As of this year I have finally achieved a net worth of 6 figures~ (108k to be exact).
TLDR; save schmoney and get that honey! P.S. skip to “EDIT”. Im illiterate and lost all my brain cells watching tIkTok so I wrote my original post incorrectly and confused some folks.
I started doing a traineeship at 17-18 as a receptionist earning $20,000 a year with no money to my name and now in just 4 years here I am (I moved out at 18 too with no help).
For the first 2.5 years I aimed to saved 20,000 a year in a high interest savings account.
Since late 2019 I've been dipping my feet into investing a small amount and I admit, I've lost a lot of money. Since then, I've learned my investing behaviors, improved my knowledge and hope to start making real gains.
I don't drive because I'm scared to get my P's lol - so that's obviously helped.
I didn't go to uni since I didn't know what I wanted to do and that definitely helped since I don't need to pay any fees (I'm a permanent resident and tbh kinda stupid when I was 17 I thought I had to pay since I wasn't a citizen yet oh well) This let me work full-time and get into the office early.
I haven't travelled anywhere which is a shame but it has helped with my savings. As travel restrictions ease, I hope I can see more of the world soon!
I'm typing here because I'm proud of myself and I don't have anyone to share my success with.
I'd like to thank this subreddit for guiding me and to everyone for sharing their FIRE goals and tips.
EDIT:
Damn I didn't expect to get this many replies. Sorry for not clarifying!
​

• A description of the journey you took to get to where you presently are.

2016: graduate HS (17 yrs old)
2017: 18 years old doing a 1 year traineeship as a receptionist where I lived at home, my contract meant I was paid only 20k a year and because I lived at home I could save 10k that year.
2018 - Moved out in February and got my first real job as a receptionist on 60k p.a - that allowed me to save more lol hence the 20k savings a year. I turned 19 in may. I didn't ask or get any help from my parents because my parents are divorced, my dad and I are estranged and my mom was struggling to raise me and my brother :( I don't have any family here either that I can depend on, it's just me. Rent was $200 a week and idk about bills but it was between 4 people. How I moved out? Abusive household :x
2019 - Still renting, same job, same pay, continue to lived frugally, hit goal of 20k savings in bank account again, invested $5000 lost like $2000 lol but it's okay I was expecting to lose since I didn't know what I was doing. And for me I was scared coz I worked so hard to save all this money and here I am losing it. Rent was the same, bills the same.
2020 - still renting, same job, salary increase to 63k a year for added responsibilities, continue to live below my means, hit goal of 20k savings in bank account. Learned more about investing, portfolio is now $10k not from gains but from me topping up my funds slowly. No real gains, just learning. New rental for $250, bills for 4 people.
2021 - still renting, same job but now I'm an office assistant and receptionist, same salary, , live below my means, still looking to save 20k this year but I also hope to see some gains for once in my life since I reevaluated my portfolio. I'm only young and I'm trying my best. There really is no trick to it I'm literally saving 20,000 a year that's it (just under $400 a week if you break it down. Rent for $250 incl. bills.
Lifestyle: Don't drink or party because I have no friends or a social life :( I take public transport and walk everywhere, I shop budget at groceries, I try to cook at home because I'm also living an active lifestyle and drinking/eating out too much etc won't work in the long term for my health fitness goals. I didn't go to uni, I don't have a car and I'm still on my Ls which are set to expire next month oops.
Honestly the sacrifice was that I haven't lived...I can't go to nice places, I see so many girls doing their hair, makeup, nails lashes but I jsut don't even though I want to. I've haven't travelled overseas at all by myself. I was scared that If I don't hit this goal of 100k by 23 I'll be in trouble, what if I'm sick ,etc what if I need surgery because I don't have anyone to depend on. I've been working full time since 17 while my friends can party, go overseas, go to brunches and road trips I can't do any of that :( At the back of mind I just think about how I will never ever let someone have power over me because they control my finances and render me hopeless. I grew up in an environment where I was silenced and beat because I had no choice but to obey the authority. I, one day want my own home where I can say this is mine. I did this. You all tried to beat me down but here I am due to my own will. And when I think about that, I owe it to myself to do this now and work for a better future.
Note: Current figures below
HostPlus Indexed Balanced Super: 20,925.47
Westpac LifeSavings acct: $61188.97
Portfolio: $25,885.56 at the time of writing but I gained $1,925.63 today (yay!) Please also note that I've only recently been strengthening my portfolio, and I'm talking December 20 where i was still losing. Most of the sum here was transferred from my bank account but I've made gains of 5k so far this year since I reevaluated my portfolio in early jan. My next goal is to earn 20k a year from my portfolio so that way I can have a total of 40k savings/earnings a year. I don't know if I can do this but we can only try! I've got a lock of stocks yes (don't come for me), but I'm getting into ETF'S now and will build them up over the years ahead.
If there's a few thousand that doesn't add up it's probably the scraps I salvaged from my tax return lol. I'm no math guru sorry but I have no interest in trying to trick anyone here lol.

• What your past/current strategy has been and an evaluation of its performance.

It's pretty dumb LOL, I get why some of ya'll be pressed in the comments. I literally made this 20k a year savings plan when I got my real job at 18 and just went with it. Like I don't want this stuff to be hard, I just want life to be simple and to be happy. I would've started investing in ETF's earlier and salary sacrificed to my super more (just $200 a week). I didn't need to be so stressed and needed to trust myself to get out of my shitty situation. Moving forward gonna get rid of me stonks and learn how to go about ETF's smartly for the long run and idk if anyone has pointers please share. I don't really have any skills so I'm going to get a diploma and just keep learning, because the more I earn the more I can save/invest right? For anyone that's curious how this relates to FIRE, retirement isn't on the radar yet but being financially independent is a part of FIRE and I think I'm on my way there :)
Jks just go to ASX_bets and look for rocket emojis! 🚀🚀🚀
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• Advice for others who may be in a similar situation to you.

May not be the most impressive or savvy way but it's how I did it.

• Make a rule. I note down all my expenses and then see what I have leftover from my salary. I want to save as much as I can so my priority is to "pay myself" first. Work out a decent amount to give yourself for spending and literally put everything else away. Doesn't matter if it's only $200 or if you can save $1000+ It's about building lifelong habits, it might suck at first but you become accustomed to it. Build good habits, maintain consistency
• Learn basic financial concepts. I just read the ASIC's Moneysmart website and the Barefoot investor. It's like weightlifting, once you get a hold of the basics you can just grow them gains baby. It was really confusing though, lots of books are for idk, money-savvy older people based in America in suits or something. I asked myself wtf is a ROTH IRA so many times. Lots of things out there are really complicated and don't help/target young people so I just figured out my own way. It can be really overwhelming and confusing stuff, but don't worry it's okay! Do it for you and learn things that serve you and help you reach your goals. F*** derivatives, whatever the hell that means!
• Lifestyle changes: Re-evaluate what's necessary. For me, it's the gym and eating out once or twice a week at your local Vietnamese for $11 pho lol, so my life isn't very expensive. My interests are very inexpensive, I enjoy walking outside to meet my daily step count, I enjoy playing games at home, I love cooking at home and it means I get to hone my cooking skills. I like my makeup and I value looking presentable but I buy drugstore makeup when they're on sale (thank you Priceline you are my life), no Fenty beauty for me :( Buy staple clothing, obviously buy stuff that makes you look and feel good but you defs don't need to get that corset top from House of CB because like...no I take it back. It's a need.
• Know your why: If your reason is strong enough you'll just do it.
• To anyone from abusive homes or relationships, one day you will escape and be able to live life on your terms. I didn't think it was necessary to go on a whole spiel about my story but keep your head up high you will make it, and you will heal in your own pace. I felt like my life truly began when I moved out...it's a hard and lonely journey but it will be very rewarding in the end. I couldn't afford therapy and still haven't gone but using kids helpline (free hotline for kids, teens and young adults up to the age of 25) really helped me when I needed to be heard.
• Please live your youth if you're my age or just live life in general! When you're in survival mode you can't enjoy the pleasures of life because you don't have a choice. Make it a goal to do something exciting every month or however often you have the time, money and resources to do so. For example, for valentine's Day I'm going on a picnic and making a cheese platter for two for $35! It's cute, affordable and sweet :D

Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.
Sun Tzu, Art of War
Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.
Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
I was wrong! Blow the bridge! Blow the fucking bridge!
Tugg Speedman, Tropic Thunder
Hello again GME Gang! It’s been a while since I last ranted at you, but I know we’ve been in some very good hands here at WSB with all the great DD folks have posted over the past few weeks. So no need for CPT Hubbard to go for 11 again on the Thumbscroll Dial (until today, that is). I’ve enjoyed a lot of these posts very much, so thank you on behalf of myself and the attention-deficient Rocket Children for continuing to deliver that 100% Chaff-Free GME-grade Wheat at such a feverish clip.
Now, I am going to get to Hong Kong’s Lamest Outlaw and his disconcertingly vacant eyes here shortly. But first I want to take you on a journey back to Christmas Eve, in the year of our lord 2020—a heady time in all our lives. We were all so young and innocent then, weren’t we? Fresh off the run up to 22. Blissfully oblivious that we were living in the last moments where the question What is The War of 1812? was the only acceptable Jeopardy question for the answer: The Last Time the Goddamn U.S. Capitol Was Stormed. This was also before we all became irresponsibly overleveraged in Cathie Wood’s Ornamental Gourds ETF. It was a wondrous, confusing time.
But before we get too off topic, let’s all hop in my 1985 DeLorean (purchased with proceeds from my Jan 15 calls – thanks RC!), fire up the ol’ Flux Capacitor, and get that shit to 88 because something happened that evening that is Worth Pondering—particularly in light of recent events. And just as a friendly reminder: even though you’re going back in time in a DeLorean, no one here has to deviate funds away from GME shares to Save the Clock Tower and you are under no obligation to fulfill a scenario where you wind up making out with your Mom (unless your Mom is Cathie Wood like mine—in which case maybe just some quick over-the-clothes stuff).
On the Subject of How It Once ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
So what in the holy fuck happened on the night before Christmas, Captain? Well, while all you Gentiles were sleeping soundly after lying to your children about benign home intruders and before gorging yourself on the teat of late-stage capitalism, me and the rest of the Chosen People were up late eating Chinese food and thinking about tendies (self-hating Jew Joke! Ba-zing!). But then: when out on the electric twitter machine there arose such a clatter, I sprang to my phone to see what was the matter. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, a mysterious tweet from a Rich-Ass Viking who had a lot of fucking interesting things to say about this whole GME situation that’s what.
