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.

GME Short Squeeze and Ryan Cohen DD for Jim Cramer, The (Man)Child Who Wandered Into the Middle of the GME-Cohen Movie 🚀 🚀 🚀

The Dude: It's like what Lenin said…you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh...
Donny: I am the walrus.
The Dude: You know what I'm trying to say...
Donny: I am the walrus.
Walter Sobchak: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Illanich Uleninov!
Donny:What the fuck is he talking about, Dude?
Hello again, GME Gang. What a fun day we had yesterday! Could it continue today? Only Melvin Capital (and maybe Ryan Cohen) knows!
And an extra special hello today to our newest WSB lookie-loo, Mr. Cramer (Can I call you Jim? I’m gonna call you Jim).
Now Jim, from what I’ve been able to gather, you and your Boomer stocks and your Hot Manic Takes don’t always get a lot of love around here. But that’s not all your fault, Jim. The Paste-Eating Rocket Kids are often good for a solid meme (FYI: it’s pronounced “Mee-Mee.” Feel free to use that on air without verifying). But the Rocket Kids can be a dense bunch and they’re also often one click away from Total Financial Ruin (Quick shout out to SPCE: Pleas fly again). So you have to dig a bit in here to separate the wheat from the chaff, as someone like you actually says in real life. What the fuck even is chaff, Jim? And why do all Boomers seem to think that folksy farm-based idioms are the perfect way to conclude a thought?
Anyway. Those of us who watched your teevee clips last week where you reference your interest in WSB know that you, Jim Cramer, might be one of the Olds, but that you also Think Young(TM). https://www.thestreet.com/jim-cramestock-market-advice-moderna-boeing-fed-ftc-dec-15. So we’re going to do our best to help your young-thinkin’ brain find the Needle In the Haystack here so you can get All Your Ducks In a Row on GME. Because we know that you’re a long way from being Put Out to Pasture, and though you may be an out-of-touch millionaire prone to facile yammering, we now like you here, Jim—simply because you mentioned us and that made us blush a bit since we’re needy Millennials who just want our Boomer mommies and daddies to Tell Us They’re Proud of Us. So even though the Paste-Eating Rocket Kids here are often Buying A Pig in a Poke (Christ, please do not ever say that or the kids’ Mee-Mees are gonna fuck you up), we appreciate you recognizing that, every now and then, there’s something worth paying attention to over in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs. And since you’re actually telling your loyal single-finger-typin’ viewers to check out this WSB shitshow, and “if they’re running GME, then do some work on GME,” we assume you might actually be checking this shit out too, since all true Young Thinkers know that What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander.
Now, is the GME play as solid as your recent recommendation to buy Bed Bath and Beyond? Who knows? That seems pretty stupid, and I would look it up myself this weekend but my nice little Saturday is already pretty full so I don’t know—I don’t know if I’ll have enough time. But I’ll tell you one thing: the GME play is a lot more fucking fun. Life in a pandemic is boring, but here in this weird WSB place, these kids like fun. And for all your Boomer weirdness, you seem like you still like to have a little fun in this Mad, Mad world of ours. So consider joining us here more often. A word of warning, though: if you don’t like all the dern cuss words we use around here, Jim, well that’s just, like, your opinion man, and we’ll have you know that the Supreme Court has roundly rejected Prior Restraint.
First thing’s first: we have a bit of a bone to pick with you (now there I go). The stuff you said last week about GME as the next Blockbuster was D-U-M dumb, Jim. You were a bit out of your fucking element with that. You even made our largest shareholder and conqueror-in-waiting, Mr. Ryan Cohen, send an emoji-only tweet in response, which if you know the super nice-guy Ryan Cohen like all of us do (we actually know nothing), that is pretty much the equivalent of him bringing his dog over to micturate on your and George Sherman’s rug.
Now, I myself have never been into the whole brevity thing, but I wanted to take this opportunity to get you up to speed on the GME movie you’ve wandered into. And I know you’re down with this because you told all your viewers that if WSB is talking about GME, then “make sure you know GME.” So before you say something Absolutely Mad again and Cohen sends a tweet with an even less ambiguous emoji, it’s high time that you start Making the Sure here, Jim. Just consider this to be CPT Hubbard delivering you some Orange Sunshine and turning you on to some of that Sweet, Delicious Non-Chaff Wheat you love so goddamn much.
Part 1: GME’s Bonkers-Ass Short Interest
Now, I’m going to lead with the most crowd-pleasing part of the story here (Get ready, Rocket Kids!), and it’s the one that you did not even seem remotely familiar with in your “Stay out of GameStop, Deadbeat!” rant last week. Maybe that was by design or maybe not. We’ll return to that, Jim. But the point here is: the short interest here is batshit insane. And not just your garden variety Boomer in Rolled Up Sleeves Ranting About Buying Estee Lauder While Hitting Buttons On The Beep-Bop-Boop Machine kind of insanity. Really and truly fucking nuts.
So to TL/DR this shit for you, Jim (to use the parlance of our times): GME is the most shorted stock trading today—by far. https://financhill.com/most-heavily-shorted-stocks-today How shorted? Well, the value of shares short exceeds the market cap of the company; there are currently more shares short than the total number of shares outstanding. And when factoring in the institutional and insider ownership, the total short percentage of float is nearly 300%. https://www.gurufocus.com/term/FloatPercentageOfTSO/GME/Float-Percentage-Of-Total-Shares-Outstanding/GameStop-Corp Even higher, actually, now that Cohen’s interest is over 10%. Now, I’m not a numbers whiz like you, but that level of short interest and the small available float seems pretty fucked up to me. Like: “how is that even legal?” fucked up. And just for a frame of reference, the third most shorted security right now is your beloved Bed Bath and Beyond, with a short percentage of float at a nice and tidy 69%.
Are you starting to gather why some of us in this weird little pocket of the Interwebs are a little excited about GME? You see, as u/Jeffamazon and RodAlzmann u/Uberkikz11 and others have explained in these here corners and on the twitter machine with their top-notch DD, and as I will translate to you in lingo you can dig, the short sellers got way over their skiis on this one expecting a bankruptcy in Spring of 2020 that never came. And yet, amazingly, the short interest has only increased since then—there has effectively been no covering in the aggregate and, in fact, the short percentage has only gone up. And now, on the threshold of 2021, we all sit atop a massive powder keg wondering what is going to be the thing that finally lights this shit up. And at the end of this little missive, I’m going to tell you what I think that thing might be (Spoiler: It’s Ryan Cohen! Better start getting used to seeing his name, Jim, because this dude does not fuck around and he’s not going anywhere).
https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/k4csaa/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century_part/
https://twitter.com/RodAlzmann
https://thecollective.finance/2020/10/gamestop-gme-a-squeeze-to-44-from-14-can-be-justified-fundamentally-100-of-the-shares-are-short-watch-out/
Part 2: GameStop Isn’t Going Bankrupt and People Actually Want to Buy Shit There
So, you foul mouthed little prick, a bonkers-ass short interest is neat and all, but why is Jim Cramer wrong when Jim Cramer compares GME to Blockbuster you might be asking yourself in the third person. First, the most obvious answer, Jim, which you should fucking know already: Blockbuster was nearly $1 Billion in debt and missing debt payments left and right when it was delisted way back in 2010. That was also when there was a bit of a credit crunch, if you recall, right after that whole Housing Crash Unpleasantness that you saw coming from a mile away and from which you made hundreds of millions of dollars due to your contrarian foresight—I’m sorry, I’m clearly confusing you with Christian Bale starring as Dr. Michael Burry, weirdo head of Scion Asset Management, which also holds about 1.4M shares of GME (You really gotta start looking into this stuff, Jim. This story is made for TV, man—and you Boomers were raised by TV and you turned out TV!). Also, in 2010 when Netflix is ripping and when Blockbuster was about to be delisted and bankrupt, an analyst noted the obvious fact that Blockbuster had “nothing on the horizon that makes it look like Blockbuster is going to be more profitable.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blockbusteblockbuster-wins-debt-reprieve-forced-to-delist-idUSTRE66052720100702
But Jim, if your Blockbuster comparison has any plausibility, GameStop must have a major debt problem then, right? And yet just last month GameStop repaid $125M in debt several months ahead of time. It’s also really weird that over the past year management bought back a ton of shares, taking the OS from 102M down to just under 70M (making a short squeeze even more likely, my Rocket Children). The weirdness continues with a soon-to-be-bankrupt company holding almost $500M in cash on hand. And according to George Sherman’s “Thine Omnichannel Shalt Be The Omni-est Channel of Them All” Conference Call following Q3, by March 2021 GME will have retired a total of $500M in debt and returned $200M to shareholders through stock buy backs. I’m no expert here, and I do not presently own a Beep-Bop-Boop Machine, but that’s all pretty weird shit to be doing if you’re about to go bankrupt.
No, no – I get it: who the fuck actually looks at balance sheets anyway before spouting off about what a stock is going to do? I sure as hell don’t. That’s why I follow my man u/Uberkikz11, since that dude is a GME DD Encyclopedia and was born to crunch numbers. No, when Really Smart People make the Blockbuster comparison, it’s usually just Mouth Sounds for: A B&M Store That Used to Be Popular But Now Is Not Because Technology, QED. But here even the Really Smart People might be missing something as well. They’re right in the sense that GME must use this new console cycle window and cash influx to quickly pivot to a tech-first gaming company (more on that and our boy RC shortly!), but they’re wrong on the timing and relevance of this Super Smart Insight.
So fine, they’re doing ok on debt and cash. But who even goes to that 90s-Ass-Looking Cluttered Mall Geekery anymore anyways? I confess: in my darkest moments, as the short sellers manipulate the fuck out of this stock and I curse the names Bell and Sherman, I too have wondered this. But it turns out that, just like I have no idea why anyone listens to Maroon 5 or eats at Applebee’s, apparently a lot of people in America do shit that I do not. Crazy huh? So here is some pretty neat data showing us how out of touch we might be here, Jim:
First, when a pretty large sample size of people were recently asked the question: which of the following stores or websites do you plan to buy holiday gifts from? The #5 response from United States Americans was none other than GameStop (Ticker, Jim: GME). Only Walmart, Amazon, Target, and Dollar Store (poor people buy gifts too, Jim) were ahead of little old GameStop. That’s higher than Nike, Macy’s, the Apple Store—and double the response of Bed Bath and Fucking Beyond in every category they surveyed. Check it: (h/t to my man u/snowk88)
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/260983915
That’s kinda crazy huh? See Jim, when you Think Young(TM), you really can learn something new every day. And by following our man u/snowk88 (@snowk88 over at stocktwits), I learn lots of cool shit. But guess who already knew that? The guy that wrote this bad-ass letter that identifies GME’s brand and customer data as being one of the most valuable things GME has going for it. https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/RC_Ventures_Letter_to_GameStop.pdf
