside fifty two minutes past two. I stopped thinking about the outside world a long time ago.
I couldn't even remember my Mom’s face.
I made my decision, dazedly watching Imogen throw a chance card at Roman.
He flung one back, threatening to tip the board.
I wanted to stay.
In the corner of my eye, however, someone was still awake.
Ren, who had been sitting next to me, kept moving, further and further away. I didn't notice until he was inching towards our teacher, a box cutter clenched between his fist. There must have been a point when we found a box cutter, when we made it our weapon of choice.
But somewhere along the way, I think we just… lost the longing to want to escape.
I didn't see the exact moment the boy stabbed the blade into the man's neck, plunging it through his flesh, but I did feel a sudden jolt, like time itself was starting to falter and tremble.
Mr Brighton dropped to the ground, and I found my gaze flashing to the frozen clock.
Which was moving, suddenly.
Slowly creeping towards 2:53pm.
Something sticky ran underneath me, warm and wet.
Blood.
Blood that was running.
Roman’s half lidded eyes found mine, and he blinked, dropping the dice.
Like he'd been asleep for a long time.
2:53pm.
We were free.
The cool spring breeze grazing my cheeks was back. I could feel my own heartbeat, sticky sweat on my forehead.
And outside, Jessie Carson let out a gut-churning scream.
For a disorienting moment, I don't think any of us believed we were free.
Roman twisted around, his gaze on the doorway.
The piece of paper the teacher had stuck to the glass slipped away.
But Roman’s gaze was glued to the door, his cheeks paling.
His lips parted into a silent cry.
Following his eyes, I glimpsed a shadow.
A shadow that was frozen at 2:52pm.
2:53pm.
“Fuck.” Roman whispered, stumbling to his feet.
He turned to the rest of us, his eyes wild.
“Get DOWN!”
When the thing crashed through the door, our classroom exploding around us, chairs splintering against the walls, I was already dropping to my knees, crawling under a desk. It took me a moment to understand I was already kneeling in what was left of Imogen.
Her body had been hollowed out, singed straight through.
I was crawling through pieces of her flesh, mounds of her bisected brain.
Keeping my hand over my mouth, I watched this… thing.
A bulbous black monster, chewing its way through my classmates. Blood splattered the walls, raining from the ceiling, and that same striking pain ripped through my gut, agonising enough to force a cry through my lips.
My frantic gaze found the clock.
2:54pm.
Lurching forwards, I heaved up what was left of my lunch, agonising pain wrenching my stomach back and forth.
I jumped when another body joined me, thankfully alive, squeezing under the desk.
Roman, his face slick and dripping scarlet.
When the thing was gone, neither of us moved.
3:05pm.
“What are those things?” I managed to get out.
“I don't know,” Roman whimpered, covering his mouth. “But they're everywhere.”
3:10pm.
Another thing found our classroom. This time I saw it up close, a giant, bulbous black thing with an eye stalk. It knew we were there, peeking under the desk we were hiding. But it didn't kill us.
The thing left the room, stopping to gorge on half of Ren’s torso.
Roman shot me a questioning look, but I could only be relieved.
3:15pm.
Roman threw up black slime all over me.
He caught my eye, swiping his mouth. “Well, that can't be good.”
The pain in my gut was getting harder to deal with.
3:20pm.
“Did you have chicken nuggets for lunch?” Roman murmured. He got a little too close, his breath on my neck.
I had to suck in my stomach to stop the pain.
I was going hot and cold, sweat dripping down the back of my neck.
“Why?” I hissed back, taking deep, shaky breaths.
“I dunno,” Roman murmured, “I can smell them on your breath.”
His teeth grazed my flesh, sending shivers down my spine.
“Weird… huh.”
3:30pm.
Roman nudged me.
“Fuck.” He hissed. “Is that Kaz?”
Following his gaze, I found the remnants of Kaz under a crushed desk starting to… convulse.
“Was he bitten?” I whispered.
Roman’s eyes were a strange color. “Maybe.”
3:35pm
“Mr Brighton.” I was on my knees, sobbing, shaking my physics teacher.
“Mr Brighton! Take us back!”
I squeezed his ice cold hand for dear life.
“Say, ‘stop’,” I whispered “Please!”
3:40pm.
The thing that found me didn't attack me. It sat there, head cocked, watching me roll around on the floor, the pain writhing through me. I watched its transformation in short bursts, consciousness swimming in and out.
When I found light again, the thing was sitting cross legged next to me, chewing on a human arm. Maybe I was hallucinating. I watched it for a long time, trying to figure out why it was wearing strips of Roman’s white shirt.
3:52pm.
No longer in the school, I was in the back of an ambulance, a lady screaming in my face. I could see the time on her watch. She told me I was going to be okay, and I think I was. But I wasn't sure how to tell her she smelled good.
Like chicken.
It's been three months since my teacher froze time.
Mr Brighton wasn't imprisoning us. He was protecting us.
I'm still alive, but I have to take regular shots. I think they're just in case I was infected by those things.
I asked Mom if the incident has been on the news, but there's no coverage.
According to the people in white who treated me, everything has been covered up. According to the Mayor, ten kids died in a gas leak.
No mention of the monstrous things hunting us down…
Our town is just a blip on the map. You can't find us. I wish you could, though.
I need help.
I'm terrified of myself.
I’m not going to tell Mom she smells like chicken, because she'll freak out.
Last night, someone, or something knocked on my window.
When I turned on the light, a single, bulging eye was staring at me through the glass.
I still don't know why it was crying.