This tweet, buried as a reply to a tweet sent by Mr. Rod Alzmann (@RodAlzmann or u/Uberkikz11), simply said: “Merry Christmas. Shhh.” But it included this screen shot:
[**Image Deleted Due to the Mods - check the link below where someone transcribed it - I'll try to add later**]
Now, this tweet to Rod, sent late at night and likely after a strong Mead or three, was very promptly deleted. But your intrepid cub reporter saw this here tweet that night with his own two eyes—seeing as I am a degenerate GME addict and devoted follower of Mr. Rod Alzmann (Hi Rod!). And I took screenshots, of course, like any responsible records custodian might. And so did the dude who wrote a somewhat-overlooked WSB post on this, which included the most pertinent text of the message if you are having trouble reading it here:
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kk0omp/christmas_miracle_gamergate_2020_gme_shorts/
Now, what are we to make of this? At the time, I thought it was very interesting. But I did not give it too much attention seeing as how the internet is overcrowded with anonymous weirdos claiming to know more than they do about all sorts of subjects (and now I feel your judging eyes…). Also, there was some very good commentary in that WSB post from some sharp folks about the screenshot author’s questionable use of the shorthand PE/IB—given that private equity and investment banks wouldn’t apparently be involved in a behind-the-scenes transaction with the short funds like what was being discussed there (don’t ask me, I just string together silly words here). But maybe you poke around his Twitter a bit and see for yourself.
Still, plausibility assessments based on preferred nomenclature aside, it seemed to me that some version of that conversation had to be taking place behind the scenes in a situation like this—given the batshit insane short interest, the funds supposedly involved, and the rapid rise in SP coinciding with RC’s share accumulation, December 21st amended 13D filing, and new status as a GME Insider and Board member (just love saying all that in a row, don’t you?).
So the Viking’s screenshot tweet, and the very likely possibility that shorts are in so deep that they’re attempting to negotiate peace with large shareholders behind the scenes, stuck in my tiny little baby brain as a pretty plausible set of scenarios. And from the look of it, it seems like some funds were at least willing to discuss offering these shorts a Golden Bridge away from Certain Fucking Destruction on the open market. And if the words on the screenshot are at all aligned with reality, these short funds have no good options.
Yet it seems like they are still playing hardball to negotiate the carat on this generous bridge offer they’re getting. Why? Maybe they’ve been getting high on their own supply for so long and they don’t know how to see this situation for what it is. Who knows? Maybe there is no Ryan Cohen and we’re all living in a simulation. But if the recent low-rent anti-GME articles and market manipulation efforts we’re seeing are any indication, these overleveraged short fuckers seem to think they’re going to be able to spin out of this hold and drive the SP back down to even smaller peanuts than it’s at now by sheer force of will (and some deployment of well-honed tricks of the trade amirite?) to emerge unscathed. Or even victorious? I dunno—it’s their delusional fantasy sequence.
But do you know what this scenario reminds me of? And this is just coming to me so please bear with me as I’m not showing this to my editor before we print (I haven’t seen this movie in ages – don’t know what made me think of this!). Fuck it, I’m just gonna start riffing here. The shorts trying to thread this needle, against all odds and logic and common sense, reminds me of that hilarious scene in Dumb and Dumber where haplessly delusional Jim Carrey thinks he has a chance with Mary Samsonite Swanson. But the scene is funny because he really doesn’t. Have any chance. At all.
Now, I know this is a 1990s movie originally released on VHS that we haven’t seen it or even seen it referenced in ages. But now that you’re thinking of it again after all this time, doesn’t it remind you of this too? I know, I get it: You’d have to have fucking peanuts for brains for it not to.
(https://twitter.com/ryancohen/status/1350877969816956934?s=20)
On the Subject of the Continued Internet Bumbling of Mr. Justin Dopierala
Now that screenshot came to mind this past week when something kind of weird happened while we were all enjoying our quick rocket ship ride. And yes, we are briefly going to talk again about Seeking Alpha’s second finest pro-GME author (always been more of a Dmitriy man myself) and recurring CPT Hubbard character, Justin Dopierala (and no, Angela, I do not want to have like 10,000 of his babies).
Last Thursday, after we were all virtually high-fiving one another and counting our future Lambos, Mr. Justin Dopierala, head of Domo Capital and longstanding uber-bull GME shareholder and author at Seeking Alpha (last seen arguing pithily with our own Rod Alzmann about the conservative nature of Rod’s holiday earnings projections. Hi again Rod!), made it known that he sold all of Domo Capital’s 500,000 shares for around $42.50—at the very top of the run up last Thursday morning.
Now, Domo Capital’s business decisions are none of my goddamn business. And there are plenty of market opportunities right now. Shit, I hear there is even a new Cathie Wood Gourd ETF coming online soon that people are really excited about and that I’m sure Justin’s clients would find intriguing. But Domo’s decision to sell seemed curious given a few things: (1) on Wednesday, when the rocket is mid-flight, he got a twitter follow from Gabe Plotkin, head of Melvin Capital, which he promptly tweeted about with a “get a load of this fuckin’ guy” vibe (oh the sweet, intoxicating arrogance of tendie victory, I too love it so); (2) he had also tweeted that day comparing GME’s rise to Apron’s short squeeze that lasted 4 days—where he also stressed to his followers that Apron had a much lower SI than GME; and (3) he then promptly deleted all of these tweets and almost everything else GME-related on Thursday after apparently introducing 500,000 shares of liquidity into the height of a stressed market up and through the Thursday reversal and down into his own personal tendie town.
Now, after seeing all this, I mouthed off a bit to Justin on the electric twitter machine because that’s kind of my thing. And if you are familiar with my prior ramblings, you know that he and I go way back. In response, Justin talked a bit of shit about your intrepid cub reporter here in a comment on Dimitry Kozin’s October 21, 2020 article about a possible sony revenue share deal or something, the comment section of which has become the preferred SA water cooler over there. (And I can’t link that because Thems The Rulez). And Justin hurt my little feelings a bit with his very sharp denial. And by all means have at it over there to check out his comment about why he sold if you give a shit. That is if Justin hasn’t deleted it yet. Free country and all.
But to summarize, on the subject of treacherous coordination with Melvin Capital, Justin said he would not could not in a boat and he would not could not with a goat. And I for one believe him. And do you know why? Because even though Justin seems like a very smart guy in some ways, he’s also a well-known internet bumbler who blurts out things to his internet friends that a person with better self-control would keep to themselves. And so I do not think he is capable of pulling that off or keeping a secret like that. Also: he said he didn’t so I am more than willing to give someone the benefit of any doubt in that area and you should too. I think we keep Hanlon’s razor firmly in mind here about never attributing to malice that which is explained by stupidity. That is unless, of course, you’re Andrew Left and you’re actually trying to convince people that you didn’t realize there was a US presidential inauguration planned for the same time you announced your Super Important TeeVee Yammerfest ‘21 about GME not being a good candidate for an imminent short squeeze no way no how not if my name isn’t Andrew Left short seller expert extraordinaire and Hong Kong’s Most Misunderstood Ethically-Minded Businessman. You can ascribe the fuck out of malice to that one.
No, even though I really have no idea, I think the most likely thing that happened there was that Gabe Plotkin, Master of the Universe, Head of Melvin Capital, and Acolyte of Perennial Most Ethical Business Man MVP candidate, Steven Cohen—got into Justin’s head when Plotkin followed him on twitter during the 57% (at one point 94%) day last Wednesday and then Justin got a bit chippy about it.
And this is the real reason I’m bringing this up.
Because I honestly care very little about the Nervous Investing Habits of the Wisconsin hedge fund voted most likely to prompt a Mr. Roboto reference. No: I think that Gabe Plotkin sent a message with that follow. Without even ever having to say it directly. And I think that after GME’s huge run and getting a little overexcited while working the twitter machine, Justin maybe had a chance to relax with a warm glass of milk that night and reflect on that message. Which I believe was: I’m watching you, motherfucker. And the only reason I’m paying any attention to some shitstain Wisconsin pseudo-fund on a day like today when I am getting my ass fucking torched is because I want you to know that if this GME shit blows up on me, I’m going to fuck your ass up. I will remember the name Domo Capital forevermore. And when you least expect me, I’ll be there. Now: your move, motherfucker.
And once I realized what might have happened there, that made me feel kinda bad for Justin if he felt that way. Definitely a puss move because fuck you Plotkin I drink your fucking milkshake, right? But bad because that’s a mean message for a business colleague to send, Gabriel. Shame on you if that's how you roll like a big New York bully and scaring our poor Justin like that. And if you just wanted to follow him to shoot the shit or swap listicles and Star Wars Prequel memes with a respected contemporary—even in the very midst of getting fucking annihilated while short GME—well Justin has a totally different account for that and he’s not allowed to access it during work hours.
On The Likelihood That The Most Heavily Shorted Stock in History Is Not Being Subject to Continued Market Manipulation When A Steve Cohen Acolyte Is Losing His Fucking Shirt
Have you heard about Steve Fucking Cohen? The guy who looks like he’s tip top of the list of the premier Hollywood casting agency’s rolodex for Saddest Dipshit Still At the Strip Club After Everyone Else Has Already Gone Home? I’m sorry, that’s mean and my mother told me to always be kind to the truly hideous looking because they’re probably still beautiful on the inside (spoiler alert: he’s not!).
Get a load of this guy:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-02/why-sac-capitals-steven-cohen-isnt-in-jail
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-09-02/controversial-hedge-fund-billionaire-steven-cohen-takes-on-hollywood
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/steven-a-cohen-among-the-million-dollar-donors-to-trump-inauguration-2017-04-19
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/steve-cohen-trump
https://nypost.com/2015/06/17/billionaire-steve-cohen-bros-out-with-guy-fieri/
Are you back? I’ve missed you. That was scary, wasn’t it? But allow me to TL/DR all that for you who decided to avoid all that unpleasantness: the dude just has all this bad luck and keeps finding himself into these really awkward situations where someone could potentially question his commitment to ethical business and life practices as well as adherence to the laws of the United States and it’s just not fair and nothing’s fair and Nice Guy Steve Cohen Is The Victim Here So Just Stop Right There Mister I See What You’re Doing. He's also bros with Guy Fieri. Cool.
But why am I talking about a guy who would so clearly pass Billy Madison’s Final Question about Business Ethics without even breaking a sweat?