So now we know that Real Life People actually buy shit at GameStop here in the year of our lord 2020. But like that analyst from 2010 said about Blockbuster, there must not be anything on the horizon for GameStop to be more profitable in 2021, right?
Now, I will admit that being a bit bearish on GME in December of 2020 would make more sense if, say, GameStop were the nation’s largest purveyor of limp and half-lit pumpkin spice-scented candles and we were exiting the apogee of Shitty Candle Season. But as it turns out, GameStop is currently selling basically the most sought-after items that exist in the marketplace right now—where demand for the Xbox and Ps5 is far outpacing supply and is projected to continue well into 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-11-17-microsoft-expects-xbox-series-x-s-shortages-until-q2-2021 I don’t really need to get into the details on that here, because it’s pretty goddamn obvious, but I think 2020 GameStop at the precipice of a new console cycle might be in a bit of a better position than, say, 2010 Blockbuster relying on the latest Adam Sandler release to lift its sagging rental numbers. But I don’t know. Millions of people don’t watch my show looking for Candid Analysis from me and my folksy man-of-the-people-lookin’ rolled-up sleeves.
Part 3: Ryan Cohen is the Sword of Damocles Hanging Over the Short Sellers’ Dumbass Heads
And now we’ve gotten to the best part. It’s my favorite part of all of this, Jim, and if you give this a little time, I think it will be yours too. You see, all that corporate bla bla bla about balance sheets and console cycles and early debt repayment and overleveraged short sellers and brand recognition is neat and all—and definitely worth a second look by itself. Maybe even a little Beep-Bop-Boop on the ol’ sound machine—I don’t know your methods. But the real thing that’s about to rip all our faces off here is the business and investment decisions of a mild-mannered wunderkind named Ryan Cohen.
Now you can revisit my prior epistle if you want to know a bit more about the involvement of Mr. Ryan Cohen in Le Affair GameStop. https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/kakxrm/gme_tribe_a_story_about_how_ryan_cohen_is_about/. My fly-by-night theory of his lawyer’s possible use of the consent solicitation could have probably marinated for another day, but the thrust of my argument there was that Cohen and his attorney have been laying the groundwork to come after GameStop for a while now. And that Cohen was likely emboldened by the humiliating, lame-ass CC performance by some dude with a mid-century comic-strip sounding name that we’ll all soon know only as: The Guy With the Punchable Face Who Used to Be CEO of GameStop.
But here is where things get really interesting. This is a story in the making, Jim, for fucks sake - take notes! This Monday, on December 21, Mr. Ryan Cohen filed a revised 13D showing that last week he started buying a shit-ton of shares—starting on Tuesday December 15th—which is the day after the stock price inexplicably plunged on Monday the 14th and the very same day you were yammering on the teevee about GME being Blockbuster! Instead of listening to you, however, Cohen started buying more GME shares (super-sleuth dark pool watchers u/rgrAi and u/snowk88 noticed in real-time that there was some very large accumulation taking place), which culminated in the big reveal that Cohen purchased a total of 2,501,000 additional shares last week—500,000 of which were purchased on Friday December 18, 2020 at the price of $16.02 a share. Ryan Cohen is still the single largest shareholder of GME with 9,001,000 shares in total, taking his ownership of GME above the 10% threshold from 9.98% to 12.9%. And so he apparently thinks that the floor for his investment is $16.02 per share. Is he still buying? We’ll know soon. But yesterday seemed like a little taste of what it might look like if a large buyer steps in to prevent short sellers from manipulating all of my nervous little Rocket Children here and their delicate little paper hands.
There was another thing we learned from this 13D filing: Ryan Cohen has apparently hired a new attorney and law firm. Instead of the great Christopher Davis of Kline Kaplan, now Ryan Cohen is represented by Ryan P. Nebel, a partner with Olshan Frome Wolosky, LLP. Now, if you’re familiar with my prior ramblings, you might wonder if I was a bit confused, and maybe even a little sad, at this sudden change from my man C. Davis. And you might be a little right. But then the wonder of the internet allowed me to learn a bit about these new lawyers. And holy shit, things are about to get fun.
Now, I liked what I knew about Chris Davis and he seems like a genuine bad ass activist attorney. But the folks at Olshan Frome and Wolosky, LLP are Next Level Players and really seem tailor-made for this exact situation. First off, Olshan is ranked as the top global lawfirm for Activist Attorneys. https://www.olshanlaw.com/assets/htmldocuments/Bloomberg%20Activism%20League%20Tables%20H12020.pdf (H/t @flummoxed at stocktwits). They seem to be the go-to law firm for major proxy battles initiated by activist investors. But possibly even more important is that Olshan is the same firm that represented Hestia and Permit in their successful proxy battle earlier this year to appoint two new directors to the GME Board. I’m not going into the fine details of that, because this is already a bit of a long-form Idiot’s New Yorker article, but GameStop just went through a proxy fight last year with Activist Investors Hestia Capital and Permit Capital, which resulted in two Board seats for our shareholder buds from Hestia and Permit. So, it’s reasonable to assume that the attorneys at Olshan might know their way around GameStop at this point and where the pressure points are here.
http://www.globallegalchronicle.com/hestia-capital-and-permit-capitals-two-new-directors-to-the-gamestop-board/
https://www.olshanlaw.com/resources-mentions-HestiaCapital-PermitCapital-GameStop-BoardofDirectors-ShareholderActivism.html
And if you follow u/snowk88 over at stocktwits (@snowk88)— you’d also find a wealth of DD on how Olshan rolls when entering these activist-investor-replaces-dumbass-boards-and-CEOs type disputes. To bottom line it: they get it fucking done.
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266158534
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266155112
https://stocktwits.com/snowk88/message/266153175
But what else did we learn from the 13D? We learned that Ryan Cohen is definitely not going anywhere any time soon. Specifically, the filing notes that RC Ventures intends to continue to engage in discussions with GameStop’s board “regarding means to drive stockholder value, including through changes to the composition of the board and other corporate governance enhancements." And while RC Ventures “desires to come to an amicable resolution with [GameStop, it] will not hesitate to take any actions that it believes are necessary to protect the best interests of all stockholders.”
I really like that last part, don’t you? And although I thought his November 16th letter was pretty goddamn clear, this 13D just ratcheted up the transparency level here. In sum, Ryan Cohen has all of our backs and he’s going to replace this Board and Sherman with people that are on the level and that will help implement his vision.
And now seems like a good time to return to those “Ryan Cohen: Boy Genius” articles that were definitely NOT part of a well-coordinated pre-hostile takeover media campaign initiated earlier this year. I think there might be a few things in those articles that Mr. Cohen wanted all of us shareholders (as well as the short sellers and the Board he’s about to replace) to really and truly understand. Recall also that Cohen is not one for diversification or for playing it safe. So here’s a few choice nuggets for you to ponder:
***
Bloomberg, June 2020: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-05/chewy-founder-cashes-out-bets-on-apple-wells-fargo
· "It's too hard to find, at least for me, what I consider great ideas," he says. "When I find things I have a lot of conviction in, I go all-in."
· Cohen uses the word “conviction” a lot. He says it’s something he learned from his father, who ran a glassware importing business in Montreal where Cohen grew up. “He taught me how to block the noise from the masses,” says Cohen. “To have a point of view and have conviction and not waver.”
· He wouldn’t, however, recommend his [non-diversified] investment approach to everyone. “You need to have the temperament to block the noise,” he says. “Sometimes it feels like a roller coaster.”
· He likens his obsessive focus on building Chewy to his approach to stock picking. "I don't want to swing for a single," he says.
***
You hear that, Jim? Our man Cohen likes idioms too! But fuck those farm idioms, Jim – we’re upgrading to the Sportsball kind now. So what’s the takeaway here? I’d say that Cohen has his Eye On The Ball and that it’s time for all short sellers and the Board to Throw in The Towel because Ryan Goddamn Cohen likes to Take the Bull By The Horns and will ensure that he Hits a Homerun for shareholders that believe in his vision.
Here’s a few more things Mr. Cohen wants all of us to know:
***
Forbes, August 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/08/16/entrepreneur-chewy-founder-ryan-cohen-shares-his-best-advice/?sh=41e1370e5840
· “For me, each no sounded like they just didn’t understand my vision. It was frustrating at times, but never discouraging. Those ‘no’s never made me doubt my strategy – it was the opposite. I was motivated by all the rejections and they just got me fired up.”
· “I understood that thinking big was likely going to be misunderstood along the way. I’m contrarian by nature, so being misunderstood often validates what I’m doing. It wasn’t until Chewy boxes were on doorsteps across the country that the bulk of investors started to recognize our formula.”
· “[M]y biggest risk would have been not taking risk. The risk of going head-to-head against Amazon. The risk of insourcing fulfillment. The risk of building a company in Florida rather than a popular tech hub. The risk of spending $3 million a month on TV ads, more than Home Depot HD -0.1%'s budget. The risk of hiring expensive executives even though we weren’t profitable. These decisions were some of the most controversial and required me being comfortable betting against conventional wisdom, and were often contrary to the advice of my board. Suffice it to say, I was not the most popular board member.”
· “Dad never swayed when he believed in something. I never compromised my vision, regardless how many investors turned me down I was not going to give up on building Chewy into the world’s biggest online pet retailer. I love to be challenged, and I’m flexible on details, but I’m never willing to give up.”
***
Goddamn it, Ryan. I was done having children but now you’ve forced me into getting back on that train just so I can name this future child Ryan Fucking Cohen. Thanks a lot, asshole.
But to return to my point: are those the statements of a man that seems likely to walk away at this point? Or is Cohen trying to tell us all to get ready because he is going All In on this shit?
So where does this leave us? After a huge week where Cohen buys 2.5M more shares and then the SP skyrockets to $20 yesterday on that news? Well, this is where I want to tip my cap to my man Justin Dopierala over at Seeking Alpha and allow him to conclude this section. He, along with his pal Dmitriy Kozin have been pretty clear-eyed on all this shit for a while now and they both deserve some credit. And I know I gave my main man Justin a bit of a hard time in my last novella, but the dude is sharp as hell and helped a lot of us see the forest through the trees here. And you should also definitely invite him to join your poker nights (seriously: check out the dude’s tweet in response to our own Rod Alzmann’s introduction of the #WeWantCohen hashtag right after the Q3 call debacle). https://twitter.com/DOMOCAPITAL/status/1336446055685230592. You have no comment on a potential takeover involving Ryan Cohen, Justin after your hour-long googly-eyed call together? Can’t believe you’re just preemptively leaving the WSJ and Bloomberg hanging like that. Justin, I love you dude, but if I’m holding pocket Kings I’m folding after that tweet because that twinkle in your eye lets me know you’re about to drop two Aces on my ass.