Relievex Capsules No Purchase Necessary
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I get you like the stock. I get that it has 95% short interest.
My question is how do you know when the short squeeze is occuring? You don't know when the hedges shorted the stock, correct? They could have shorted back at $50/share and are still sitting on a massively profitable position. If this is the case there is no short squeeze occuring, the hedges aren't feeling any pain, and the only thing occuring is a pump and dump amongst you and your peers where the winners and losers will be determined only by who "pussies out" first. Essentially a massive game of "chicken" while the hedges watch on entertained while their profits go from +85% to +83% (theoretical example) during the pump.
Please someone enlighten me. How high does the price have to go before the short interest actually feels any squeeze? If you can't determine at what share price the short interest (95%) sits at, then how do you know a short squeeze is even occuring? Wouldn't the hedge funds just close their profitable shorts if the price even got close to turning their trade into a loser?

I get you like the stock. I get that it has 95% short interest.
My question is how do you know when the short squeeze is occuring? You don't know when the hedges shorted the stock, correct? They could have shorted back at $50/share and are still sitting on a massively profitable position. If this is the case there is no short squeeze occuring, the hedges aren't feeling any pain, and the only thing occuring is a pump and dump amongst you and your peers where the winners and losers will be determined only by who "pussies out" first. Essentially a massive game of "chicken" while the hedges watch on entertained while their profits go from +85% to +83% (theoretical example) during the pump.
Please someone enlighten me. How high does the price have to go before the short interest actually feels any squeeze? If you can't determine at what share price the short interest (95%) sits at, then how do you know a short squeeze is even occuring? Wouldn't the hedge funds just close their profitable shorts if the price even got close to turning their trade into a loser?

Valeriya Novodvorskaya was born on 17 May 1950 in Baranavichy, Byelorussian SSR to a Jewish engineer, Ilya Burshtyn, and a pediatrician, Nina Novodvorskaya, who came from a noble Russian family. She took her mother's surname because, as Burshtyn noted, because of the ‘poisoning doctors’ case’ and the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, “Jewish surnames were unpopular”.
Novodvorskaya had been active in the Soviet dissident movement since her youth and was first imprisoned by Soviet authorities in 1969, when she was 19, for distributing leaflets criticising the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia .
On 5 December 1969, at an evening dedicated to the Constitution Day of the USSR in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, before the premiere of Vano Muradeli's opera October, Novodvorskaya scattered handwritten leaflets with an anti-Soviet poem of her own composition about the Soviet Communist Party:
Thank you Party
For all the falsehood and lies,
For all the denunciations and informers,
For the shots in Prague's square,
For all the lies you've yet to tell.
For the paradise of factories and of flats,
All built on crimes in the torture
Chambers of yesterday and today
And for our broken and black world.
Thank you Party
For our bitterness and despair,
For our shameful silence,
Thank you Party.
When she was arrested, investigators didn't believe she acted alone. In Lefortovo prison she behaved defiantly brave, calling the investigator ‘an inquisitor, a sadist and a collaborator with the Gestapo’. Even in prison, she did not stop her activities; she wrote her anti-communist poems on paper and scattered them in the prison yard. She was eventually sent for a psychiatric examination and diagnosed with ‘Sluggish schizophrenia’. This diagnosis was used in the Soviet Union to deprive dissidents of their rights and send them to compulsory psychiatric treatment. Being in compulsory psychiatric treatment was much worse than being in prison, because under the guise of treatment dissidents were subjected to torture and abuse. Novodvorskaya described the torture in Soviet psychiatric hospitals for political activists:

• Beating
  
• Tying the patient to the bed for a few days until numbness sets in.
  
• wrapping the patient in wet towels and sheets. When the cloths dried, they soaked into the body causing terrible pain.
  
• Drilling healthy teeth without anaesthesia until the drill bit goes into the jaw, removing the dental nerve without anaesthesia and then filling.
  
• Injection of sulfazine, medicine was used only in the USSR, and caused terrible pain for a few days, temperature up to 40 degrees and thirst, with almost no water given
  
• Subcutaneous injection of oxygen. A large swelling occurs at the injection site and the prisoner feels as if his skin is being ripped off.
  