Because Steve Cohen once had a young Ace Protegee that he loved very much. With the name of an Archangel, so tender and pure. And one day this young man decided he wanted to Prove Himself and Leave Steve’s Nest. And thus was born Melvin Capital, seeded financially by Steve Cohen but named after famed Crooner Melvin H. Tormé, which Gabe’s esteemed mentor Steve would play in his office, over and over, all those years ago.
Now let’s fast forward a bit because I’m boring myself with all that fucking Cohen reading (the bad Cohen—don’t you dare get anyone confused here). As I was saying: Gabe Plotkin, head of Melvin Capital, has by all accounts gotten himself into a bit of a pickle here being so deeply short GME. Lots of people have analyzed and overanalyzed it, and I’m not going to do it again here; that dead horse is well and truly beaten. But to bottom line it: we’re all just staring down what is essentially an unprecedented math problem that will, at some point, resolve itself. And if it revolves itself in favor of the Good Guys, then the Bad Guys will lose a Fuck-ton of Money. That’s your money block quote, WSJ, so fuck off and stop calling me.
Now: picture yourself as a Steve Cohen acolyte that just bought a $44M Miami Compound and who cannot stop talking about how co-owning the Charlotte Hornets is worth it just for the courtsides alone bro once basketball is a thing again and so what if Michael Jordan keeps calling him Gary it’s close enough. Are you feeling the most financially secure that you have ever felt in your young rich life right about now? Or might you be a wee bit worried that you’ve pursued an investment thesis so reckless, so irrationally and intentionally destructive of equity, that even Melvin H. Tormé himself must be rolling in his fucking grave that you would ever dare put at risk your ability to continue being Michael Jordan’s Gary?
And so here is when I again link my good buddy Jim Cramer’s Great Unveiling of the Tactics Deployed by Short Sellers hoping to change the narrative and construct a “new truth” to suppress the SP in the face of, oh, let’s just say: a very promising turnaround story in a high-growth industry by an e-Commerce Canadian Genius who does not fuck around and who knows what he’s fucking doing and aims to sell more and better video games experiences to crackhead video gamers and there’s a million things he wants to do but just you wait, just you wait.
Is this plot that hard to follow?
And I’ll also say this: I know fuck-all about monitoring order flows or how funds continue to create synthetic shares to short shit into oblivion. But I’m just stepping back and thinking of the broader narrative and tactics on this. Spit-balling here again—bear with me. Now, if you were massively short a security while paying out your ass in borrowing fees for the privilege of entering the most crowded short trade in the market and you’re now opposite a massive business turnaround story, Ryan Cohen, numerous institutions, funds, retail whales, Norwegian HNW Freemason Consortiums, and the energy behind the Finest Rocket Children Ever to Grace Planet Fucking Earth—and you’re taking it in the ass week after week here—Do you then play this straight? Do you set aside all of these illegal and deceptive short tactics Jim Cramer candidly outlines in that video even though they’re impossible to enforce and are in fact not enforced? That Jim basically says you’d be professionally negligent if you were short and didn’t do this shit because fuck it whosgonnastopyou? And now you fucked up and that steamroller is barreling down upon you and there are all these things you could theoretically do try to get yourself out of this jam if you were That Kind of Person? Do you set this all aside and, at least in Jim’s view, tie one hand behind your precious ethical back? On the most heavily shorted stock off all time where you are bleeding Real Life Big-Boy Money? Just buying and selling you know, just a job, honest living, nothing much to it, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, can't get too carried away with it.
Or is it something a little bit fucking different than that?
I don’t know. I’m not in the industry myself. And I would never accuse anyone of doing anything so clearly contrary to the values upon which their professional career as Master of the Universe was built. So Gabe: chill. Don’t follow me or something on twitter man, since for all I know that’s Plotkinese for I Hope You Don’t Mind Sleeping With This Severed Horse Head in Your Bed Motherfucker. It’s just money, dude. You seem pretty well taken care of. But man would I be sweating if I were short right now staring down the barrel of your new neighbor Ryan Cohen’s whims and patience and polite Canadian manners and ambiguous emojis that we all lose our shit for. I mean, fuck man: are you ok? Don’t forget to exercise and eat well during all this. Maybe switch to green tea or something. And remember: you’ll always—always—be Michael Jordan’s Gary.
But here is where we return to our good friend Andrew Left from Citron Research.
Do you remember the excitement you felt this past weekend? I’ve never seen WSB so jacked. People were coming out hot on Tuesday—an uptick day! The new phone book’s here! The new phone book's here! What luck to be free of Gary’s tomfoolery for one fine day. And then GME spiked right away—reaching a high of over $45 that morning.
But then something happened. We all know what it was. But here is where any SEC lookie-loos need to close those Pornhub links and pay closer attention. Because in the moments before the Citron tweet that morning about Andy’s upcoming BuzzFeed Listicle call on Why GME is Scary Investment GRRRR, total short shares available dropped from 1.2M to 0. And a $300K put bet was placed on a weekly with a strike price well over 10% out of the money at the very moment that GME’s price was accelerating rapidly. (H/t u/FatAspirations). That’s some WSB-level shit right there.
And yet they pull it off! GME immediately shoots down nearly 30% intraday, and eventually climbing abck up above 10%, making us all feel a little weird and like ungrateful millennial brats for feeling so shitty about a 10% day. But we all know what fucking happened, now don’t we?
So what can we say about ol’ Andy? Now, many of you know Andy as the dumbshit who shorted TSLA until he was ground into little bits of dumb dumb dust and made to look ever so foolish over and over again until he finally cried drunk uncle and flipped to being long TSLA and now he’s cool to you or whatever. Or you might know him as the guy who puts out really shoddy research that often, by pure happenstance, drives a new narrative to control the orderflow and SP on a WSB-beloved security like PLTR? You know the guy I’m talking about. Once in hot pursuit by Hong Kong fuzz, an International Man of Obviousness with a face that says: why yes, I will have another vodka tonic thankyouverymuch. That’s him.
Well, just like future call-back candidate for the role of Frightened Inmate #2, Mr. Steve Cohen, Andy is also but a Caveman—frightened and confused by your modern concepts of “ethics” and “rules.” No! No!—He’s a straight shooter! Devoted to rooting out obvious frauds, like Lukin Coffee and TSLA (Do not fuck with Elon or my Hot Mom’s ETF, Andy). And like the aspirations of Antoine Bugle Boy when he entered the blue jeans market, Andy saw an overcrowded short trade here based on an overly simplistic and obsolete short thesis about GME and said: “Me Too!” And as this thing is ripping to the stratosphere, Andy starts ringing his dumb dumb twitter bell and saying hear ye, hear ye—Inauguration Day and time it shall be for all my Big Brain thoughts about GME!
Nothing weird about that. No sir.
So Andy Citron or whatever the fuck his name is will be putting out some dumbshit video or something today in what seems to be a pretty clear attempt to scare my poor Rocket Children and get those pesky computers to high frequency this shit to drive the SP down to more acceptable loss levels (cause let’s be honest: they’re still taking a fucking bath here) for Mel Tormé’s namesake hedgefund and all the other cretins that are dug into short position here. And they’re gonna try to scare ya’ with the color red! And they know that no one here likes the color red.
But do see what’s going on here and who we’re dealing with. This really ain’t rocket science, Rocket Children. The dude actually tried to claim he forgot about the Inauguration. In 2021. He has not been in a coma, to the best of my knowledge. But you do look a little bleary eyed, Andy. Must have been all that staying up super late working on those last few bullet points to fill out the powerpoint on that GME listicle of yours, eh sport?
Conclusion: On the Subject of Patience and The Arc of The Universe Bending Toward Ryan Fucking Cohen
In my youth there was a period of time where I went out on boats that would drop crates into the waters of the Arctic. Bundled inside them were raw pieces of meat. In the coming days the boats would head back out to the frigid seas, hook the floats bobbing upon the waters, and pull the crates up. Packed inside would be many crabs. They were so delicious & made a good price at market. The difference between the crate that was empty and the create full of bounty was a mystery even the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger pondered at much length.
But the hearty fishermen of my youth already knew the answer long ago. Why did the trap fill up? Time. In time, all traps fill. In time, all things pondered shall be revealed.
--The Fucking Viking, That’s Who
Now look, you all know I have a soft spot for Ryan Cohen. Hell, we all do. He’s a good dude. And the man has played this flawlessly so far. He really has. The fact that we are all sitting here with Ryan Cohen having successfully negotiated three seats on the Board—a bloodless coup as my man Rod Alzmann says—here in January? It’s amazing. His vision for GME is dialed-the-fuck in and extremely exciting. This misunderstood business is on the threshold of an exciting turnaround with Ryan Cohen at the helm. And though I was very much looking forward to the potential repercussions of a vote being called at the annual meeting and what that might mean for the short-term share price, this result is infinitely better. Whatever their motivations, that Board and George Sherman saw the writing on the wall here and accepted the Golden Bridge that Ryan offered them. And Ryan Cohen has done everything he’s set out to do here. And he’s clearly been having fun while doing it. Read up on the guy at some point if you haven’t–there’s lots of good DD out there on him, obviously. And while you’re reading and thinking about Ryan Cohen, think also about guys like Steve Cohen (no fucking relation) and Gabe Plotkin and Andy Left and how lucky we are that we get to roll with RC against that motley crew of fuckwads.
And do you know what? I’m guessing that RC, and maybe even the funds being discussed in that screenshot, have been very patient with Mr. Plotkin et al in recent weeks. You don’t go around bankrupting hedge funds willy nilly, you know--bad form and all that old chap. People tend to remember that. And guys like Steve Cohen and Gabe Plotkin seem like they play for keeps. So now you try to build them a Golden Bridge to cross—maybe not their preferred route of travel, but could be worse and all that, right guys? But for whatever reason it seems like the natural instinct here on the short side is fight over flight. And these short FUD tactics are getting increasingly ridiculous to help slow down the inevitable march toward the detonator right next to that bridge. So relax everyone! And let’s not fool ourselves: All those Masters of the Universes are well aware of the math problem they’re all facing here and they must have a vague grasp of the odds that this goes off in one direction over the other. And what that could mean for the size of their money pits and how many sports teams they can buy this year. Shit, I assume Steve Cohen is counseling his young acolyte about how many sads he himself felt deep down in his man heart on that fateful day in 2008 when he lost $250M on a short when Volkswagon squeezed to infinity—a sadness that he will continue to draw on when his agent finally finds him a role that calls for it.
But my point is: the longs here can afford to be patient and let this play out. When this thing moves, the Viking’s Schrödinger crabs will only be in one pot. And I’m guessing that pot is the one being held by the guy who is actually in total control here: Ryan Goddamn Cohen.