Anyway. Here is what our man Dopierala thinks might happen here soon (and he called this way back on November 17th- and sorry - no links here, per the mods, as apparently no Alpha must ever be Sought from these parts):
I think a very likely outcome at this point is a majority slate next shareholder meeting where Cohen takes over BOD and then makes himself CEO. A majority slate proxy battle would require all institutions to call in shares and would force a squeeze.
We’re intrigued, Justin. Please continue:
If Ryan Cohen successfully negotiates a purchase price with the Board then the shareholders will have to vote on it. Unlike the proxy battle where Hestia and Permit were running a minority slate of directors, an offer to purchase GameStop would force institutions like Vanguard and Blackrock to call in their shares. By doing so, the shorts would be forced to close out their positions and GameStop would finally have the greatest short squeeze of all-time. Ironically, Cohen could use this opportunity to sell all of his shares and use the proceeds to entirely fund the acquisition of GameStop going down as the first person in history to acquire a billion dollar company... for absolutely nothing. In fact, his acquisition price would be less than zero.
And now is when I get to speculate on what I think is going to happen here. But I do not necessarily think Cohen is going to put an offer to buy GME to take private. That would definitely trigger a MOASS, but I’m not sure I see it given the attorneys he’s hired and his recent buys up to $16 and the amount of cash that would take. Like Dopierala’s first comment, though, I think Cohen is going to nominate directors to replace nearly the entire Board of Directors with a vote happening at the annual meeting and once that Board is in place, they’ll appoint Cohen as CEO. And as Justin notes, if he nominates a majority slate of directors, shares will have to be called in to vote. And this vote and proxy battle will make the prior minority slate Hesita/Permit battle, and the tiny short squeeze that took place when that happened, look tame by comparison.
Now everyone: get your calendars out. Because the date to nominate directors here is in Mid-March, and my super-smart corporate lawyer buds inform me that it’s standard practice to file about 7-10 days prior. So, if this actually happening, we should be seeing something on this by early March.
But even though early March is now the mark on the wall, today’s insane price action caused me to think about all of this a bit harder and speculate a bit more. And a major h/t to my buds on the stocktwits board, especially u/rgrAi (@amarbar) for all the sharp analysis on this. But if you were Ryan Cohen and you knew this company was hugely undervalued and you had a high level of CONVICTION here and also knew you needed shareholder votes to sweep out these dumbasses and implement your vision—then how would you play this with the short interest here as crazy as it is? I’d keep buying. Why? Well, lots of reasons, you smart alecks.
First, so I have more guaranteed votes (duh?). Second, so that when the building starts burning and short hedge funds run for the exits they find that a mild-mannered Millennial with super-good ideas has sealed off all the doors and windows. That’s gruesomely delicious, isn’t it? Why else, CPT? Well, finally, and maybe most importantly, because I would want to excite and delight all my fellow shareholders by triggering a slow-burn short squeeze, raising the SP significantly, so that I can once again make the point (as he did in the Nov 16 letter) that the incompetent management that caused a HUGE drop in SP following that utterly incompetent Q3 call and the shelf registration, had nothing to do with the SP increase that again happened once Cohen announced his intent and started buying. Not the console cycle, not the cost containment measures, not the buybacks and not the early debt reduction. Nope: rightly or wrongly, shareholders will see Ryan Cohen buying shares and the corresponding SP increase and everyone—especially all new buyers who are delighted at their good fortune and swept up by Ryan Cohen Fever 2021—will start getting #WeWantCohen tattoos on their ass they’ll be so happy. And all of us, newly enriched by Ryan Cohen’s Big Canadian Balls and tactical brilliance, will crawl over glass to vote for him over The Boomer Artist Formally Known As GameStop’s CEO. I could be very wrong on this last point in particular, but if we start seeing 13Ds drop here shortly, things should get very fun very quickly.
Part 4: A Return to Our Short-Squeeze-to-Da-Moon Discussion: Who’s Side Are You Fucking On, Jim?
Now, Jim, given the fast friendship we’re creating here, and all we’ve been through over the past 5000 words, I hesitate in bringing this up. But we’ve all seen the video, Jim. You know the one I’m talking about. Yes, the one where you actually tell the truth about how short selling hedge funds manipulate the market to knock down the price of perfectly good securities that many hard-working people invest in—many normal-ass people all assuming they wont ever have to Point Where On The Dolly The Invisible Hand of the Economy Touched Them. But that’s not life now is it Jim? And fuck those poor-ass rubes for not knowing how to play the game with you sophisticated Masters of the Universe, amirite?
https://www.reddit.com/dashpay/comments/93evx4/jim_cramer_reveals_dirty_tricks_short_sellers_use/
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/cramer-market-manipulato
So where are you in this whole GME/Cohen story, Jim? You candidly (gleefully?) acknowledge that a prime strategy that shorts deploy is to spread negative rumors that are then amplified by Big Smart Trustworthy Financial Media Titans like yourself to shake out unsophisticated retail players like my Rocket Kids here—who because of their tiny paper hands and you mean short selling brutes often subsist on paste and paste alone.
So for this particular security, are you the one helping with the manipulation and actively creating the “new truth” or are you just one of the Useful Idiots that these short sellers use to manipulate with an anodyne, TV media-ready comparison like: GameStop Is The Next Blockbuster? And how in the fuck does this fit into your Think Young(TM) project, Jim? Because if there is one thing that we over at WSB fucking hate, it’s a bunch of Manipulative Short Selling Boomer Fuckwads. Why on earth would a hip Young Thinker like you want to be included in that crew, Jim?
And I know we’re all friends here now, Jim, but I need to push back a bit on some of what you said in that video in such a cavalier whatareyagonnado manner. So if I understand you, short and distort and fomenting negative reactions from retail players based on deliberately false narratives is illegal, but still easy as fuck to do "because the SEC doesn't understand it." But you fucking do understand it, Jim! So why are you helping those short and distorters break the law here? Why are you being such an obtuse dumbshit? Just check out what happens to the borrow rate and short selling every time there is any good news for GME:
https://stocktwits.com/Slantedangles/message/264519950 (h/t @slantedangles). This manipulation isn't just happening with GME; it is happening everywhere. It’s baked into the cake. And that is pretty fucked up that we all just accept it because whatareyagonnado.
I think that one thing that those of us who truly do Think Young(TM) have a hard time understanding is at what point in your lives do you Boomers all finally come to realize that it’s maybe time to stop playing the game like you have been? What point do you finally have enough where doing the right thing matters more than getting paid? Maybe start by telling the truth more often—and maybe don’t go out of your way to help those corrupt-ass hedge fund managers who continually fuck over average people merely because they were stupid enough to believe you all. What contempt you Masters of the Universe have for all of them—for all of us. There is a bigger story here on GME and this out-of-control short interest (naked shorting, counterfeit shares) http://counterfeitingstock.com/CS2.0/CounterfeitingStock.html than even Ryan Cohen and the inevitable short squeeze we’re about to witness here. And it begins and ends with people like you and Melvin Capital and Bank of America not giving a fuck about the rules while thinking you’re smarter than the rest of us who do—but who lack power to do anything about it. And you know what? Maybe you are smarter than us. You certainly know how to play this game pretty well, as that video shows. But if I know my old school 1980s movies like I think I do, this is usually the part of the story where the rag-tag kids from across the tracks come over to show you hubristic rich fuckheads what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.
Now I myself have never dabbled in pacifism, Jim, so this isn’t too much of a stretch for me, but seeing that video of yours and seeing the insane short interest and all the manipulation here makes me want to burn the whole corrupt system to the ground—while barricading the doors to trap in those arrogant-ass short sellers who lie and cheat and distort to profit off average people. And though I’m certain that this larger battle is not driving him, maybe that result is one that Ryan Cohen wouldn’t mind too. Though he’s a polite Canadian and would probably just let everyone know that he’s not really mad, just disappointed. But me? I’m an Angry American and I say: Block the fucking doors and windows and light that shit up.
So maybe this epistle will be useful for your Think Young(TM) project and cause you to reflect a bit more on what’s really going on out there with this whole GME thing and the likely illegal shorting that has driven the short percentage of float to these insane levels, drawing in new retail shorts too stupid to know what’s even happening. Or maybe it wont cause you to reflect in the slightest (count me as one of those cynical types that see your overtures to WSB as a transparent play for greater market share from the Young Crowd since your old-ass audience is dying and/or switching to bonds). But in a few months when all the Billy Ray Valentines and Louis Winthorpes assembled here are toasting each other in stupid shirts on a white-sand beach somewhere, we do not want you to look back on your knee-jerk boomer-ass dismissal of GME and your Useful Idiot blathering with that same tinge of regret and longing you feel when you look at a pre-Client 9 picture of you and your old roomie: warm-toes-and-hosiery-enthusiast E. Spitzer, Esq.
In conclusion: GME = Blockbuster comparisons are for Simps and Corrupt Short-and-Distorters. Don’t be like them, Jim. And to my Rocket Children: the only weapon we wield in this stupid game is Diamond Hands with a float like this. Toughen the fuck up.
And Happy Holidays everyone.
--CPT Hubbard
TL/DR: Jim Cramer likes farm-based idioms and apparently being a useful idiot to scummy short selling hedge funds. DD on the GME turnaround is solid and overleveraged short sellers should be shitting themselves. Ryan Cohen, our polite, hard-working Canadian benefactor is about to rip all our fucking faces off and trigger a MOASS. Probably even by early March, if that time is good for you (he’ll text before he comes). And fuck infinite regress: It’s rockets all the way down here. 🚀🚀🚀 Now: diamond hands, motherfuckers.
**This is a shitpost and is only to be used as investment and life advice for Mr. Jim Cramer, Esq.