Novodvorskaya stayed in this ‘treatment centre’ from June 1970 to February 1972, after which she was released
From 1977 to 1978, she attempted to create an underground political party to fight the CPSU. On 28 October 1978 she became one of the founders of the ‘Free Interprofessional Association of Workers’. She underlined her programme with the regime from the only revolutionary whose books were available to her - Vladimir Lenin. Novodvorskaya and her associates again acted in a demonstratively open manner and even held a congress of the underground party and invited foreign journalists (the congress was held in the flat of one of the participants). The KGB persecuted Novodvorskaya and again sent her to psychiatric hospitals, but to general hospitals where there was no torture. Although sitting in a hospital with seriously mentally ill people for several months for a healthy person is also a form of torture. The congress was eventually dispersed and Novodvorskaya was arrested several more times for throwing leaflets in Moscow. She was again placed under compulsory psychiatric examination and the torture returned, but only for a fortnight. After two weeks, Gorbachev came to power and Valeria was released due to ‘changes in the situation in the country’
On 8 May 1988, she became one of the participants in the creation of the first opposition party in the USSR, Democratic Union. Since 1988 she regularly appeared in the illegal newspaper of the Moscow organisation of the Democratic Union ‘Svobodnoe Slovo’, and in 1990 the newspaper's eponymous publishing house published a collection of her articles. In September 1990, after publishing an article entitled ‘Heil, Gorbachev!’ in the party newspaper Svobodnoe Slovo and speaking at rallies where she tore up portraits of Mikhail Gorbachev, she was accused of publicly insulting the honour and dignity of the USSR president and insulting the state flag
After the collapse of the USSR, she supported Boris Yeltsin, but demanded from him the development of success - a complete ban of the Communist Party. In September 1993, after President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree to dissolve the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, she was one of the first to support this decree. She organised rallies in support of the president. After the storming of the Supreme Soviet building by troops loyal to Yeltsin, Novodvorskaya drank champagne and treated passers-by in the street in honour of his victory over the Congress and Parliament
In March 2010, she signed the Russian opposition's appeal ‘Putin must go away’
On 12 July 2014, she was hospitalised in intensive care, as reported by a number of media outlets, she died in her 65th year of life from phlegmon of the left foot complicated by sepsis. According to her relatives, she had received the injury on her left foot six months earlier and tried to cure it on her own, because Valeria feared and hated doctors
Novodvorskaya did not marry or start a family, because, according to her, ‘the KGB deprived her of such an opportunity back in 1969’. ‘A person who condemns himself to fight the KGB cannot be responsible for his children, cannot vouch for their fate. He makes them hostages... The mother is in one camp, the father in another. What should a child do in this situation? In my opinion, complete irresponsibility.’ Novodvorskaya has held liberal views all her life. She was a consistent opponent of communism and fascism. From a young age she was convinced that as soon as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union stops ‘raping’ the people, ‘they will immediately start enjoying freedoms and rights with joy, with delight, and will begin to build capitalism’. She also advocated a boycott of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Communist China, explaining that democratic nations had no right to support a totalitarian country. In many ways, her views were close to libertarian, although she called the libertarian party's programme unserious and, if anyone tried to implement it seriously, even dangerous
Some Russian liberals called Novodvorskaya the grandmother of Russian democracy and the eternal oppositionist

Sources: russian-language and English-language wikipedia and memoirs by Novodvorskaya herself