So enjoy the show today. If you’re anything like me, you’re feeling relaxed after gorging yourself on lucky space peanuts all week.(https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/10022/lucky-peanuts/)
And though these silly wabbits with their cumbersome FUD efforts can get a bit tiresome, I’m still very much enjoying this GME show at this point and almost do not want it to end—what with all these Sorkin-esque twists and turns and my Cohen Tweet Decorder Ring getting all this sweet action.
But just remember who Ryan Cohen is, what he cares about, and what, so far, he has told us he intends to do here. And then you might realize, as I have, that Ryan Cohen has had the Gray’s Sports Almanac here all along. This story has already been written. He’s already won. And Melvin Capital’s Schrödinger-ass crabs are dead as fuck. The only question now is: what causes that Golden Bridge to blow? I, for one, am content to wait on RC while counting my good fortune that I can continue to accumulate until whatever happens here happens. So pass the rocket peanuts.
It’s just money after all. Right Gabe?
TL/DR: Psst: a Mysterious Viking once told me about behind-the-scenes Golden Bridge negotiations that are likely taking place that give shorts no chance but the shorts seem to think they’re saying there’s a chance but there really is no chance; Gabe Plotkin, Steve Cohen and Andy Left are misunderstood Straight Shooters who probably answer typical interview questions about their own perceived weaknesses by saying “Sometimes I just care too much about doing the right thing”; and Ryan Cohen is the Goddamn Man so we can all relax and not worry so much about all this dumb short FUD bullshit, ok? OK. 🚀🚀🚀
**If you construe any of the above as investment advice without doing your own DD or at least Googling Ryan Cohen then you are a fucking idiot and may God have mercy on your soul. You too, Andy.

I'm sure some of you, like me, follow WSB and other places, if for nothing more than entertainment. It got me thinking about Gamestop today. I'm mildly annoyed with myself that I didn't do the legwork to understand it when I looked at it in 2019. Being the lazy person I am I saw eh, weak/negative earnings history, outdated business model, and didn't put any more effort into it. I typically don't pay any attention to short percentages. The concepts in play aren't especially hard to understand, and when at that time it was in the $2-5 range it was not unreasonable to think it had a lot more upside than downside, especially with the console cycle coming, even without the benefit of the short pressure.
I'm not much into these kinda of asymmetric longshots with potentially huge upsides, because they tend to get into distributions, probabilities, long-tails, the weakness in black-scholes, all that jazz. I get it on a macro concept level but my math skills revolt and my brain ends up saying too hard, too easy for you to be wrong, leave it alone. Looking back when Gamestop was at $2 with the balance sheet strength it had left and the amount it was shorted at the time, this was a real wide-margin intelligent speculation. A speculation, but one with heaps of implied upside. Whether I could have held on throughout the unknowns of the pandemic, I don't know. And if congress hadn't acted or the fed acted differently, who knows. The outcome could have been very different.
But now is a very different story. The stock isn't $2 anymore, it's $100 or $200, depending which minute of the day your ticker updates. The proposition has changed, not just for the next speculator looking to buy in, but every earlier speculator who already took a position.
So what's a person to do who did take a flyer and gamble on it, or recognized the opportunity early and levied an intelligent speculation? How do you decide when it's time to cash your golden ticket and call your accountant. This is a classic prisoner's dilemma. Assuming the float reported is still accurate, and there is more than 100% of the outstanding shares sold short, then naked short selling has occurred and the short positions are really in the ditch. Last report I read, shorts borrowed several billion dollars to meet margin requirements and pray the GME holders flinch soon.
Logically there has to be a ceiling, some price at which the last dollar is be extracted from the richest short seller, after which their lender of last resort has refused, and the bankruptcy's begin. Price appreciation beyond this is simply the greater fool chasing a story. I don't think there's a way to determine this empirically, since even if you could get all the necessary numbers and guarantee they were accurate, and you could nail down appropriate probabilities and the accompanying profit margins from each scenario, this involves not only a lot of human psychology but a good deal of politics, propaganda, lawyerly wrangling and the potential for backroom dealings. Not exactly the stuff of certainty or traditional value investing, but fascinating (to me, at least) as a spectator. This is a prisoner's dilemma.
Every person who now owns GME long is a prisoner, and every short seller is a prison guard. As long as the prisoners stick together, up to the limit of bankrupting the collective short sellers the squeeze should continue and increase the collective payout. But as soon as the guards are able to flip a big enough holder or enough small holders to knock over that first domino, the formula tips and the second domino caves in, and so on down the line. This is the basis of the theory Malcolm Gladwell outlined in The Tipping Point. So each holder has to consider his or her own selfish interest of cashing out now before that occurs, versus the risk/reward of betting that the group isn't going to tip yet and staying in for a greater amount of price pressure upward, hoping they aren't left to catch a falling knife later.
When is it going to tip, at what price, and how much yoyo action might occur in the meantime, before the final short is settled. I wouldn't even pretend to try and model this. That's Nassim Taleb territory, higher probability mathematics. I'd be fascinated to read about it, but not my bag.
It did get me thinking about options. Is there an opportunity to buy a put option cheaply right now, which might possibly be priced very improperly at this moment. I don't know if one month is far enough out, but things seem to be moving reasonably fast now, so perhaps the dust is settled by then. If you could spend cheaply enough to buy a put option to sell at say $50 a month from now would that constitute a intelligent asymmetrical bet? At some point the shorts will either be liquidated or cover, the "ryan cohen" die-hard believers may stay for the turn around story, but the price pressure is off and all the gamblers start heading for the exits so they can participate in the next gamble. The prisoner's dilemma domino's will start falling. Even if the price eventually settled higher, the downward swing might very well spike down well below $50, or less, during this time.
Looking at cnbc's put options for Feb and March the answer for me was no. Prices look too high for comfort, a lot of people smarter than me have probably already considered this and driven the price up, perhaps as hedges or speculations in the same vein as outlined above. I don't have the skill to figure out at $7 if a $40 PUT option one month out is an intelligent speculation to pick up, so for me it would still just be gambling. If that same put was 75 cents, I could accept it's likely at least a smart speculation, and if not it's cheap enough to take a flyer on. At $6 to $7 I can't. Long tails and options are a fascinating world. Shame I didn't pay more attention in math class.
Curious who else has been ruminating on this, if you have any other perspectives.

Beginning | Previous
An overwhelming sense of revulsion welled up within Kai as the story of the Amalgans unfurled in his consciousness. Neeria had not kept the information from him before, she had simply not seen any purpose to disclosing it. Until the moment the interlopers had appeared, they had been irrelevant. Now that they were relevant, they were introduced. It was a simple matter of funneling only that information that was useful to the subject at hand rather than overwhelming Kai with the full extent of Neeria's knowledge. To Kai, the justification rang hollow and the truth, now exposed, left him feeling violated, a reaction that Neeria was both confused and alarmed by. Kai did not want to share a mind with a creature capable of doing what Neeria had done. Did not want any relationship with any species that would so casually kill so many.
He had managed to hide his feelings from Joan, largely by allowing Neeria to steer the conversation until it had reached its conclusion, but now Kai demanded answers. He needed a way to reconcile what he had thought Neeria was with this new information.
But her answers were unsatisfying.
"Why would you do this?" Kai subvocalized, he had no desire for this conversation to be monitored by anyone who might be surveilling him. He needed to try to wrap his mind around the fact that Neeria, and her species, had killed thousands of others and figure out what that meant for him. Much of the faith he had in Neeria had evaporated along with his conviction that seeking out the Cerebella was an imperative.
"It was necessary," Neeria had replied. "No species is more valuable than the preservation of organic life."
"And what made you fit to pass judgment on them? How could you even know they would be a threat?" Kai said.
"Species that demonstrate certain traits, predilections and cultural norms have a statistical likelihood of introducing volatility into the Combine sufficient to undermine the stasis required to stall the incursion of the Expanse." Neeria pushed data into Kai's consciousness, displaying models of behavior, consequential deviation thresholds, historic precedents and any number of other rationalizations used to justify preemptive genocide.
Kai blanched. Somehow, reducing the motivation to cold math made it even more unsettling. More inhuman. "What about Humanity? We failed the First Contact Protocol, didn't we?"
"Under normal circumstances, Humanity would have been eliminated, but Humanity is not normal."
"Why?"
"This has been discussed. I have offered my conjectures, but I do not know the reason why Humanity is exceptional, only that the Cerebella has made exceptions for it. This has happened infrequently, and never since the earliest days of the Combine."
"There are other exceptions?" Kai asked.
"The Amalgans are an example. Premier Valast's race, the Mus, were as well. We required a highly productive, competitive race to seed the Combine's economy."
"Great, the two races that are now trying to destroy us," Kai said.
"This is the danger of making exceptions. In both instances, we believed control over the wormkeys would be sufficient to blunt the aberrant species' influence. This was largely true with the Amalgans, which were separated from the Combine. The Mus were considerably more successful, both by virtue of being Members and by their integral role as traders, despite numerous attempts to curtail their expansion. Their influence reached its zenith and they used economic power to create political power, allowing Valast to become Premier. A grave mistake with considerable consequences, but there was no basis in the Combine Compact to prevent it and acting unilaterally endangered what influence the Caretakers did possess."
Kai leaned back against wall and slowly slumped down, his gaze up on the dim overhead lighting of the Alcubierre's crew quarters. "I don't even know what I'm choosing between here. I don't know what else you've kept from me."
"This was not kept from you."
"Wasn't it? You know me now, Neeria." He jabbed a finger into the side of head at the temple. "You're in there. Don't pretend this is something you thought would go smoothly."
There was a long silence in response. Kai took that for confirmation.
"That's what I thought." Kai exhaled, a deep, exhausted breath. "Well, shit. It looks like Joan was right, again. She shouldn't trust us. I don't even trust us."
"The Cerebella remains the only option."
"We can fight. Just like Joan said. This is our home. We know this place. The rest of the galaxy doesn't. It's always been a bad idea to bet against us Humans, Neeria. We're warriors."
"So are the Amalgans." A long list of Outcome Reports flashed into Kai's consciousness. Each was the assessment of the Amalgans performance of a Cleanse Contract. In every case, the Amalgans were adjudged to have completed the task as assigned. It was a very long, very depressing list to absorb all at once. "We can predict little about their strategies and methods for any particular contract. Part of the arrangement is their right to conduct their business without interference, which hinders our understanding of their operations. What we do know is that they are extremely efficient, extremely versatile and extremely competent."