My city has been cut off from the world and overrun with monsters. I have a set of rules to stay alive. Ignoring Rule #5 and being a raging dumbass almost got me killed. Like, more than usual

Hello, friends. It’s me again. Eli. Been a while. I’ve been avoiding typing this out because at first I really didn’t want to talk about what happened, but I have now convinced myself that telling all of you might be therapeutic.
Sort of convinced myself, anyway. I won’t lie; I did stop and question my choices about four times when writing just those first two paragraphs. I think I’ve made it over the hump now, though. Too late to go back – I’m just gonna fucking write it, and then I can share it if I feel like it. Right? Right.
Well, let me lay it out on the table then: between my last post and this one, I almost died. Like, more than usual. I mean, I was bleeding and fading in and out of consciousness for several days. Maybe a week. I don’t really remember, to be honest. It’s all kind of a haze. I definitely hallucinated; I remember visions of my family dancing with some Brents and a pineapple king. Nine out of ten medical experts didn’t think I’d make it. (That’s a joke. All ten of ten medical experts have been dead for months).
Also, but just as I was coming out of it, then it was Christmas, and that was an interesting experience too. You know how there are monsters of lore that come out during the holidays, like Krampus or the Yule Cat? Yeah, we don’t have those – because God forbid we have a monster I’ve heard of before, that I could actually look up information about – but it turns out there is a monster around here that likes Christmas. Made its first appearance last week right as I was conscious again and made my headaches start all over. But more on that later. Today I’m talking about how close I seriously came to dying in the past few weeks.
And why did I almost die when I have such a carefully curated list of rules? Because I’m a fucking idiot and decided to forget all about Rule #5. And why did I forget about Rule #5? Because I was too focused on finding that girl.
I suppose I may as well go ahead and tell you what Rule #5 is, because it’s not very exciting. Not all my rules are. Some don’t deal with specific monsters; instead, they’re general guidelines for surviving in this hellscape, and though boring, they’re helpful advice against several varieties of monster, not just one. They’re the glue holding my more species-specific rules together, if you will.
Rule #5: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I made that rule pretty early on, to prevent myself from having false hope. Between Ashleys and MJs and other deception-based monsters (though they didn’t all have names at the time), I figured a base rule for not trusting everything good I come across was in order. I believe I made it an official rule after another close call with an Ashley, followed by an encounter with the creature behind Rule #3. I’ll get to Rule #3 another time, by the way, so hold your horses. Today’s star is Rule #5, whether you like it or not.
Unfortunately, like the idiot I am, I forgot all about Rule #5 in my pursuit of the girl. Did she seem too good to be true? (Yes). Yet did I pour all my energy and heart into finding her? (Also yes). So am I a dumbass who can’t follow my own rules and almost died as a result? (Jury’s verdict: yes).
Let me explain.
See, she left me that riddle. After several suggestions and a lot of struggling thought of my own, I came to the conclusion that the most likely answer was echo. That wasn’t super helpful though, because it left the question of where echo was supposed to lead me.
So I then spent days walking around the part of the city she’d left her clues in, desperately scouring for anything that might relate to echo. I also combed the internet looking for answers; that took another day by itself, since my connection is so goddamn slow.
Ultimately, my best bet turned out to be a concert hall about three-quarters of a mile away from where I’d seen her. Old Google reviews mentioned its acoustics and the lovely echoing quality of the music performed there. It was a stretch, but it was the closest link I could find.
I went there about a week after my last post. That’s about two weeks ago, for those following along at home. And yes, I was prepared – or at least I thought I was. I ran through my rules in my head, making sure I had everything I needed both mentally and materially (though conveniently hurrying past Rule #5, apparently).
Once I had my lasers, voice recorder, knife, pistol, lighter, two Molotov cocktails, and of course, Mr. Bailey, we headed out. Everything was pretty quiet on the way to the concert hall, actually, and I made it there without incident. Maybe that should have seemed suspicious, but it’s not like it’s unheard of to get lucky and avoid monsters every once in a while, so I was really just grateful that I seemed to be having a stroke of luck, and hoped that it would hold.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Things only went downhill from there.
I stood outside the concert hall for a minute, Mr. B chirping on my shoulder. After a few deep breaths and a glance down at her note one more time – shockingly, there was nothing new written there – I stuffed the paper in my pocket and walked forward.
Steps led me up to the entrance, which consisted of a long row of glass doors. Instinctively, I pulled out my knife and gripped it tightly as I crept closer. It was still daylight, so you’d think I’d be able to see in through the glass, but the interior was completely dark, so all I really saw was glare from the sun. I didn’t like having such little visibility for what I was about to walk into. I may not have a formal rule for it, but a good general tip is not to enter somewhere blind. And here I was, about to do exactly that.
I hesitated, and man, I wish I’d turned back then. This was a high risk, high reward operation, after all: I could be rewarded with meeting the girl and befriending her, but I was risking entering a place that might be a hotbed of monsters, or being led into a trap, or guessing wrong on her riddle and exposing myself to monsters in an unfamiliar part of town for no real reason. If I’d been thinking of Rule #5, it would have occurred to my idiot self that the reward part was probably too good to be true. But as has been established, 1) I am a dumbass, and 2) I was too hopeful, and with my high hopes, I got careless.
So I went in, obviously. Mr. B dug his claws in as I pushed open one of the glass doors, stepping into a shadowy entrance hall where the only dim light came from slanted sunbeams behind me.
The foyer was empty, thank God. My footsteps echoed around the hall, which I guess was a good sign, since I was looking for echo, after all. Mr. B chirped again as I continued forward past an abandoned concession stand to the next set of doors, these ones wooden. Remarkably, most of them were still standing and unharmed; I only saw two that had been shredded to splinters and were hanging off their hinges. Maybe that meant monsters hadn’t been here much. A guy can hope.
Still holding my knife in front of me in my left hand, I reached out and pushed one of the intact doors open with my right. It swung easily, revealing a cavern of darkness. I cursed and pulled out my flashlight. I’d been hoping I could avoid drawing attention to myself with a light, but the hall was basically a black hole – and complete darkness was way more dangerous than showing my position but being able to see. If there were monsters here, they’d probably hear me regardless, to be honest.
I switched on the light and saw a carpeted aisle gently sloping down ahead of me. Rows of seats lined it on either side; the seats may have once been plushy and well-kept, but now they were coated in dust. Cautiously, I started down the aisle, feeling Mr. Bailey’s tail flick nervously against my neck. I didn’t blame him. I was nervous too.
Once I was close to the front, I could see more of the stage. It was impressive, if you’re into that sort of thing. Before all this, I would have said I’d be the last person to be caught dead in a concert hall, but here we were, and I wasn’t dead (yet). And honestly, I could kind of see the appeal. The stage was dusty like the seats, but still managed to portray a sense of majesty. The curtains hanging off to the sides were a deep purple with gold trim. It must have been nice, back before all hell broke loose.
I hadn’t seen anything helpful yet, so I figured I’d get up on stage. At the very least, I’d be able to shine my flashlight into the different sections of seats and maybe up into the balcony. See anything there was to see, you know. The carpeted aisle had muffled my footsteps, but as soon as I pulled myself up onto the stage (who has time to look for stairs?) that was all over. Every step was magnified tenfold, echoing around the entire hall. I’m sure you could hear my steps, even in the dust, up in the farthest seat in the balcony. Well, if this place was the correct answer for echo, it was certainly well-deserved.
This is where it all goes to hell. Strap in, motherfuckers.
I made my way front and center on the stage, and just as I began to shine my flashlight into the audience, I was blinded; a gigantic spotlight turned on, aimed directly at me. It was so sudden and so bright that I cursed and dropped the flashlight, using that hand to cover my eyes instead. Blindly, I stumbled back to escape its glare; it followed. My heart was racing a mile a minute, both because of the shock and because I’d realized that if the spotlight was following me, someone was controlling it.
Thankfully, it only took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but if you’ve ever been in a spotlight, you probably already know what I discovered then: with the light on you, and with the audience dark, it’s fucking impossible to make out anything in detail beyond the stage. This was alarming, since I now could see even less than I’d been able to with the meager flashlight, especially with my eyes adjusted to the damn spotlight and not to the darkness.
I considered calling out, but I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that calling “Hello?” is, at best, useless, and at worst, fatal. So I stood there, silent except for Mr. B’s swishing tail, waiting for something to happen.