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
It blanched as I probed its bland expression. I blanched as it probed my morbid curiosity. The imp of the perverse, the death drive, the call of the void. My head. Carved into her snout, Hornet’s bottomless eyes beckoned. I couldn’t pull away. I couldn’t breathe. My reflection hypnotically mimicked my every attempt at breaking out of the non-existent cage whence seethed my last dram of denial. Alluring in its cruelest facade. ‘Such is the most pristine quality of humans.’ What am I then. Was it the only surviving echo of my nature? Is this what I am. There has to be something beneath its foul head. Curiosity? I say, that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, that are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them. Why.
I examined my impossible anatomy, unsure on how I was even able to do so having no eyeballs. I repelled the imagery of sticking my fingers in my eye sockets. I timidly raised my hands, my gown hanging from my arms and inflating into a tide of carmine drapery. My fingers trembling. I patted my cheeks, if so they could be called, with circumspection. Smooth and cold as marble. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disturbed by the unreadability of my forcibly motionless expression. I let out a sterile sigh. Still, my voice unnerved me the most. The one hint at my humanity in that labyrinth of unknown chitin, and yet diametrically opposed to what I was. Its tender quality. Once soothing, now funereal.
Before I could divert my inquiry as to how I could speak or breathe without a mouth I was interrupted by a gurgling groan behind me. I turned to Leth, slumped on his back like a pile of rags. He was holding his neck with his left hand and fiddling with a slim object with his other. He started fidgeting with it even more frantically upon locking eyes with me. I approached him, wooly and still uncoordinated in my gait. Once I’d taken a few steps closer, I realized it was a cellphone. I attempted to sprint at him only to expectedly topple to the ground. We both whimpered, I exasperated and he condemned. I got up and tottered my way to him. He twisted on his side to shelter his last resort. I chucked myself onto him and brawled for the phone. He let go of his neck to shove my head away as I sank my sharp fingers into his right arm. Blood was squirting from a tiny slit in his jugular. He was smearing it all over my face. Gasping, mewling. I hunched over him, still clenching his arm, and pressed my foot onto his crotch. He curled up howling in pain and loosened the grip on the phone. I snatched it and stumbled away, panting. His cry bubbled sickeningly.
I looked at the screen. 3 AM. Leth was dialing an unknown number. As numb as I was from all that happened, it was clear who he was trying to call. I glanced back at him. Huddled and bleeding. Cuddled and bleating. An unforeseen sense of pride unfolded to eradicate the forest of fear and pain where I’d wandered that night, and everything that had mangled my soul up until then flapped into the darkness. An adrenaline aflame intimated me to dial that number and face Ari and William, standing tall over their broken pawn. An adrenaline blazing brighter than the rudimentary survival instincts that I’d foolishly let take over during the shootout. A winner against all odds, the winner of a game so unfair its own players can’t stay but oblivious of its existence. So I believed myself to be until my gaze crossed a humbling Hornet, slouching and smothered in crimson handprints in the glass door. So I believed myself to be until my gaze crossed the maimed corpses resting on the impious grounds of a convenience store. I looked at my reflection. And I realized I’d died in there with them.
That death is a leveler, I already experienced. Then why was I denied to lie in that stench of flesh and metal. By what facility could I have been affranchised from the end. The end in which those maimed corpses and Leth would’ve wayfared while their vestiges attest their toll. By what facility could I have been pruned from the branches that furcate from one, ubiquitous uterus into the fronds that wither back to their roots. Why. A rage unspeakable. An envy palpable. Why can’t myself open that door and lunge at me with his eyes bulging and foam at the mouth and flay me alive or tear my skull out to dig into the most chasmic pulp and eviscerate me and phagocytize me whole and wear my hardened skin as his rich spoils and point his neck and hands at the sky and split it apart and then be expunged by the silence and lie with those maimed corpses and Leth. Why can he not do this instead of rippling in a pool of blood a few feet away. Why is he there, while I stare at a foreboding being in a red robe and its horns far too long. Where are you. Come and take me. You’re dead. Why am I not.
I pulled myself together. The wind was still humming. Leth was yieldingly ceasing to gasp for air. I examined my surroundings. Not a soul. I spotted my gun laying by the curb. I walked towards it, and to my dismay I noticed I was starting to steer my new weight and proportions more confidently. It is it. My shadow swayed on the pavement like a dark banner waved by surrendering gales. I picked up the gun and returned to the 7-11. Do I embrace it. What point to rebel. Back at the glass door, I looked at my dress. Its mundanity and prettiness disgustingly clashed with the insect-esque head towering from the collar. I felt the same embarrassment I derived from my voice. It is it. I laid Leth’s phone and my gun on the floor, I peeled the gown off and tossed it to my side. My body jet black, no discernible features whatsoever other than a sylphlike, symmetrical exoskeleton shimmering in the light of the lamp post. And yet, I already felt less naked.
I made my way back to Leth. His eyes were almost as opaque as when he was the one standing over me. Only this time they were sincere. Bits of flesh were caught in his beard. His jacket was drenched in blood. I stared at it. It is it. Might as well make it my own. I’d never really cared about my attire, and yet in that jacket I saw a faint glimmer of deliverance. Masculine. Human. I bent over and unzipped it. He was wearing a light vest beneath, covered in swollen buckshot marks. Leth’s final fervor was reduced to a few listless scratches on my torso in an instinctual attempt to push me away. I painstakingly turned him over to slip off his arms from the sleeves. I wore it only to realize it was about the same size as the dress. My legs barely peeked from the bottom, my arms swallowed in the sleeves. Better than nothing.
I picked the phone and the gun back up and returned to my car. The door was still wide open, the keys in the ignition. I hopped onto the driver’s seat. I couldn’t reach the pedal. I paused for a moment before slamming my hands against the wheel in frustration. I immediately regretted it, as the honk traveled far into the night without caring to warn me whether it alerted anyone or not. I stepped out and sourly prepared to walk all the way home before planning what I would’ve done if somebody saw me like this. I glanced at Leth. Motionless. I stared at his phone. Daring. I tried to dial 911, but the touch screen didn’t react to my fingertips. I sighed and approached Leth. I lifted his hand and used it to tap the numbers. His arm flumped to the ground. Then rang the phone.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“An armed man has shot two people to death at the 7-11 where I’m currently at.” My throat ached. It was the first time I’d spoken a full sentence with that set of vocal chords.
“What’s the address of your emergency?”
“There is no emergency. He’s dead.”
“Ma’am, where are you? Are you injured?”
“He’s associated with two men living in Adelaide, Australia. Their names are Ari Gibson and William Pellen. Could you connect me to the South Australia Police?”
“Ma’am, I first need to know where you are. If there’s been a murder, we will dispatch an operator to your location.”
“I believe they may have murdered a man I know.”
“Okay. What’s your name, ma’am?”
“It was me.”
I hung up. I dropped the phone on Leth’s body. He didn’t wince. I walked back to my car and picked up the gun from the seat. I took the deserted road stretching far into the fields, and one final look at the gas station and 7-11.
TO BE CONTINUED

Previous posts
Introduction/Methodology
236-250
221-235
206-220
191-205
176-190
164-175
155-163
140-154
131-139
121-130
111-120
110-101
100-91
90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
50-41
Master List
All stats and info through the 2023 season.
I forgot to write an intro for this, and I'm kind of racing to get these done before the playoffs are over, so go ahead and enjoy ten more entries without any of my babbling to precede it.