Additional information filtered into Kai's consciousness, including emissions harvests and system scans. The emissions harvests came from opening wormholes to capture radio waves and other forms of data emitted by the targeted species as they came under assault. There was precious little information on what occurred in the space conflicts, the targeted civilizations were typically thinly instrumented with weak space capabilities, but the devastation wrought on the planets was well documented. In most cases, enormous beams of light appeared and began to rapidly heat the surface of the planet. In other cases, seismic shifts occurred suddenly. In no cases did the Amalgans appear on the surface.
The imagery of the battles waged in space were just as alarming. A cubic ship would blink into existence, fire a beam of light from afar, and then blink out of existence. By the time the defender realized it was under assault, the Amalgan ship was already gone. In one particular instance, there was a diagram depicting the timeline of the assault. Somehow, the Amalgan ships had warped into existence at various distances and fired multiple times, coordinating their assault so all of the beam strikes would hit concurrently, multiplying their effective force from a dozen keyed vessels to over a hundred.
"Do you understand? They are a species that is defined by warfare on terms Humanity cannot possibly respond to. Their existence is premised on their ability to end the existence of others."
It was Kai's turn to be silent. A sheen of sweat now dotted forehead and his mouth was dry. When he spoke, it was with more uncertainty than he had moments earlier. "We still have the home field advantage. They don't know about the rules here."
"This is true, it is also why I believe Humanity has not already lost. The Amalgans are attempting to adapt to two things simultaneously. Fighting with a worm projector rather than keyed vessels, and fighting under different laws of physics. Their initial appearance was a scouting mission, an attempt to survey Sol and best determine how to approach the task of exterminating Humanity."
"Easier said than done."
"A true statement, but not enough to save Humanity. These are wrinkles to a problem they are well acquainted with, and they will be diligent in finding solutions. Time, resources and experience are on their side. Humanity is in the position of defense, which is always disadvantaged in space."
Kai gritted his teeth, wanting to push back, but he now knew what Neeria knew, and it was difficult to argue with the facts as they assembled in his mind. Humanity faced an unknown enemy of known capabilities. The assets on hand were considerable by Humanity's standards, but paltry for the proposed task of defending a planet. It was unlikely to be enough. Luck was not a strategy, neither was hoping for the best. They needed to tip the balance.
"Options?" Kai asked. The fire and anger that had driven him on so many other occasions, had guided his impulses for better or worse, seemed muted now. As much as he hated asking, as much as he hated being reliant upon Neeria, the cold logic of the situation won out.
"We will offer what information we can to Joan, but we must seek the Cerebella," Neeria said.
"What will the Cerebella do for us?"
"I do not know. It is not for one of my kind to know her will. She is above us. She carries the burden of the Combine. She wields great power, but I cannot presume to understand how that power would be deployed on Humanity's behalf or whether it would at all." A flash of uncertainty bled from Neeria's consciousness into Kai's, a burgeoning concern that her honesty would result in Kai's refusal to proceed.
The answer was unsettling, but it rang true. If Neeria's goal was to convince him, this was not a very strong argument. But perhaps she knew that. Perhaps that was why she led with it. How could he know whether the argument was genuine or crafted based on her access to how he thought?
The argument could go indefinitely, and the only question it all revolved around was one he no longer felt like he had a good answer to: Did he trust her?
Yesterday, yes.
Today?
"What else are you hiding from me?" Kai whispered, forgoing the sub-vocalizations. He wanted to hear the question. Wanted to know it was a thing that existed and wasn't just a figment of his imagination. Needed to experience it rather than just think it.
"I do not know how to answer that question in a satisfying way. I am willing to reveal the entirety of my knowledge stores to you, but it may have unanticipated consequences and I do not know how to make you certain that I have done as I said. I exist entirely with your own mind, but I am still a separate consciousness."
"Unanticipated consequences?" All that had happened since the Alcubierre had left Earth had been an unanticipated consequences. One long string of disasters, falling like dominoes into each other. Maybe that was just how life was. You make a choice and the universe shits on you and you just had to figure out how to die or live with it.
"Our separate consciousnesses are, in part, a product of different knowledge, experiences and so forth. As more information is shared between us, what remains of the wall between our consciousnesses will deteriorate. Your mind has already shown incredible elasticity, as demonstrated by my presence now, but it was not without cost," Neeria said. Kai remembered the cost. There was little chance he would forget the earth rending pain of having another consciousness seared into his brain. "It is unclear what a full share of what remains of me would have. This is an unprecedented situation."
"Would I still be me?" Kai asked.
"No, I do not believe so. You would be something else. Since your mind is the foundation, it would likely have primacy and shape the outcome, but there are no guarantees. There is also no certainty of our survival. It is a considerable risk for a questionable gain."
Kai bumped the back of his head against the wall of his quarters, considering the alternatives. He didn't trust Neeria, but he didn't think she was lying either. He just found it difficult to accept what she had done to get here. "What you had to," Kai whispered. Kai knew that justification. It was the same he had used during the war. At least Neeria had killed other species, he had been a part of the decimation of his own.
Was he any better? Was he prepared to be judged by the same standard?
The abyss of his past loomed large, always threatening to escape its cage and swallow the present. He had become an expert of compartmentalization, of walling off this dark corner and pretending it did not exist. But he knew what he had done. Who he had done it to. And...and the price he had paid for it. A price he couldn't bear when he allowed himself to think about it. There were phantoms in that corner, and they haunted him. Would consume him if he ever stopped to shine a light and look.
Memories of people.
A wife. Children.
Gone.
Kai knew what he had done, but Neeria did not. He had kept her from that corner. Denied her the key to it. She knew of its existence, but nothing more. He had invested too much into trying to hide that key to make a duplicate for someone else. He had hid behind the same excuse. That part of his past wasn't relevant to the here and now. Neeria did not need to know it, so he did not share it.
Forced to face it now, Kai knew why his mind had served as a hospitable place for Neeria. The answer was glaringly simple now that more had been revealed. They were both monsters. Two sides of the same genocidal coin.
There was no escaping that past.
And if there was to be a future for Humanity, the truth would need to be revealed. Kai could not hide from Neeria and she could not hide from him. Not if they were to proceed. Not if they were to be of use. There couldn't be trust without truth. No partnership without transparency.
If Kai was to seek the Cerebella, he must know there was nothing hidden. That he was not creating another problem for Humanity.
Kai reached up and rubbed his face, weathered hands pressing in to the contours of his eyes as he tried to come to terms with what he needed to do. "We have to finish what we started, Neeria," Kai said aloud, though it was muffled by his hands in front of his mouth. "No half in, half out. No cerebuddies. Just whatever we are when we just are."
"I see," Neeria replied, hesitant. Kai could sense her nervousness. She was uncertain, nervous about the risks.
"I'm not going to the Cerebella without doing it. Maybe everything you've said is true, but I don't know what you haven't said. I need it all. It's the only way to convince me."
"The danger--"
"Is what it is." He pushed himself up from his seat by the wall and shuffled over to his bed. "Based on everything you've said, we don't have much time before these Amalgans get to work." He laid down on the bed and drew a calming breath. "So let's get to it. Time for a walk down memory lane."
Kai swallowed, "I'll go first." He mentally focused on that dark corner, that place he had not dared tread for so long. He inserted the key into the lock, opening up the compartment. "Neeria, I'd like you to meet my family. I loved them more than anything, and they loved me."
A long pause.
"Until I killed them."
Tears streamed down Kai's face, and the searing pain began anew.
--------
Xy floated in the center of the tank, feeling the currents swirl around it. The restoration of power felt like a restoration more generally. It no longer felt as if their tank was a cage, it had once again become their home. While the flows could not return to the exact patterns they had followed beyond Sol, they had regained much of their strength and nuance, which was an acceptable alternative.
This restoration was only possible due to Humanity's efforts on their behalf. The Humans had provided the XiZ with a space born power generator utilizing an exotic process native to Sol known as cold fusion. After assessing the suitability of the power source and finding it satisfactory, the XiZ had concluded their negotiations with Humanity by agreeing to an economic and defense treaty.
There were many aspects to the agreement, Human Amahle had a level of thoroughness that Xy found innately pleasing. Were she a XiZ, Xy was quite certain the Ambassador would have been a Left, the highest compliment Xy could offer. The XiZ would remain in Sol as a part of a combined defense at least until the resolution of hostilities with the Combine, or until such time as their continued assistance would not alter the outcome as agreed upon by both parties. They would also agree to assist Humanity in its colonization efforts by providing wormholes to specified locations for the soon to launch colony vessels. There was various obligations with respect to trading and compensation for power supplies and wormhole production, all of which had been neatly described. The treaty was very satisfactory.
Zyy believed the outcome was due to Xy's prowess as a negotiator, which caused Xy to curl its cilia with contentment despite the obvious overstatement.
With function restored to the float, Xy and Zyy began to invest energy to the task they were best suited for: observation. Sol was a relatively small place to observe compared to the region Xy and Zyy had been tasked with as Observers among the Zix, but it did not have the pre-existing network Xy and Zyy had inherited. Humanity almost certainly established entangled observation network, not having one would be a serious oversight, but its presence and capabilities had not yet been provided to the XiZ and Xy was unwilling to remain blind. A network of this type was required for the defense of any space, permitting the network owners to detect faster than light incursions at a faster than light speed. Humanity's initial presence had been detected by such a system, which had been deployed along the border of the Sol Project as a precaution in case any threat to the Zix might emerge from the mysterious Restricted Zone.
Even if the Humans were unwilling to share their network, the the XiZ, as Observers, possessed the ability to erect such a network with the materials available within their tank. The need for the network was made apparent almost immediately, as the float's ingrained sensors had already detected numerous incursions into the Sol Project. They were delayed by the speed of light, but the flows depicted a single vessel, appearing from one wormhole and then quickly disappearing into a second. The process was then repeated.
The brief window of time the vessel was present within Sol was sufficient for the XiZ to gather a profile on it. The results were strange. The vessel did not maneuver. It did emit any radiation or other indicia of a surveillance effort, though the positioning of the wormholes relative to planets indicated that was the intended purpose. The vessel also did not emit an energy signature that would suggest a functioning power source, though it was possible such a thing was somehow shielded -- a remote possibility given the data gathering capabilities of the float. The more likely explanation was the ship's incompatibility with Sol. Few alien vessels would have the layers of redundancy and resilience a Zix float would possess and even their own float's functions have been considerably impaired when it had arrived.