I didn’t have to wait long. Suddenly another spotlight turned on, only this one was aimed up to the balcony. And in the circle of light was none other than the girl I’d been pursuing. My heart skipped a beat for a different reason, and for the first time, I started to feel a little more confident that this was the right decision, and that it was safe.
Big mistake.
“You figured out my riddle,” she called from the balcony. She was too far for me to make out many details, but by squinting I could see that she had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and that she was wearing glasses.
“I appreciate the challenge, but was it really necessary? I’ve got other things to think about besides difficult riddles. Like, you know, surviving,” I yelled back.
“You thought it was difficult?” came her response. I could practically hear the smugness in her voice.
Well, I wasn’t giving in that easily. “No, I just wanted to make you feel good about yourself,” I called. Mr. B growled on my shoulder, and out of the corner of my eye, I could swear I saw something move. But I, stupidly, ignored both these things.
“Oh, right, obviously,” she answered. There was a pause, and then she added, “I’m so glad you made it here!”
Before I could reply, all of the house lights simultaneously turned on. And, well, it wasn’t pretty. I shit you not, the audience was full of monsters. All those dusty seats that had been empty on my walk up here weren’t empty anymore. Not even close. Where the hell had they all come from? Had they been hidden somehow before? Had she hidden them somehow?
Thankfully, even as my heart panicked, my body and brain more or less knew what to do. A quick scan revealed no Ashleys (there was no food here, so not surprising) and no MJs (also not surprising, since they’re really one-on-one type fellas). Didn’t really see Dylans either, which made sense – they don’t generally come inside, and it wasn’t night outside, so they were probably hibernating in their caves or something. To be safe, though, I reached in my pocket and turned on my voice recorder, allowing “blueberry” to echo repeatedly through the hall. It looked mostly like Calebs and Brents; at least they’re dumb, but I’d still need a hell of a lot of brute force to make it out of this. I’d never faced this many of either at once before, and they were all staring. Right. At. Me.
Keeping my knife pointed towards the crowd, I yelled over my recording up to the girl. “This was a trap!” I called, and even I could hear the anger clear in my voice. “What are you? Are you even human? Whatever you are, you’re a bitch.”
I glanced only briefly up at her, maintaining my gaze on the monster horde so I wouldn’t miss a move they made. So far, they hadn’t moved, which made me fear that they were waiting on a signal from – her, maybe? She must have set me up. A long con to betray and kill me, if you will. Was she a new kind of monster I hadn’t met before? Was she their leader?
“I am human, I swear!” she called back, sounding almost like was about to cry. “I swear I didn’t –”
And that’s all she got out before all of the lights went out. Yes, all of them: both the spotlights and the house lights. We were plunged into complete darkness, except for the single weak beam from my flashlight, which illuminated flashes of fur and skin and claws as the monsters simultaneously raced towards me.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK,” I screeched, tripping over my own feet as I hurried backwards. Fumbling in the dark, I reached into my pockets and managed to find my lighter and one of the cocktails. Unfortunately, I only have two hands, so I had to hold the knife between my legs as I rapidly tried to ignite the cocktail without seeing it. The lighter flicked on, and by the glow of the flame, I could see both the rag (good) and the monsters, who were almost at the stage (bad). Frantically, I managed to set the rag on fire, and as soon as it caught, I flung it into the horde. Then I ran.
From behind me, I heard the explosion and the screeches of monsters – mostly Brents, probably – as it killed at least a few of them. Not that was as helpful as I wanted it to be.
I was holding the knife again now, the lighter in my other hand, but I didn’t have enough of a lead to stop and ignite the other Molotov cocktail, or to try my hand at lasers. For now, I just had to run. The lighter provided just enough visibility to not trip and kill myself as I raced backstage, shrieks and growls getting closer and closer behind me. Mr. B was on my shoulder, facing backwards and hissing, and while I appreciated his efforts, I’m pretty sure they were doing very little to deter our pursuers.
I guess there’s some mercy left in the world, because I came across a ladder. I was running out of backstage space as monsters swarmed closer from all sides (I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them), so without a second thought I climbed it as fast as I could. Thankfully, it led to – I believe it’s called a catwalk, I looked up it afterwards. You know, like a suspended platform above the stage where all the lights hang from. I ended up standing on that.
Apparently, Calebs and Brents weren’t used to ladders, because I had a blessed few seconds up there alone. I used them to ignite the second cocktail and throw it into the monster horde; seconds later, I could see the explosion as it tore apart several Brents. Nice. At least if I went down – and it sure seemed likely I would – I’d go down swinging.
I would have tried lasers, but I couldn’t see the Calebs’ eyeholes, and besides, there were way too many of them. And, as they figured out the ladder and eagerly began to climb up it, there was nowhere else to go. It was too high to jump safely, and even if I tried, I could hear the Calebs and Brents down below, waiting for me if I chose that option.
No way out. I cursed myself for being such an idiot and ignoring Rule #5 – because suddenly Rule #5 was very clear in my head – and said to Mr. B, “I love you, bud. Let’s go out fighting, huh?” He meowed in response.
So I fought. Armed with my knife, a pistol, and a cat, I fought. I held off the first few with only a few scratches and swipes, but then I ran out of bullets, and more of them had made it to the catwalk. I got bitten several times; claws were raked down my back, across my face, across my chest. I honestly don’t remember the details, but I know it was rough, based on the injuries afterwards.
I could hear shrieks and explosions below at that point, as if someone was fighting the monsters down on the stage too, but I didn’t have time to look. And soon it was too late; the monsters had overwhelmed me, I was spitting blood and barely conscious, and I’d run out of catwalk. As I swung the knife one last feeble time, a Caleb lunged at me, and I slipped backwards in a pool of my own blood, falling, falling, falling down to the stage, where I remember my head hitting the wood with a heavy thud (and yes it echoed) before I was completely unconscious.
(Man, fuck that Caleb. I mean, fuck all Calebs, but fuck that one in particular. That one that made me fall off the catwalk might actually be worse than original Caleb....on second thought, nah. He’s still the worst. Fuck Caleb the most.)
I really don’t know exactly what happened for the week after that. I remember flashes of someone carrying me down the street, but not a person; someone big, because I was far off the ground. Like Hagrid carrying Harry.
Then I was home, in and out of consciousness for days, in a haze and in a lot of pain. Most of my body was wrapped in bandages by someone. I think I was fed, too, because I remember soup. It’s all a weird blur of reality and dreams and agony. I’m still getting headaches and dizzy spells; I assume it was a concussion. Pretty serious blood loss, too, and a broken arm. Honestly, I’m probably lucky it wasn’t worse, all things considered.
But here’s the kicker: I wouldn’t be alive if the mystery person hadn’t gotten me out of there and into my home, if they hadn’t watched over me and cared for me and bandaged my wounds and even put my arm in a shitty makeshift sling. I would definitely have died on that stage, either from bleeding out or from becoming monster food. And I’m pretty sure the mystery person is, in fact, the girl I thought lured me into a fatal trap.
Why? Because when I finally woke up for good, I found a note left on the table. Once my head stopped swimming, I read it.
I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen; it wasn’t a trap. I realize it looks like that, and I don’t know how to show you otherwise. But I did what I could, and you should be okay now, though I can’t do anything about the scars. Best of luck to you and the cat.
P.S. If you ever decide to give me another chance, no riddles this time. You can find me in the bookstore on Sycamore Street.
P.P.S. My name is Zoe.
So, before you ask, no, I don’t know what to believe. It sure seems like she led me to a trap to kill me, but then why did she make sure I didn’t die? Is this all a multi-level trick? Or did she get ambushed by the monsters as much as I did? I just don’t know, and all the thinking in circles I’ve done about it has only made my head hurt worse.
I have no idea yet if I’m gonna go to that bookstore. It took me this long to even want to write about my first failed venture. And then things went to shit all over again at Christmas. At least I know her name, I guess. Though was it worth it? Who the fuck knows.
Anyway, I’m alive. And I sure as shit won’t be ignoring Rule #5 anymore. It seemed too good to be true, and whether it was intentional on her part or not, it was. Too good to be true, that is. So I think I’m retired from chasing her, at least for now. At least until my fucking arm can move again and words don’t swim on the page after writing for an hour. I do have long scars on my back and across my face that likely won’t ever go away.
But hey, I’m alive. And so is Mr. B. (I know he’s who you’re really worried about). I don’t think he fell with me; he probably snuck out between the monsters’ legs or something. But he was here purring on my lap when I woke up, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So cheers to me surviving despite my idiocy, and cheers to Mr. Bailey. I changed my mind about concert halls, though. You know how I said I could see the appeal? Yeah, fuck that. I’m never going back in one of those godforsaken places again .