• 40. Walt Frazier - 335.4
  
  • Career - 247.5
    • 1968-1980
    • NYK, CLE
    • 113.5 Win Shares
    • 0.242 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (1 top-five finish: 1970 - 4th)
    • 4x All-NBA First Team Selection (1970, 1972, 1974, 1975)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1971, 1972)
    • 7x All-Star Selection (1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 7x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975)
    • 5.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 1970 NYK, 1973 NYK)
    • 3.3 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1972 NYK)
    • 6.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1969 NYK, 1971 NYK, 1974 NYK)
  • Peak - 423.3
    • 1970-1974
  • Other achievements
    • NIT champion (1967)
    • NIT MVP (1967)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1975)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (5,040; 71st all-time)
    • 10 retired by the New York Knicks
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Look, I know it's a better "story" that Willis Reed won the 1970 Finals MVP, being the league MVP that season and "coming back" from injury to play Game 7 of the Finals. Except that Reed played 27 minutes of Game 7 and scored four points, three rebounds and an assist, whereas Frazier played 44 minutes and put up 36/7/19. The series averages were a bit more debatable, with Reed going for 23.0/10.5/2.8 while Frazier had 17.6/7.7/10.4. But Frazier played in all seven games to Reed's six. It just really feels like that should've been his Finals MVP that year.
  • The 1973 Finals are much more of a toss-up. Five guys (Bill Bradley, Frazier, Reed, Earl Monroe, and Dave DeBusschere) all averaged between 15.6 and 18.6 for the series. You could probably talk me into any one of those five, but I'd probably go Reed that year.
  • Regardless, and with all due respect to Patrick Ewing, Frazier is probably the greatest Knick in franchise history.
• 39. Dave Cowens - 335.9
  
  • Career - 237.1
    • 1971-1980, 1983
    • BOS, MIL
    • 86.3 Win Shares
    • 1.995 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes, 1 win: 1973 - 1st, 1974 - 4th, 1975 - 2nd, 1976 - 3rd)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1973, 1975, 1976)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980)
    • 1x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1976)
    • 4.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 1974 BOS, 1976 BOS)
    • 3.8 Conference Finals Win Shares (4 Conf. Finals losses - 1972 BOS, 1973 BOS, 1975 BOS, 1980 BOS)
  • Peak - 434.8
    • 1972-1976
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (1971)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1973)
    • 2x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (1975, 1980)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (10,444; 36th all-time)
    • 18 retired by the Boston Celtics
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Cowens has the rare and probably never-to-be-matched distinction of being the only MVP winner in NBA history to never make the All-NBA First Team. Bill Russell was the MVP while on the Second Team three times (1958, 1960, 1961), but he made the First Team in other seasons. Cowens was the MVP on the Second Team in 1973, but never did crack the First Team in his career.
  • I know this is probably a bit higher than most people probably rank Cowens, but his peak from 1973-1976 is pretty nuts: one MVP and three more top-five finishes, plus being the best player on one title team (1976) and the second best on another (1974) pulls his score up quite a bit.
• 1. Dwight Howard - 338.7
  • Career - 270.1
    • 2005-2022
    • ORL, LAL, HOU, ATL, CHO, WAS, LAL, PHI, LAL
    • 141.7 Win Shares
    • 1.250 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes: 2008 - 5th, 2009 - 4th, 2010 - 4th, 2011 - 2nd)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
    • 1x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2014)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2007, 2013)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
    • 3x Defensive Player of the Year (2009, 2010, 2011)
    • 4x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
    • 1.0 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 2020 LAL)
    • 4.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2009 ORL)
    • 3.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 2010 ORL, 2015 HOU)
  • Peak - 407.3
    • 2008-2012
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2008)
    • T1 League (Taiwan) Most Valuable Import (2023)
    • All-T1 League First Team Selection (2023)
    • T1 League All-Defensive First Team Selection (2023)
    • T1 League All-Star (2023)
    • T1 League All-Star Game MVP (2023)
    • 1x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (14,627; 10th all-time)
  • What do we say about Dwight Howard? Amazing defensive presence. Best center of his generation. Not the most offensively gifted player. Not the greatest basketball IQ. Kind of a weirdo? We could go all kinds of different ways here. One thing is definitely certain though: from 2007-2011 (and part of 2012 until he decided he wanted out of Orlando), Howard was one of the 3-5 best players in the game. If he was on your team, you, at the very least, had one of the best defenses in basketball. The Magic's defensive rating those years was 6th, 6th, 1st, 3rd, and 3rd. Could you build an offense around him? No. Did he realize this? Unfortunately, no. That was his ultimate downfall is he wanted to be the offensive star just by virtue of being the defensive star, but didn't have the skill set for it. But surround him with shooters, almost against his will, and that's a very dangerous team. If he was anchoring a 3-and-D team in today's game, they would be legitimately scary.
  • Even after saying all of that, I think Howard's nomad years hurt his legacy more than anything, and I'm not entirely sure why. If it was the prevailing wisdom that nobody wanted him, or that he couldn't make it work anywhere, or what, but his post 2012 career adds virtually nothing to his score. Even the 2020 title only gives him 12 points, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like we should give him more credit for wanting to keep playing so badly (even to the point of playing in Taiwan and, currently, Puerto Rico), but it's just this odd misfit characterization that he can't shake.
  • And even after saying all of that, his exclusion from the 75th Anniversary Team invalidates that entire project for me. To the point that I made my own NBA75 list just for my own peace of mind. (And a good time to remind everyone that was not the NBA's actual 75th anniversary the year they did that., but we're entrenched now and it'll probably never be corrected.)
• 37. George Gervin - 342.2
  