Regardless of the alien vessel's success or failure to obtain information, its presence was of immediate concern. After compiling the data, it provided the information directly to Humanity and the Elephant as was required by their treaty, even though such data must surely be redundant of Humanity's capabilities in their home system. The XiZ also immediately re-prioritized given this new threat, an agility their former collective never would have exhibited. To survive, the XiZ must be prepared to adapt to the shifting flows. Process could not outweigh outcome.
Xy and Zyy floated beside one another, their cilia flailing wildly as they frantically reoriented the float from rehabilitation to defense. Processes that were not essential to the protection of Sol and Xiz's obligations under the treaty were immediately curtailed. There was no indication of how much time they might have, but both Xy and Zyy understood that the current would be swift. A great many tasks needed to be done quickly, and the XiZ intertwined multiple cilia, creating thought-threads around central priorities, division of labor, sharing of progress, and inbound data.
Xy would focus on communication and coordination with the Humans, ensuring their allies would receive the full benefit of their partnership with the XiZ. Information bridges would need to be formed to reduce transmission time between the XiZ. The departure of the first wave of colony ships would need to be carefully planned. Strategic planning and tactic development would need to be pursued immediately.
Zyy would focus on the logistics of the float and, most importantly, establishing the entanglement network as quickly as possible. They could not learn what their enemy planned at the speed of light, it was simply too slow. With little time, it would be difficult to erect an observation network with full coverage, but Zyy could focus on layers around key Human assets first. So long as the worm projector remained powered, Zyy predicted they could deploy a rudimentary network quickly via the use of projected wormholes to launch the entangled surveyors. Both Xy and Zyy imbibed some fluid in frustration at having not already done so.
Xy opened a line to the established communication channel for defense arrangements.
Xy: Spacetime Anamolies detected. Multiple wormhole incursions with single vessel invasion. Observation data provided. Recommend data linkage capable of parsing parameters in accordance with submitted data report. Commencing establishment of entangled observation network within Sol. Request prioritization of Human assets for coverage. Assumption of Earth as primary asset. Deployment of preliminary network seeds assessed to take [6 minutes]. Preliminary network will provide immediate information on all incursions within ten light seconds of Earth. Coverage will expand at an exponential rate proportionate to entanglement seed density within a region. Ten light minute coverage possible within [40 minutes]. If data is compatible, access to Humanity's entanglement network is an acceptable alternative.
The response was immediate.
UWDFF Command: We are in receipt of your message. Reviewing and will respond once proper authorization is obtained.
Then, a few seconds later.
Fleet Admiral Orléans: Your telemetry and data collection capabilities appear to be far advanced over our own. Unless there is reason to believe deployment of the observation network would interfere or interrupt with Earth's ability to defend itself, proceed with deployment immediately. A list of secondary assets will be provided, but the top priority is the preservation of Earth.
Xy was perplexed. Humans were capable of great feats, the Elephant in particular. It seemed very strange that a species that could resist the great flow of the Combine would spend so little effort on the defense of its own system. Perhaps the Humans had believed they were safe within Sol, that none would follow. Xy shot a thought-thread to Zyy on the subject, causing the Right to immediately swell as it drank in fluid at the realization that Humanity was blind. Zyy redoubled its efforts to prepare the entanglement seeds.
Xy desired greater clarification to ensure prioritization was proper.
Xy: Does Humanity not possess a faster-than-light observation network?
Fleet Admiral Orléans: It does not. It also does not have the capability to detect the vast majority of the data categories provided in your dataset. Those that we can detect, we generally detect at an lower level of granularity. Anything the XiZ can provide on this would be of great assistance.
The list of prioritized assets arrived shortly after. It listed the various Human settlements and economic interests throughout the solar system along with a ranking of value. Of interest to Xy was the inclusion of a non-Human asset on that list, the XiZ vessel itself. It was accorded an asset value of slightly less than Earth.
Fleet Admiral Orléans: We are redeploying elements of the First Armada, including my flag bearer, the UWDFF Sun Tzu, to your location to supplement your defense. Above all else, it is essential your vessel remains intact and free of the conflict wherever possible. Retreat if you are in direct danger, but remain in a position to assist first wave Exodus vessels.
Xy tapped the flows and monitored the Human ships. The XiZ currently had a defense provided by fifty Earth vessels. The number was now growing to over two hundred.
Perhaps Xy was good at negotiation after all.
---------
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This is a long one....again. I'm just long winded. Don't like it, there's a TL;DR. :)
(side note, I would read my recess story first if you want to do things chronologically)
TL;DR: School says my boots are within code but they don't like them and I can't wear them. So I stop trying to look nice anymore at all.
Background (you can skip this part if you like a shorter read):
If you read my recess MC story, then you already know I'm not a fan of dress codes for the sake of dress codes. So when I left for boarding school, I was utterly thrilled to go to a school that didn't have any uniform at all!
OK-So it's not really that I have a problem with dress codes. I have a problem with conforming. So if you say socks have to be black or blue, 99.999999% of people will assume that you mean navy blue. I'm the person who would show up with sky blue. Just to silently stand out for a day. Just to give a smirk to the 5 other people who'll think "well, they did just say blue!" Just to highlight to the bureaucrat who wrote the rules that they're not as airtight as they thought they were. In short, I am (as my hubby would say) a brat. It's just fun (to me) to show people that "eitheor" doesn't always have to be your only choices.
We'll just say I was an "adventurous dresser". I liked unusual combinations and had I been encouraged instead of discouraged (and taught how to sew) I very probably would have ended up as a low level fashion designer. Clothes were like paint to me after an entire childhood in the same plaid. I wanted to mix colors and textures and brushes. Boarding school is not really a colorful, choose your own adventure kind of place.
Well, though I was a precocious child, I was never a rule breaker (save for very calculated rule breaking in my previous story). My mother always said "VooDooDaughter's obedient and well behaved. She will bend a rule into a pretzel. But she'll never intentionally break one." She was the kind of parent who had to carefully word rules and restrictions when leaving me to my own devices.... but also be careful not to put ideas into my head, at the same time. Basically if you give me the impression that you believe something is ironclad, I'll pick it apart just because I enjoy the mental exercise of seeing if it really is ironclad. But if you're a jerk, I'm going to find the worst way to show you it's not iron clad.
My mother firmly believed that "Critical Thinking is the key to success in life. If you can assess a problem and find a path to a solution then you don't need to know everything. You just need to know how to find answers." (Mind you, this was about a decade before google and smart phones so I don't blame parents today for different mentalities....but I do still think I would raise my kids this way if I were going to have any.) So I had been raised to believe that the people who get ahead in life are the people who don't just say "Apple" when asked what that red round thing on the desk is. You pick it up. You turn it over. You note the feel and the weight. You mark the smell and the reflections in the wax. And you file that away for later. Never know when someone's going to ask you what the bottom of an apple looks like when there are no apples to look at, right?
Anyhow, when you spend your life mentally picking up every problem, question, and object so you can flip it over, turn it inside out, change the colors, etc. Mundane things like school handbooks actually become a bit fun.
The Story:
I went to a boarding school with two types of dress code. We had "Classroom Dress" which was exactly what it sounds like. We were basically expected to look like young professionals. All the normal rules you would expect. Skirts below the fingertips for girls, shirts and ties for the boys. The handbook was pretty specific, as most are. The alternative was what we could wear in our free time "Town Dress" and it was the standard we were expected to dress to when seen in public off campus or just spending time in the students' lounge. This was more relaxed but still rules to keep the girls from wearing anything too sexy or the boys from looking too ragged in torn/cut off/worn out clothes. That sort of stuff.
I had a pair of knee high suede moccasin boots with fringe at the top, just below the knee. Actually, I had two pairs. One in black. One in brown. They were the most comfortable, warm boots I ever owned (long before the days of uggs). My mother and I fought constantly over these boots and it was a great triumph to me that she'd allowed me to spirit them away to school with me.
Then one day I was approached by a teacher who told me that the teachers had had a discussion and my boots "Weren't in the spirit of Classroom Dress."
"But I've read the dress code. There's nothing in there against them." I protested.
"I know. It's just been decided they don't meet the spirit of the dress code." She elaborated.
"But they're the right color."
"I know"
"They're the right fabric. Suede is allowed."
"I know"
"There's no restriction on boot length. You allow riding boots for the equestrian club!"
"I know...."
"Then WHY?!" I don't really know if I was angry or sad or an even split of both. But I was emotional.
"I wish I had better answers for you." She was a teacher I liked and I knew liked me. I realized it's why they'd sent her. I wasn't the sort to make a scene or cause a fuss...... I was the sort to get even.
"Ok." I said, and walked off. That night, I studied the dress code front to back. I read every sentence forwards and backwards. I said them out loud. I held up every article of clothing mentioned and studied it as if I were an alien who had nothing but the handbook and that piece of clothing to figure out how it was used by humans. It was a pretty strict handbook, I had to give them that. But they had made 2 mistakes.

1. The handbook was oddly UNspecific about which items of clothing were to be worn where.
2. Nowhere did the handbook say we had to make an effort to actually look good. They discussed what articles of clothing needed to be what colors and how far they needed to extend in certain directions (skirts below the finger tips, socks above the ankles, sleeves past the elbows, etc). Shoes had to be reasonable colors like black or brown (like my boots were!) or other earth tones. But it never said they couldn't be elf shoes, for example. Granted, elf shoes wouldn't be "in the spirit of classroom dress". But I digress.

I went to bed furious and with vicious ideas circling in my mind. Debating whether or not I wanted to pull this particular trigger. Eventually I decided I'd wait until morning and if I still felt that way, I would begin phase 1.
The next morning, I woke up still pissed and began a mental list of the worst boys in my grade as I walked to breakfast. When I got there, I found a few of them and pointed out that the handbook specified that ties were to be tied in a single or double windsor knot at all times unless it was a bowtie and then it was to be tied in the traditional manner (don't know what that's called). What it DIDN'T specify is what part of the body it was to be affixed to. Nowhere did it specify that ties had to be tied around the neck. Just how they needed to be tied. I told them they didn't have to believe me. Just read their handbooks that night and do what they will with the information.
The next day, there were ties on wrists, around eyeglasses, foreheads, ankles, knees, thighs, tied then wrapped around hands as if to stop bleeding knuckles.... anywhere you could attach a windsor knot to the human body, there was a boy in my school with a tie there.
I was feeling pretty darn proud of myself. Phase one was a total success. The teachers were annoyed but most found it amusing.... Until we got to math class. There was a kid in class without his tie on. The one who always wore a bowtie. The teacher walked up to his desk and looked down her nose at him. "I understand you boys are having some fun with your ties today. And I think we've been pretty good sports. But if you know the handbook this well, then you know you at least have to be wearing a tie."