MATCHING DAY IS TOMORROW!! ONE DAY LEFT!! SIGN UP NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!! ALSO, FUN STATISTICS IN THIS POST!!

Re-reading the Adem arc (part 2)

If you were to attack this tree, what would you do?

Hello again, moon followers!
For the records, this is my attempt to uncover the vast secrets that I have seen, hidden in double meanings through the Adem part of WMF. This is being weaved with a literal reading of words~~(drowned=dead)~~, while allowing them multiple meanings based on probabilities and matching descriptions. Also, this is being written by a songwriter, so I am a lover of words and metrics, as a player of emotions and...dark thoughts.
so...come sing with me again...
___________________________________________
We will start with chapter 110, Branch and Beauty. this sums up nicely the high points of the chapter, actually.

"AS WE TRAVELED, WE moved quickly through towns, stopping only for food and water. The countryside was a blur. My mind was focused on the Ketan, the Lethani, and the language I was learning." - This is showing how much Kvothe is willing to help Tempi. It also hides the Cthaeh's words driving Kvothe. But mainly, it shows that Kvothe is dedicated to blending himself, to learn another character to act when needed. Ruh to his bones. proceeding.

"I didn’t know that the powerful storms that gave the mountain range its name were common here." - I cannot in my life understand how lol. For an aspiring namer, Kvothe is too blind to things on his face. always looking...

"Tempi turned to face me, tugging nervously at the leather straps holding his mercenary reds tight to his arms. “I must go and make my introductions to Shehyn. It may be some time.” Anxiety. Regret." - Look how scared Tempi is of being cut off. The Ademre is a part of his deep name, what would become of him without it? dying is easier, you just die. but living without a part of you... that's a whole different horse. It says a lot about the Ademre as a whole, how much tight "as a family" they are.

"The wind blew over everything, snapping around corners and making patterns in the grass. I thought briefly of pulling on my shaed, but decided against it. " - This is important intel for ahead in the series. The wind is ever present in Haert, in heart. remember that Pat made visual stuff on purpose, there are symbols and symbolisms and they are NOT the same.
While the wind blows in Haert, he decides not to wear his second skin of shadow, keeping his vow to Tempi.

"I could imagine someone like Tempi growing up in a place like this, soaking in the quiet until he was full of it, then taking it with him when he left." - This is what I mentioned before about Tempi's being. stillness and silence are a part of him as much as a part of the Ademre. taking it out would be just like changing his name.

“Is it fascinating, our wall?” she asked, gesturing gentle amusement, curiosity with one hand. “What do you think of it?”
“I think it is beautiful,” I responded in Ademic, careful to make only brief eye contact. - Kvothe is careful, so he is thinking. waking mind.
Her hand tilted in an unfamiliar gesture. “Beautiful?”
I gave the barest of shrugs. “There is beauty that belongs to simple things of function.” - He starts to trail off.
“Perhaps you are mistaking a word,” she said. Gentle apology. “Beauty is a flower or a woman or a gem. Perhaps you mean to say ‘utility.’ A wall is useful.”
“Useful, but beautiful as well.”
“Perhaps a thing gains beauty being used.”
“Perhaps a thing is used according to its beauty,” I countered, wondering if this was the Adem equivalent of small talk. If it was, I preferred it to the insipid gossip of the Maer’s court. - Notice how much more relaxed he is here. Here he is speaking without thinking, sleeping mind. Is his part that might hold the lethani.

“What of my hat?” she asked, touching it with a hand. “Is it beautiful because it is used?”
It was knitted from a thick homespun wool and dyed a bright cornsilk yellow. It was slightly lopsided, and its stitching was uneven in places. “It seems very warm,” I said carefully.
She gestured small amusement, and her eyes twinkled ever so slightly. “It is that,” she said. “And to me it is beautiful, as it was made for me by my daughter’s daughter.”
“Then it is beautiful as well.” Agreement. - Shehyn saw the change. her amusement here is to notice that Kvothe became careful again, he thought before speaking. Also, it seems very warm might hold a bit of significance, but I won't delve on it.

I resigned myself somewhat gratefully to her company, and we walked quietly until we came to a deep valley that opened suddenly in front of us. It was green, with a stream at the bottom, and sheltered from the persistent wind.
“What would you say of such a thing?” she asked, gesturing to the hidden valley.
“It is much like Ademre.”
She patted my arm affectionately. “You have the gift of saying without saying. That is rare for one as you are.” - this could be a lot of wordplay to hint at the Faeriniel's tale, but it requires a lot of stretching. So I will stick to the factual gift of saying without saying. Kvothe's answer is very ambiguous, and I bet Shehyn was expecting he would say it was beautiful. She is trying to bend him. beauty and branch.

"(seeing the Latantha for the first time.) I nodded and watched it as well as I could from this distance. It had high, arching branches like an oak, but its leaves were broad, flat, and spun in odd circles when they caught the wind. “Yes.” I answered after a long while.
“Why did it take you so long to decide?”
“I was considering the reason for its beauty,” I admitted.
“And?”
“I could say it both moves and doesn’t move according to its nature, and that grants it beauty. But I do not think that is the reason.”
“Why then?”
I watched it for a long time. “I do not know. What do you consider the reason?”
“It simply is,” she said. “That is enough.”
I nodded, feeling slightly foolish about the elaborate answers I had given before. - Here. there it is. one of those manyfold words of Shehyn. First, we see that by this point, Kvothe is thinking a lot over the matter. He gives a long and unanswering phrase after much thought. But Shehyn states the simplicity of being.
and here, fellas, we have a key information on much stuff. This phrase, assuming the context is not just beauty, reveals a part of the hidden heart of things. consider this: take out the beauty from the context and read again:
It simply is, that is enough.
Now, consider the times Kvothe (or Pat) describes some movements. stretches like a cat, moved without effort, moves with a graciousness. All of those are "inherent qualities", are parts that forms beings. A cat stretches because it is in his nature, he does not think about it, he only does, because he is made for it. is subconscious, is of the Cathani LOL. The thing is, being is important on KKC. Bast explains it to Chronicler using the beauty of a girl as example. grammarie is the art of making things be, much like shaping. keep this info, it is VERY important to the whole theme of the books.

Approval. “Why then do I wear white?”
The only answer I could think of chilled me. “Because you do not bleed.”
She gave a partial nod. “Also because if an enemy draws my blood, she should see it as her fair reward. - Note that Shehyn think of an enemy as female. cool tidbit of info about a matriarchal society

She moved like nothing I had ever seen. It wasn’t that she was fast, though she was fast, but that was not the heart of it. Shehyn moved perfectly, never taking two steps when one would do. Never moving four inches when she only needed three. She moved like something out of a story, more fluid and graceful than Felurian dancing.
Hoping to catch her by surprise and prove myself, I moved as fast as I dared. I made Maiden Dancing, Catching Sparrows, Fifteen Wolves . . .
Shehyn took one single, perfect step.
“Why do you weep?” Shehyn asked as she made Heron Falling. “Are you ashamed? Are you in
fear?”
I blinked my eyes to clear them. My voice was harsh from the exertion and emotion. “You are beautiful, Shehyn. For in you is the stone of the wall, the water of the stream, and the motion of the tree in one.” - now we, long time readers, know that The Lethani is a Knowing, and that knowing is a type of power, an inherent power, indeed. she moving like something out of a story clearly indicates how much of a knower Shehyn, the Balance, is. Tempi states before that Shehyn is thrice versed on the Lethani. She has the stone, the stream and the tree, patient, fluidic and deeply rooted. And since Kvothe is focused on the fight, as he clearly says he is under heavy emotion, he probably said it from the belly. He saw it instead of perceiving.