  • Career - 277.5
    • 1973-1976 (ABA), 1977-1986
    • VIR, SAA/SAS, CHI
    • 88.1 Win Shares
    • 1.860 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes: 1978 - 2nd, 1979 - 2nd, 1980 - 3rd, 1981 - 5th)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1977, 1983)
    • 9x All-Star Selection (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985)
    • 4.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1979 SAS, 1982 SAS, 1983 SAS)
    • 28.2 ABA Win Shares
    • 2x All-ABA Second Team Selection (1975, 1976)
    • 3x ABA All-Star Selection (1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 1.4 ABA Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 1976 SAA)
  • Peak - 406.8
    • 1978-1982
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1980)
    • 20,000 Point Club (20,708; 45th all-time)
    • 44 retired by the San Antonio Spurs
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Maybe a bit too high for Gervin, but not much. He was amazing. He's getting the upper-echelon ABA boost that I talked about with Artis Gilmore, though not nearly to as strong of a degree. But how can you not love a player who's profile boils down to "he was nicknamed 'The Iceman' and invented the finger roll"?
  • Gervin also had a bit of a winding career to the NBA. He went to Eastern Michigan University, which was a Division II school at the time. In 1972 as a sophomore, Gervin led the team to the Final Four of the Division II tourney, where he then punched an opposing player and got himself suspended for a full season.
  • Rather than stay at EMU, Gervin went to the Pontiac Chaparrals of the Continental Basketball Association. (This was a different Continental Basketball Association than the one Isiah Thomas drove into the ground in the late 1990s/early 2000s, which originally grew out of the Eastern Basketball Association. This CBA was founded in the Great Lakes area in the 1970s as a way to keep local semi-professional football players in shape in the offseason.)
  • From there, Gervin was scouted by a few ABA teams, but signed with the Virginia Squires prior to the 1973 season. The next season, the Squires started to go under financially, and traded Gervin to the San Antonio Spurs for something like $250,000.
  • At this point, prior to the 1975 season, Gervin was eligible for the NBA draft, and was drafted by the Suns, but he decided to stay with the Spurs. (At this point in time, players were not allowed to go to the NBA prior to completing four years of college. There were some "hardship exceptions," but they were incredibly byzantine and hard to get approved. Gervin would've been a senior in 1974, so, since his college eligibility was now up, despite having played professionally for multiple years, his name went into the 1974 draft.)
  • Then, since he was already on the Spurs when the leagues merged, he just stayed there. (Sorry, Phoenix.) As a side note, the "Final Four" of the final ABA season in 1976 was nuts. They got rid of conferences, for one thing, so you had the Gervin-led Spurs against the Julius Erving-led Nets in one semifinal, and the David Thompson/Dan Issel-led Nuggets against the Artis Gilmore-led Kentucky Colonels in the other. Eventually, Erving outdueled Thompson as the Nets beat the Nuggets in six games. It's just weird when you compare it to the NBA for the same year. The East was a fairly loaded Celtics team (Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, etc) against a Cavaliers team with a 34-year-old Nate Thurmond as probably the only player an average basketball fan would recognize. And in the West, the Paul Westphal-led Suns stunned the Rick Barry-led Warriors. (Boston over Phoenix in six in those Finals.) As much as the NBA would like to have you believe they bailed out those ABA teams by absorbing them, the league desperately needed the influx of talented players.
  • Anyway, Gervin played ten years in the NBA altogether (and still got to 20,000 points without even including his ABA numbers), including a final season in Chicago with a young Michael Jordan in 1986.
  • Gervin then played a year in Italy, a year back in the states with the Quad City Thunder of the Continental Basketball Association (this time it is the one Isiah Thomas bankrupted), and then a year in Spain before retiring at 38.
• 36. Kawhi Leonard - 349.1
  