He raised his head, smirked, and said "Oh I'm wearing one. You just can't see it." The class erupted. Now maybe he just had it under his pants on his ankle. Or tied around his elbow under his blazer. I'll never know. But he went down as the kid who came to class with his tie around his penis. By the end of the day, I was a legend for finding the loophole and he was a legend for what he had put the loophole around. By morning announcements, the dress code had been updated (we were all handed a printed page so we couldn't claim we didn't know) to include specifications about ties around necks and the fun was over for the boys.
Phase 2 was a little more in depth - read on if you're not already bored. I studied the handbook and I took mental notes.
I had been eyeing the most ridiculous pair of boots I'd ever seen at the mall. They were silver with holographic rainbow interlocking circles on them. They sported a 2 inch platform with a chunky 4 inch heel and laced up just above the ankles. They looked like something Romy and Michelle would have worn in their final Prom scene or Fran Drescher in the Nanny. Ungodly. I knew I couldn't wear them to class but I wanted them for town days soooooooo bad. Like I said, after 9 years in uniform, I was having fun with fashion. I saved for months and "visited" them at the mall every chance I got. I had been slowly talking myself out of such a frivolous pair of boots (they were SO expensive!) but the loss of my favorite classroom boots had reinvigorated my lust for them. And right after my moccasins were revoked, I had managed to save up just enough to afford them. Lucky me!
I practically skipped to the store to get my holographic rainbow platform boots that weekend. They were out of my size! I nearly cried. Until I noticed right next to them was the black patent leather version. Until now, they had seemed so tame by comparison. But the dress code had a special section about patent leather footwear. It was specifically permitted but only when wearing pants (there's an old, idiotic, belief that you can see the reflection of a girl's panties in patent leather shoes if she's wearing a skirt). So I could not wear the rainbow boots to class. But their sister boots in black patent leather with silver details were totally permitted (silver, also being specifically permitted on shoes as some might have grommets for laces bwahahahaha!). Still sporting the 2 inch platform and 4 inch heel, mind you. The school didn't have any limits on heel size, assuming high schoolers wouldn't want to be in heels all day, I guess? Something about losing the whimsy of the silver holographic rainbows also had the bonus effect of taking them from a "club kid" mood to a darker "hooker boots" realm. And to think, I would never have even considered the black pair if it weren't for my recent fascination with our dress code.
The black boots also happened to be on discount whereas my silver ones would have been full price. So I walked away with enough money to buy a pair of pants to wear with my new boots. A plan began to formulate in my devious brain. I invited my friends to join me at one of the local thrift stores and we spent the afternoon hunting for the ugliest pants we could find that were still within the guidelines of the school dress code. And we did. They were bright orange polyester pants with little grey-green amorphous dots on them. Something akin to an incredibly tiny giraffe print. You almost couldn't make out the green, just that there was a pattern to the orange. Something about the two colors clashed enough that they almost vibrated in front of your eyes, making you half dizzy/half nauseated if you stared too long. And, as luck would have it, I scored a deal on an orange, shag sweater that was the exact same shade! I looked like a half finished sesame street character on top and a lost disco reject on bottom.... oh, did mention they were slightly belled straight legged orange polyester pants?
I strolled into class on monday looking like a rejected extra from Saturday Night Fever. My new platform boots had heavy wooden heels that clunked loudly everywhere I walked. I now stood four inches taller making me stand out even more in the halls, and rivaling some of my teachers for presence in the classroom. I watched some of them glare at my new boots and began to figure out which ones had taken issue with my knee high moccasins. I could tell the teachers who were getting a laugh out of it, too. But I didn't' stop there. It became my life's mission to seek out the most horrendous clothing and outfits I could concoct. I didn't care how I looked anymore. I had been so careful when I packed to make sure my clothes had all been suitable. And by their own admission, my boots were within the code. They just hadn't liked them. I had done my utmost to dress within their rules and they had arbitrarily decided something wasn't good enough because they didn't like it. So now I wore something hideous every single day so they had to see me in something nobody liked. Every. Single. Day. After all, what could they do? Just tell me EVERY SINGLE DAY that I wasn't dressed appropriately but never in violation? At some point I would cry it was personal, maybe even racial. By their own admission it didn't violate the rules. And I was certain to never violate the rules. That just wasn't my style. Plus, at this point in a battle of wills, you can't afford to get sloppy and give the other side any advantage. (Mom always said I was stubborn)
The nice thing about boarding school is the girls are happy to share clothes around with anyone who will share back. So instead of just one closet, I had like 30 to pick from just in my dorm. Sure most of my clothes matched each other by intent and planning. But they looked absurd with clothes picked by/for other people. Someone might have a loud shirt they only wear with a black skirt. But I'd pair it with a printed skirt from 3 rooms down in clashing colors just because I could. Still within code.
I wore those hooker boots any time I didn't have on a skirt. I invested in more polyester than a school should legally be allowed to have on campus for fire safety reasons. I sought out every consignment, vintage, second hand shop in town (and there were a lot! it was a largely hippie town so the pickings were fantastic). I put together 3 piece suits (with ties) that made me look so butch they actually asked my mother if I was gay at her parent teacher conference (apparently dressing badly makes you a lesbian?). I braided my bangs into a single braid and would put heavy earrings at the end to weigh it down then swing it around like a pendulum over my desk or book during class by swirling my head (only if I was bored in a class of a teacher I suspected of costing me my boots). Anything and everything I could do to be visually assaulting to the senses, I did.
At the above mentioned parent teacher meeting, they asked my mom if she could speak to me about my clothing and she asked, surprised, if I was breaking any rules. They explained about the boots. Mom told me she laughed and said there was nothing she could do. "If there's one thing my daughter hates, it's being punished for a rule she didn't know existed or a rule that never existed in the first place. If you want to make a rule today to stop her, she won't do it tomorrow....I bet you never saw those boots again. But you took away something she loved for seemingly no good reason. She sees that as a punishment even if you only saw it as a request. And now she's punishing you back. Simple as that. I suggest you just let it go and fix your handbook over the summer. Otherwise, you'll run out of paper, trying to print daily changes to keep up with the loopholes she'll find. My daughter loves finding loopholes. I should never have given her so many riddles as a child." Upon hearing this, they admitted that the only reason my new boots had been "ignored" thus far is that; this having been my reaction to the banning of the first pair, some were fearful what I might find to wear in retaliation if a second pair was banned. And, obedient student that I was, I never did wear my knee high suede moccasins again.
Random Conclusion stuffs:
They never did come after me for a single other dress code issue...except once when my skirt was too short (honestly not intentional, each teacher measured slightly differently). And I didn't return the next year for entirely unrelated reasons so I don't know what changes they may have made.
I'll include a photo of the boots. I've kept them all these years later just for the smile I get when I find them in the bottom of a box while looking for something else. And here's the last shirt I'm sure I have from those days. It's literally the ugliest piece of clothing I've ever owned and I can't bring myself to throw it away because I think of this story every time I see it and laugh. And I know somewhere is one photo of me in my orange shag outfit. If I ever find it, I will share that, as well. I had a blast tearing that dress code to shreds.
So remember to take your problems, turn them on their side, flip them inside out, look at life from a funny angle and you never know what cracks you might find.
And it's another great story of my awesome mom totally having my back.... Though looking back as an adult, I'll bet she was a little pissed they banned her boots, too. I mean, after all, if they had been more specific in the handbook, she could have kept them at home the entire time instead of in my closet at school, gathering dust!
Miss you, Mom!
edited for grammar
edit for comments: No, I'm not a lawyer in my adult life. It just wasn't my path. But I'm self employed, starting a business in an industry I'm extremely excited and passionate about and I enjoy nearly every single minute of work I have put into it. I'm blessed and thankful to love what I do.
another edit: This took place in the mid 90s.

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      The crowd mostly erupted in cheers for the human. There were some quiet sections, most notably among the eldrin who likely had reason to not want their pet soldiers to appear weak, but the human section of the crowd seemed to have lost all reason. They started a rhythmic chant that was loud enough that Maeve was forced to wait before she could move on to other announcements; her lips pursed in annoyance when they kept it up despite her gesturing for silence.
      Thump thump. “PE-TER!” Thump thump. “PE-TER!”
      For his part, Peter just looked embarrassed at the attention he was getting from his fellow humans. Draevin saw him glance his way for just a second and he and Tenna gave him an excited wave. He responded with a brief wave of his own before walking over to commiserate with the werebeast he’d just defeated.
      “He won!” Tenna shouted, hopping out of her seat and clapping with enthusiasm.
      Sylnya wrapped Tenna in a hug and jumped up and down with her. “He won! He actually won!”
      “You seem surprised for someone that bet on him, Sylnya. I’m just impressed he managed to do it without using up his spell scroll,” Draevin told her while clapping along. By the time the cheering died down Peter had walked off stage. When he showed up to their booth he had Grrbraa in tow.
      “So I was thinking this booth could do with some extra security,” Peter announced first thing. “As long as we’re all going to be watching the matches anyways, we might as well do it together.”
      “I think that’s a great idea,” Draevin agreed. Thoughts of Caelnaste arranging another attack had been occupying a worrisome corner of Draevin’s mind. Having a friendly beast with such keen senses nearby offered a measure of relief. It would certainly make her scheming more difficult.
      “Well I for one would love to get to know Grrbraa a little better,” Tenna said.
      Grrbraa spoke in his deep rumbling voice. “My mothers told me I should…” He hesitated and looked down at the ground. “…get to know some other people. They told me Peter and his friends were good.” He looked up and added more confidently, “I am very good at extra security. I can bark at master-Caelnaste if you want.” Draevin noticed his tail wag back and forth at the last part of his speech.
      “We will be having a brief intermission at this time,” Maeve announced to the crowd. Down on the field a team of workers were digging up and replacing a large section of dirt around where Peter had stood. The judges were no doubt furious that Peter had managed to eke out some small advantage from the otherwise carefully-neutral field when he absorbed some of the mana left over from Anise’s blood. They’d make sure that didn’t happen again.
      “I know there might be a bit of a line,” Draevin announced, “but I’d feel a lot more comfortable with a full mana pool. I’m going to use The Pot real quick.”
      “I’ll go with you,” Peter said automatically. “Grrbraa and I’s match drained me.”
      “I will go as well,” Grrbraa said, “for extra security.”
      “Much appreciated,” Draevin told him.
      “I guess I’ll go too,” Tenna said. “If everyone else is going.”