“Tempi has both taught you and not taught you,”(...) “Which is both bad and good. Come.” - A nod to Old Holly fans! Kvothe is both. Both.

I looked up at the spinning leaves. Anyone standing near the tree when the wind was high would be cut to ribbons. - Not shreds, not pieces. Ribbons. without vanity. Pat is a clever manling with his precise fitting of words in the right place. cunning, inded.

“Do you see? You find the place to spend your strength, or it is wasted. Wasting strength is not of the Lethani.” - because bad links have too much slippage and might kill you! nice parallel, eh?

This makes for this chapter. there are some small tidbits of stuff that I won't cover to keep from digressing as a hungry cow. Not that hungry cows digress. but you see how it goes lol.
now, chapter 111, A liar and a Thief. This is a proper name because that is how they are treating Kvothe through the chapter.

Curiosity. I gestured to Tempi.
He didn’t look at me. Profound seriousness. Attend. It didn’t reassure me that these were the same gestures he had made on the road to Crosson when he thought we were walking into an ambush. His hands, I noticed, were shaking slightly. - Tempi is giving the same signals, he knows that Shehyn will test Kvothe and tries to warn him, but he fails to prepare for it.

A few people walked past in the hallway: two in mercenary reds, and another in simple grey homespun. Each of them looked at my hair, though none of them stared. - I will use this phrase to explain a thought I've had. There are a lot of highlights of people looking at Kvothe's hair. At the surface level is obviously because he stands out among all the monochromatic Adem. His are the only odd features in the entire place. But there is another level to it...
As we learn later from Vashet, wearing the red is a noble thing in their society, so much to have a word for its own, Cethan. Cethan, say it loud and you might learn something before I tell you. What matters now, is that our prodigy K'boy here, has the Cethan on his head. Yes, I know, it is not like he is wearing the red, neither is a mercenary. but it fits. Kvothe has a clear goal of being able to fight and a want to be undefeated, much because of the Chandrian massacre and a blind, childish thirst for revenge. He says it loud that he wants to fight so he can win, just as he fails to play a beautiful game on his desire to prove himself the best. Arrogant piece of ass. Anyway, he wears the red on his head, he thinks of the fight. You CANNOT say that this would have no impact to the Adem, it is supposed to feel storylike, remember?

For lack of any other ideas, I took a deep breath, relaxed, and tipped my mind gently into Spinning Leaf.
“Who knows the Lethani?” Shehyn asked.
“The windblown leaf,” I responded, though I cannot honestly say what I meant by it.
“Where does the Lethani come from?”
“The same place as laughing.”
Shehyn hesitated slightly, then said, “How do you follow the Lethani?”
“How do you follow the moon?” - After almost screwing things up, he decides is rather best not to think so much. his answers here are very interesting tbh. Windblown leaf is a beautiful example. It's nature is to bend to the wind, and so it does fully. it comes from deep inside, beyond the thoughts and emotions, it comes from the feels. But this last one, how do you follow the moon? is pretty philosophycal. There is no real way of following a moon, worst yet given she roams between realms.

“And what he said today?” Shehyn asked.
“A dog can bark three times without counting.”
Shehyn turned to Tempi. “By speaking out of turn you refuse your turn to speak.” Tempi flushed again, his lips growing pale as he struggled to maintain his composure - This is something I want some help, actually. I could never manage to figure what Tempi meant by that. If it was Carceret, it would make some sense, but Tempi? Revision error, maybe?

“But I am not one who would say that. I think the world would be better if more were of the Lethani. For while it brings power, the Lethani also brings wisdom in the use of power.” - Here Shehyn pretty much explains the KnoweShaper dichotomy. Having power is something that can easily drive you or make you go mad and abuse it. But having the wisdom to know when and where to use it's power? this is a whole new level of it. a level of control.

Next and last for tonight, 112, The Hammer:
Not out of the wind, mind you. There didn’t seem to be anywhere in all of Haert entirely out of the wind. - I had a good talk with u/PlaytheBoard about this particular phrasing and the various meanings that could lie beneath.
At surface level, it says that there is no part of the town of Haert that has no wind.
at a bit of meta, it says that nowhere in heart is out of the wind. mind the name of most things involving KKC are called Name of the Wind
at a symbolic level, nowhere in the heart is without wind. all things inside Kvothe's heart are linked to the wind somehow. but this is more crazy than the rest and I can't find the right words to describe what I understand. leading on...

“That is my name. Vashet. The Hammer. The Clay. The Spinning Wheel.” She pronounced her name three separate ways, each with its own cadence. “I am that which shapes and sharpens, or destroys.”
“Why the clay?”
“That is also what I am,” Vashet said. “Only that which bends can teach.” - I have a hard time thinking how in hell Kvothe can understand the words behind the cadencies. And, although I love languages, I don't understand well how the cadencies work. if it was the tonic, it would be easier. váshet, vashêt, vashét, opening and closing vowels, but...cadency?? with no different pronouncing? Is weird trying to figure it out.
Also pay attention to this: only that which bends can teach. I am aware of a certain Innkeeper who has a student under him... how much bended and mended could he be?

“You said only that which bends can teach,” I said. “So I thought this would be appropriate. - Related to the previous quote. Kvothe found, of all trees, a willow. Denna says that he is much like a willow as well. so much foreshadowing damn the author...

She came around to the front of me again, giving me that same serious look. “Here is your lesson,”she said matter-of-factly. “I do not think well of you. You are a barbarian. You are not clever. You are not welcome. You do not belong here. You are a thief of our secrets. Your presence is an embarrassment and a complication this school does not need.” (...)“We will meet here again, an hour after lunch. You will pick another stick, and I will try to teach you this lesson again.”(...) “We will do the same after dinner. Then the same the next day. This is the only lesson I have to teach you. When you learn it, you will leave Haert and never return.” She looked at me, her face cool. “Do you understand? - This is very clever, we now know this is a test of resolve, but look at it the other way.
learning means to absorb given knowledge. when you learn something, it sets roots within you and becomes part of you if you become proficient enough. So if he learns this lesson properly, he will learn that he is a thief and that he does not belong. moreover, it would become a part of him. what other choice would he have but to leave?

I won't put the whole Carceret dialogue here, but I'd like to highlight that if it was not for her, I think Kvothe would have given up. having her displeasure fed his rage to prove herself. think of it as an audience for him, you all know what he's like to one.

It was old, oiled wood, worn smooth by countless hands, hard and heavy as a bar of iron. If she used this to strike my shoulders as she had with the willow rod, it would break bones. If she struck my face, it would shatter my jaw.
I set it on the bench beside me. The wood didn’t clatter against the stone. It was so hard it almost rang like a bell - Carpenters and woodworkers, tell me: how is it possible? I am thinking this sword has a metal inside. there is no way that I know to make a wood so hard to clang like a metal, unless it is one of those magical iron woods they have. or it is shaped in some way, but who would spend time shaping wooden swords?

These are the most important things from those chapters. I am skipping a lot of text not to break the limits and having to post one chapter per post. There will be more exciting ones and maybe ones that I will need to give more time or words to, but I will let them come as they want, not to let my overall idea startled to sudden flight.
I'd like to give special thanks to u/teccamtheturtle for his kind words on yesterday's post, gives me a good drive. Also to u/PlaytheBoard for all the chattering and rambling we are doing these last days. also to u/aowshadow who does not have anything to do with this LOL, but his (awesome) re-reads inspired me to try my own, after making posts full of digression, i want to do this properly now. maybe i will learn to cuss and be good looking like him, but I need some more training on that HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
and here is the usual thanks for reading, Kind stranger. please feel free to give opinions and criticize my horrible formatting or give me tips on how to make it look better, other than that...

DISCUSS

Medievalist slinger, part 4: Theory in practice

And so, we come to the last part in my series, where we will leave any pretense of academic results and delve deep into personal experience. This is, after all, a part about putting medieval slinging into practice, and since I was the one putting it into practice, it will lack what we call statistical significance.