  • Career - 260.1
    • 2012-2021, 2023
    • SAS, TOR, LAC
    • 90.4 Win Shares
    • 1.160 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes: 2016 - 2nd, 2017 - 3rd, 2020 - 5th)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (2016, 2017, 2021)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2019, 2020)
    • 5x All-Star Selection (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021)
    • 2x Defensive Player of the Year (2015, 2016)
    • 3x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2015, 2016, 2017)
    • 7.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 2014 SAS, 2019 TOR)
    • 3.1 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2013 SAS)
    • 4.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 2012 SAS, 2017 SAS, 2021 LAC)
    • 2x Finals MVP (2014, 2019)
  • Peak - 438.1
    • 2016-2020
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2020)
    • 4x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2014, 2019, 2020, 2021)
  • Leonard being this high was somewhat surprising to me, because you kind of just think "all that for one (admittedly incredible) championship run? So let's break this down a little bit.
  • In my mind, there's pre-superstar Spurs Kawhi, superstar Raptors Kawhi, and always-injured Clippers Kawhi. But that's not entirely accurate. His first Finals MVP was definitely in his pre-superstar days, but after that, San Antonio Kawhi was a monster. He finished top three in MVP voting twice and was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. In 2016, he became the seventh player to win Defensive Player of the Year while also averaging at least 20 points per game. Dwight Howard (twice), Michael Jordan, Sidney Moncrief (twice), Alonzo Mourning (twice), Hakeem Olajuwon (twice), and David Robinson were the players who had done it before. (And Giannis Antetokounmpo has done it since, for eight players altogether.) He was also the best player on a 67-win team. (2016 was nuts. There have only been four teams to win 67+ games and not win the title, and two of them happened in 2016. The 1973 Celtics won 68 games and lost in the Conference Finals, and the 2007 Mavericks won 67 games and lost in the first round, to go along with the 2016 Spurs and Warriors.)
  • Then we had Toronto Kawhi, where the regular season didn't really matter much, but who had 4.9 win shares in the playoffs, which is the seventh-most in a single playoff run, behind Tim Duncan in 2003 (5.9), LeBron James in 2012 (5.8), Dirk Nowitzki in 2006 (5.4), LeBron in 2013 (5.2), LeBron in 2018 (5.2), and Nikola Jokic in 2023 (5.0).
  • Then we have Clippers Kawhi, who is still undeniably good, but hasn't reached those same levels as 2016-2019. 2020 was close - he finished fifth in MVP voting that year, but the Clippers deciding the bubble was a sham (I guess?) kind of killed anything they had there and he's been hurt since. The Clippers did make the Conference Finals in 2021, but Kawhi got hurt in the playoffs, so he didn't actually play in the Conference Finals that year (but he does get credit for his playoff performance up to his injury that year, however.) All in all, his Clippers tenure doesn't really add a whole lot to his legacy.
• 35. Steve Nash - 354.6
  
  • Career - 275.2
    • 1997-2014
    • PHO, DAL, PHO, LAL
    • 129.7 Win Shares
    • 2.429 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes, 2 wins: 2005 - 1st, 2006 - 1st, 2007 - 2nd)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (2005, 2006, 2007)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2008, 2010)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2002, 2003)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012)
    • 8.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (4 Conf. Finals losses - 2003 DAL, 2005 PHO, 2006 PHO, 2010 PHO)
  • Peak - 434.0
    • 2004-2008
  • Other achievements
    • 2x WCC Player of the Year (1995, 1996)
    • 1x Citizenship Award (2007)
    • 1x AmeriCup Silver Medalist (1999)
    • 1x AmeriCup Bronze Medalist (2001)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (10,335; 5th all-time)
    • 13 retired by the Phoenix Suns
    • FIBA Hall of Fame Inductee (2020)
  • Nash is my highest-rated player to never play in the Finals, which is kind of crazy to think about just how many great players have at least played in the Finals, if not won a championship.
  • A lot of people say Kyle Lowry is the prime example of a "late bloomer" in the NBA, but I really think Nash is the prototype. Yes, he made a couple All-Star teams and All-NBA Third Teams in Dallas, but going from that to the MVP in Phoenix felt like it came out of nowhere. I mean, imagine if, say, Julius Randle switched teams next year and won the MVP. That's what Nash's MVP season felt like. And then he arguably kept getting better.
• 34. Chris Paul - 359.2
  
  • Career - 354.0
    • 2006-2023
    • NOK/NOH, LAC, HOU, OKC, PHO
    • 205.1 Win Shares
    • 1.808 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (5 top-five finishes: 2008 - 2nd, 2009 - 5th, 2012 - 3rd, 2013 - 4th, 2021 - 5th)
    • 4x All-NBA First Team Selection (2008, 2012, 2013, 2014)
    • 5x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2009, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2011, 2022)
    • 12x All-Star Selection (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022)
    • 7x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
    • 2.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2021 PHO)
    • 2.1 Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 2018 HOU)
  • Peak - 364.4
    • 2012-2016
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (2006)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2013)
    • 2x All-Defensive Second Team selection (2008, 2011)
    • 2x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008, 2012)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 20,000 Point Club (21,755; 37th all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (11,501; 3rd all-time)
  • Paul's late career resurgence was something I did not see coming. I thought his career was basically done by the end of his Clippers tenure, and that anyone taking on his huge contract was just desperately hoping to recapture some faded magic of a big name. But nope! He did well in Houston, he was an All-Star in Oklahoma City, he helped get Phoenix to the Finals. It really was quite the master class in "floor general"-ism.
• 33. Dwyane Wade - 376.0
  