      Sylnya let out a dramatic sigh. “Well I’m not going to sit here by myself. Did I mention I almost killed Caelnaste yesterday? I expect she’s got some plan for me if I don’t stick with the group.”
      Peter led the way as he was already closest to the exit. Much of the crowd was making their way out of their seats in search of food and goblins were slipping between them in search of opportunities. When the few of the creatures they came across saw Grrbraa though they scattered. Draevin decided that was a nice perk of having him around.
      “So why did you call Caelnaste ‘master-Caelnaste?’” Tenna asked Grrbraa while they walked. “You know she’s a bad guy, don’t you?”
      “Yes,” Grrbraa answered, “the title of master is not a compliment.”
      “Think of it like calling you the d-word,” Peter chimed in.
      That made a certain amount of sense to Draevin. Werebeasts weren’t generally treated well by their masters. Caldenia didn’t use werebeasts, but even if they did at least they had laws in place to protect their slaves from the harsh conditions of Eldesia’s chattel slaves.
      When the group of them turned the corner to enter the tunnel that led outside the arena Peter literally bumped into the dark-skinned human Draevin had met this morning. He was chatting in the entryway with Alex and the two of them had little burning paper sticks they were sucking on to inhale the smoke. They seemed to be inhaling the smoke on purpose. The very concept was disturbing to Draevin. He thought that with their short lives humans would be more careful with them, but it seemed just the opposite.
      “Oh, hey there guys,” Alex greeted them with a half-lidded expression on his face. He let out a small cough. “Rashad here was just showing me canada.”
      “Canne’ka,” Rashad corrected.
      Alex shrugged and offered out his burning stick to the group at large. “It’s a Kreet thing,” he explained, “anyone want to try it?”
      “Canne’ka is an expensive luxury in Kreet,” Rashad said with a smile. “It’s enjoyed in only the finest ch-charnel hOUsesssss!” before he could finish what he was saying, both he and Alex broke out into unexplainable laughter.
      “Finest!” Alex added, slapping Rashad’s back before once again losing his ability to speak.
      “You’re right!” Rashad said. “It’s a strange word indeed!”
      Draevin and his friends looked between each other, but none of them seemed to know what was going on, though Tenna looked to be smiling sympathetically. “Was that supposed to be a joke?” Draevin asked.
      Rashad finally stood and took a few deep breaths. “Canne’ka iss a common weed in the desssertss of Kreet,” he explained. He’d let a bit of his kreetish accent slip in, elongating a few of his S’s. Now that Draevin knew to look for it, he could even notice a drooping of Rashad’s dark eyelids as well.
      Alex took a quick puff on his paper tube; just enough to brighten the cherry on the end and offered it forth again. “It’s good fun,” he said, “are there really no takers?”
      Peter was the closest. He held up the flat of his hand to block the proffered stick. “No thanks,” he said, “I’ve got to keep my head clear to watch all the fighting going on.”
      Alex pulled the stick back from him. “Your loss.” He took a drag. “How about you, Drae?” he asked. Smoke escaped his mouth as he talked.
      “I prefer to live a long and healthy life.”
      “Suit yourself,” Alex replied. He turned his head to let out the rest of the smoke in his lungs.
      While his head was turned, Tenna reached forward and snatched the burning paper tube from Alex’s fingers, which only caused the human to laugh pleasantly in surprise. “I’ll try it,” she said. “What do you call this thing?”
      “We call that a joint,” Rashad said.
      “Tenna!” Draevin scolded. “You still have a match today!”
      She stopped with the joint halfway to her mouth. “It wears off quick,” Alex reassured her. “When’s your match?”
      She shrugged. “At least an hour… if I decide to go through with it that is,” she said, and took a drag. The cherry at the end of the joint lit up for only a second before she broke out into a coughing fit. Alex and Rashad seemed to think something about her coughing was uproariously funny and immediately dropped to their knees cackling so loud they quite literally couldn’t keep their feet.
      The spectacle of it didn’t make much sense. “Come on guys,” Draevin said, “it’s not that funny.”
      “Everything’s funny on Canne’ka!” Rashad said. He stood up and offered his own joint to Draevin. “Come on, elf. Live a little.”
      Draevin took a step back. “I already said no,” he repeated firmly.
      “Don’t be such a senesha!” He turned to Sylnya instead. “How about you, dryad?”
      “Call me Sylnya,” she answered, “and I’m afraid I’ll have to pass. I’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work on us. Different biology.”
      “Shame,” Alex said.
      “So I’m told.”
      Draevin spoke up in the brief gap in conversation. “I think we need to get moving to The Pot if we want to get back before the intermission.”
      “Look at this coward!” Rashad said. “He won’t even touch me!” He took a step towards Draevin and reached out a hand, waggling it around as he did so. When he’d gotten sort of close he jabbed his hand at Draevin, but found that he was ready for the move. Draevin jumped back and snapped his wand out of his holster defensively. He pushed just enough mana to the tip to get it condensing mist. He didn’t have a huge supply of mana available but it was more than enough to deal with a shadowman. “Boo!” Rashad said and then laughed loudly like it was all a joke. This time not even Alex joined in.
      “Come on, Rashad,” Peter chastised. “You know he doesn’t want to touch you.”
      Grrbraa leaned in and growled menacingly at the shadowman, but before things escalated any further, Alex intervened. He grabbed Rashad, who was still shaking with laughter, by the shoulder. “He’s just high,” he offered. “No need to take offense.”
      “Sure,” Draevin agreed, but he didn’t holster his wand. “Maybe we should just go.”
      Alex smiled. “Sorry about this. You’re all welcome to come by the camp tonight for dinner.”
      Draevin trudged off for The Pot without waiting to see if anyone would follow. All this time with Peter had let him forget why he’d normally avoided spending time with humans.
      Tenna was the first to catch up. “I don’t think he meant anything by it,” she explained. “Besides, he has a point about your not wanting to touch him.”
      “I didn’t see you shaking hands,” Draevin commented dryly.
      “I would!” she objected. “I just… don’t know him that well yet.”
      “Well I strongly advise you to reconsider. I’ve had friends die from merely touching a shadowman. It isn’t some silly superstition.”
      “Oh?” someone else asked behind them. It was Peter’s voice. “When was that?” Grrbraa lagged behind him, keeping his ears perked for imagined danger.
      Sylnya leaned in and said something in Peter’s ear.
      “It was only…” Draevin stopped and did the mental math on how long ago it’d been since he fought for Caldenia in the Tak’heem aggression. He was surprised when the math told him a much larger number than he’d been expecting. “It was when I was young,” he finished, not wanting to admit to the specific date.
      “So centuries ago?” Tenna asked. She laughed a bit too loud at her own joke. Draevin kept his face carefully flat, not wanting to let on that she was actually correct even though she’d clearly thrown out a number she thought was ridiculously large.
      “How long ago isn’t important,” Draevin said.
      “You do know there are dark-skinned humans that aren’t shadowmen, don’t you?” Peter asked.
      “There are? But the shadowmen—”
      “The shadowmen are only one tribe of humans that live down in Kreet,” Peter explained, “but all humans from that land have dark skin. It’s just from all the sun they get down there.”
      “So Rashad isn’t a shadowman?” Draevin hadn’t realized that was possible. Perhaps he’d been overly protective of his personal space around the man.
      “Well no,” Peter admitted, “Rashad is, but that doesn’t mean you have to paint all dark skinned-humans with the same brush.”
      “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Draevin said with a hint of sarcasm touching his voice.
      Tenna giggled. “Oh, funny joke Peter! Paint them. Wish a brush!”
      The group made it to the back of the line for The Pot and Draevin was pleased to see it was relatively short. He’d hoped that would be the case. The later into the tournament it got, the fewer wizards needed its mana.
      “You know, I liked you more before I learned how rude you can be,” Tenna told Draevin out of nowhere.
      “Sorry?” Draevin wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that.
      She let out a huff of breath. Her eyelids had started to droop just a bit. “Hey Peter,” she said. “Do you want to see my impression of Draevin having dinner?”
      Peter looked up from the notepad he’d been jotting in with a crooked smile. “I think I can guess,” he said.
      Tenna held both hands before her face like she was eating and proceeded to rapidly shake them back and forth in an imitation of shoveling food into her mouth. She opened wide and let her tongue hang out and made a disgusting racket of slurping. “Splch grch kth gyo,” she sounded.
      Draevin smacked one of her wrists gently. “Hey!”
      She broke down laughing and this time Peter decided to join in, Canne’ka or not. With all the joking they’d reached the front of the line.
      “Are you here to use The Pot or is this a social outing?” Perseus asked in annoyance. The Guild elf narrowed his eyes at them.
      Tenna pointed to the guild badge on his chest. “Tell me Perseus,” she asked, “do they take your sense of humor from you when they issue you that thing?”
      Perseus scowled and placed his hands on his hips. “If you’re not here to use The Pot I’m going to have to ask you to—”
      “Relax,” Draevin told him, stepping forward, “I’ll go first.”
      The rest of the group cycled through quick enough with Grrbraa going last. “We should really get back,” Peter said when they’d all gathered back together. “I’ve got to face the winner of the next match in round three.”
      Sylnya gave Peter a playful shove. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I won’t try to kill you.”
      An idea occurred to Draevin now that they were headed back to the arena, but he’d need to get separated from Tenna to pull it off. The group took off down the hill and Draevin announced, “I should go with Sylnya to the start of her match.”
      “You should?” Sylnya asked.
      “Yeah. I think her and I can handle anything that comes up just fine. Why don’t the rest of you head back to the booth together and I’ll return after I drop her off.”
      “That would have you walking back alone,” Peter pointed out. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re Caelnaste’s primary target.”
      “I think I can handle a short walk in a public space,” he insisted.
      When the group got close to the massive stone walls that encompassed the perimeter of the arena they could hear the noisy chatter that filled in the space between matches. They made their way inside before getting to a fork. “This is where I break off,” Sylnya said. “Draevin, are you coming?”
      “Yup.” He waved to Peter, Grrbraa and Tenna. “See you all in a bit,” he promised.
      As soon as the two groups separated Sylnya turned to Draevin. “Okay, you going to tell me what’s going on now?”
      “What do you mean? What makes you say that?”
      “I’ve known you for decades,” Sylnya insisted. “I know when you’re planning something.”
      “Okay fine,” Draevin admitted. “I won’t say anything about your visit to the betting cages if you don’t mention my visit to Unit-17.”
      “Unit-17? The trunstown bot? You want to talk to it?”
      “That’s the plan.”
      “That’s a stupid fucking plan.”
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