  • Career - 314.1
    • 2004-2019
    • MIA, CHI, CLE, MIA
    • 120.7 Win Shares
    • 0.794 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (2 top-five finishes: 2009 - 3rd, 2010 - 5th)
    • 2x All-NBA First Team Selection (2009, 2010)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2005, 2006, 2011)
    • 3x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2007, 2012, 2013)
    • 13x All-Star Selection (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019)
    • 9.7 Championship Win Shares (3 titles - 2006 MIA, 2012 MIA, 2013 MIA)
    • 4.9 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 2011 MIA, 2014 MIA)
    • 2.1 Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 2005 MIA)
    • 1x Finals MVP (2006)
  • Peak - 437.9
    • 2009-2013
  • Other achievements
    • Conference USA Player of the Year (2003)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2010)
    • 3x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2005, 2009, 2010)
    • 1x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008)
    • 1x Olympic Bronze Medalist (2004)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 20,000 Point Club (23,165; 32nd all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (5,701; 47th all-time)
    • 3 retired by the Miami Heat
  • There is an argument to be made that Wade is the third-best shooting guard of all time. This argument largely hinges on whether or not you consider Jerry West and/or James Harden to be shooting guards. I would say West was a point guard who sometimes played shooting guard, and Harden was a shooting guard who sometimes played point guard. But regardless, if you want to count both of those guys as "combo guards" or whatever, then Wade has to be third on the "pure shooting guard" ranking list.
• 32. Dolph Schayes - 376.8
  
  • Career - 341.7
    • 1950-1964
    • SYPHI
    • 141.8 Win Shares
    • 1.196 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes: 1956 - 5th, 1957 - 4th, 1958 - 2nd)
    • 6x All-NBA First Team Selection (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958)
    • 6x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1950, 1951, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961)
    • 12x All-Star Selection (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962)
    • 1.8 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1955 SYR)
    • 4.1 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 1950 SYR, 1954 SYR)
    • 6.7 Conference Finals Win Shares (6 Conf. Finals losses - 1951 SYR, 1952 SYR, 1956 SYR, 1957 SYR, 1959 SYR, 1961 SYR)
  • Peak - 411.9
    • 1954-1958
  • Other achievements
    • NBL Rookie of the Year (1949)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (11,256; 29th all-time)
    • 4 retired by the Philadelphia 76ers
    • 1x Coach of the Year (1966)
  • Dolph Schayes was born in 1928. That's important to the story because Dolph Schayes' full name is "Adolph." It's pretty easy to imagine a young Adolph Schayes in the 1940s grabbing a newspaper and saying "well, son of a bitch..." Now, there aren't a lot of famous "Dolph's" out there, but when I looked up the name to try to find more famous examples, there are a few, mostly athletes, and then Dolph Lundgren. All have the full name "Adolph," and all except Lundgren were born before World War II. And you really have to admire the balls of Dolph Lundgren's parents, who, in 1957, decided to give their baby the name of the most notorious mass murderer in history, and thought, "we're taking the name back!" And I mean, it's a pretty cool name if you've got Old English or German roots - it's a portmanteau of "noble" and "wolf," so if you wanted to name your son something badass, "Adolph" was a good bet. Just one more thing Hitler ruined for everyone.
• 31. Bob Cousy - 390.4
  
  • Career - 353.2
    • 1951-1963, 1970
    • BOS, CIN
    • 91.1 Win Shares
    • 1.747 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes, 1 win: 1956 - 3rd, 1957 - 1st, 1959 - 4th, 1960 - 4th)
    • 10x All-NBA First Team Selection (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1962, 1963)
    • 13x All-Star Selection (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963)
    • 4.7 Championship Win Shares (6 titles - 1957 BOS, 1959 BOS, 1960 BOS, 1961 BOS, 1962 BOS, 1963 BOS)
    • 1.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1958 BOS)
    • 1.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1953 BOS, 1954 BOS, 1955 BOS)
  • Peak - 427.6
    • 1957-1961
  • Other achievements
    • NCAA champion (1947)
    • 2x All-Star Game MVP (1954, 1957)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (6,955; 21st all-time)
    • 14 retired by the Boston Celtics
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Cousy had one of the coolest nicknames ever, which was "The Houdini of the Hardwood," and if you ever go find some highlights of some of his moves, and keep in mind the rules for palming and carrying the ball while he played were extremely strict, I think you'd be legitimately amazed at some of the stuff he was doing in the 1950s.
  • I should note that Cousy's "peak" years here (1957-1961) probably don't coincide with his actual peak as a player. It's just that those seasons are the years the MVP started getting voted on, so Cousy gets far more points in those seasons than he does in his earlier seasons. (Also note Cousy's score would probably be a little higher had MVP voting been around for his entire career.)