About me

The first topic would be the man behind the sling.
To keep this short and as unlike YouTube face reveal as possible, the relevant facts are these:

I live in central Europe
I’ve been active in local re-enactment scene for about 10 years
place of choice for re-enactment is Kingdom of Hungary
time of choice is 1300, right as the Arpad interregnum ends
I’ve been slinging daily for three months, as of February 2021

It‘s really hard, you guys

This is the first thing that struck me. I‘ve read about how hard slinging is, so I was reasonably prepared, but it was still a little surprising to see just how bad the skill floor for a sling is.
It took about a month of daily practice to get to a point where I was comfortable enough in my skills to want to use it anywhere near other people, like an audience - we’ll get to that.
The most shocking thing was probably the sheer difference between where bow and crossbow start versus that of a sling, which is why this is a chapter of its own.
The second thing that struck me was both how physically demanding it was and at the same time was not. You’d expect that slinging somewhat large rocks would put something of a strain on your arm, but it turns out that muscles are the least of your problems – you will feel the burn, but it’s not that bad.
The strain on your joints, on the other hand, specifically wrist and elbow, is considerable, about on par with full-speed sword fighting. Which is somewhat apt, as both are about imparting circular motion to objects at their base level, and a sling with a baseball ball loaded in it is not that far in weight and weight distribution from a mace. It’s not a crippling strain, but it is pretty noticeable over an hour-long session, and if you go from sitting at your computer straight into slinging rocks without warm-up, you will have a bad time.
Comparing these two levels of strain to bow and crossbow is interesting as well. A crossbow has very little strain in any fashion associated with it – maybe if you have a heavy direct draw or stirrup crossbow. A bow, on the other hand, is physically much more demanding – the joint strain is about on par with sling, albeit in different direction, but the demand on your physicality is much higher.
I have a 60 lbs bow and if I shoot it rapidly, I can get to about 20-30 shots before I have to stop for a bit. I’m not sure where my sling limit is at, but it’s well over a hundred at least, which makes sense since I’m not faux-lifting a 30-kilo weight every time I sling a rock.

Choice of ammunition

I’ve used rocks of varied sizes, tennis balls and baseball balls.
For practice, use baseball balls, no contest. Tennis balls are a tad too light to give you proper feedback when you swing a sling around, and it’s even worse with a staff slings. They are also closer to medieval-size rocks in weight, which is important if you want to reconstruct medieval slinging with any degree of accuracy.
Rocks are heavier than baseball balls, but you can’t use them everywhere. They are also a pretty scary ammunition type, since you start at a rock the size of a tennis ball and go up from there, to keep things period-accurate.
I managed to fumble one rock - slightly smaller than my fist - a bit higher than I wanted to and it crashed through a tree branch a finger thick without significantly deviating from its path. I absolutely believe the disappearing rabbit story that is immortalized on slinging.org forum.
As for incendiaries, I haven’t done any experimenting in that area. I might eventually, but not before I manage to set something up with firemen and after I check what the legality of various mixtures is around here. Don’t hold your breath.
That said, I do wonder if making a chain mail sling would be viable for use with these. Worst case scenario, I’d end up an owner of something as cool as chain mail sling.

Picking your targets

This is the big one, the one that eludes pretty much everyone who doesn’t actually go out there and sling.
There are plenty of references to supremely accurate slingers out there, and many have taken that to mean it’s difficult but not that difficult to match a bow in accuracy.
That is not the case.
Looking at David and Goliath, many take it as a story of accurate slinging, but let’s compare that to Robin Hood or William Tell.
To showcase Robin Hood being accurate, he splits his arrow in two. Only he doesn’t, because that’s a product of mistranslation from a time when longbow was no longer used of older texts, he instead splits a small wooden stick, about a thumb’s width, in two.
William Tell’s apple shot is, in contrast, actually contemporary, and Tell was so unsure of being able to make it he prepared a second bolt to assassinate the guy who ordered him to do it if he failed. It bears mentioning these are medieval apples, and significantly smaller than what you can find in Tesco these days – about the size of a tennis ball, if that.
David, on the other hand, needs divine help just to shoot a guy in the face.
The difference in what is considered an amazing shot is pretty telling:

crossbow: 5 cm
bow: under 2 cm
sling: 10-20 cm

This seems to indicate that sling’s angle of dispersion is possibly twice or more of that of a bow or crossbow. If anyone has some solid datasets for this, I’d be very interested in compiling them and then contrasting them with traditional archery competitions.
Either way, this means sling can’t pick weak spots in armor in most hands, while bow and crossbow can – and that starts to be especially important in 1300 when coat of plates begins to spread and face stops being uncovered, even on some infantrymen, thanks to visor-ed helmets.

You will need two styles

One underhand and one overhand.
While it could be argued that these two are necessary to get you better odds of hitting uncovered bits of someone with a shield – underhand to hit shins or generally under the shield, and overhand to hit chest from above – these only apply at a relatively short distance, about 15-20 meters or less.
While you can theoretically sling at people that close, it’s generally a bad idea to do so, since they have swords, axes and maces in hand and don’t like you, and 20 meters is not a very long distance to sprint. You may get a guy, but not his five friends, and that assumes you hit and hit well enough to immediately drop them.
The real reason is your slinging platform. If you are in a shield wall, you can easily ask the guy in front of you to make a small gap to underhand through with no risk of hitting anyone, and with some shields (e.g. “viking” round shields with gaps under them, heather shields and so on), that gap making may not even be necessary.
If you are in front rank of a shield wall, you may even be able to sling without moving your slinging hand in front of a shield, and into the line of fire.
Overhand slinging, on the other hand, is for slinging from a wall – low release point of underhand makes it impractical at best. It doesn’t let you be in a tight formation, though, but we already covered that in part 2.
You could, in theory, use it to sling from the back rows, like a bow or crossbow, but you need to be very confident in your ability to not hit your friends, and your friends need to be very confident in said ability as well. You can sometimes solve this issue with the right terrain elevation, but beware return fire if you do that.
Of these two, overhand is probably more important, since defending the walls is when your sword and spear are useless initially, and angling overhand up is easier than angling underhand down. The downward angle you can achieve with overhand release is surprisingly steep, the one I managed with a figure eight style was a slope of about 70 degrees.
That said, you’re not a medieval soldier, you’re a hobbyist slinger. Learn one of each, because why not? Your life doesn’t depend on it these days.
As for what specific overhand style, they all have their good and bad bits. Helicopter lets you only poke your head and hand out, figure eight gets you faster rate of fire and so on. The differences are so small they probably don’t really matter outside of highly specific and therefore rare situations.

What you wear is what you sling in

These few chapters will be all about how different things you may or may not wear affect your slinging – in general, the effects are surprisingly small.
That said, especially when it comes to armor, you must be sure that the thing you are testing is accurate enough to period gear, rather than just some stainless steel helmet you bought online. Not only are there differences in quality and amount of protection, the cut of the things actually matters.
Most period armor, be it a helmet, chain shirt, gambeson or plate, was tailored to a specific individual, because you need to make it by hand anyway, so you might as well. The munitions-grade, low-quality stuff was not as well made, but unlike modern “reproductions”, the corners that were cut on it weren’t ones that were critical to functionality.
What I’m trying to say is that no, you can’t really sling in mail and gambeson ensemble that is so poorly fitted you can’t raise your arms above head level – but that is a fault of the reproduction, not of the actual medieval armor. And these traps are everywhere: helmets that don’t fit right and reduce your vision to nothing, shields that are far too heavy or far too light, or fitted with improper grips, plate mittens that don’t overlap in the right direction and so on.
So, before you test some theory, make sure your testing props are the right ones. Okay, rant over, on to the fun.

Medieval clothing

Same as slinging in modern clothing. There are details that differ, sure, but they are so minor (sweat absorption, thickness of fabric, inner and outer clothes as opposed to just a shirt) they don’t really matter.
Just about the only exception to that are some of the fancier clothes, usually for nobility, that have extremely wide sleeves. They are not for slinging in, but then and again, they are not for doing anything in – except looking imposing – so we can safely ignore them.
There is a final addendum – those among you who know medieval clothes are already aware, but… cloaks. They are not for moving in, fighting in or doing anything in. You can do so in a pinch, but you’d be better off to discard said cloak.
Cloaks are traveling clothes meant as winter jackets and raincoats, and occasionally as ceremonial garb. Use them outside of that, and you will have a bad time.
Also, hoods are fine for slinging in, but they aren’t worn the way you think they are where they cover your peripheral vision.

Gloves

First thing that needs to be said is that the period use of gloves to not damage your hands by splinters or labor wasn’t a thing. Most of the people did manual labor, and therefore had leathery hands – you can see those even today with some professions – and those don’t need gloves as much as we do. Early medieval period reenactors should be especially vigilant in this, mail mittens weren’t a thing yet and leather gloves were exception, not the norm, to wear in battle.
That said, some mercy is to be extended to reenactors, because ungloved hands aren’t particularly safe from blisters and swords, but we must keep in mind it’s a modern concession to health, not a period practice.
There is no drop in accuracy or speed when wearing leather gloves, and the effects of plate gauntlets are minor at best. The worst issue is that some of the plate gauntlet models have overlapping plates that could snag your finger loop a little, and that’s a minor issue, easily fixed.
That said, there are some gloves that would get in the way – integral mail and padded mittens have bits hanging off of your hand even when you slip your hand out of them, and mittens in general usually don’t let you sling at all.

Shields

It is possible to do, you can even reload your sling without exposing any of your bits to the enemy. That said, your rate of fire will suffer fiercely.
What’s worse, it affects your form. You can’t step out and you have to have your left arm out there, either stretched out or braced against your chest (former for lighter shields, latter for heavier ones), statically – if you do not do this, you will be not covered by a shield for some periods of time, while being shot at. All of it will mess with your form.
This is where underhand comes in really handy – unless you step during it, you can do all of the motions behind the shield with almost no effort.
From personal experience, underhand felt a little off, but was serviceable in its accuracy, figure eight suffered quite a bit and had the added issue of a different startup motion, since shield was in the way. The figure eight style I use also has my hand moving down and right to left on release – right to where the shield is if I have my shield hand stretched out. All of these factors were solvable by making slight modification to where I held the shield or how I moved the sling, but they did have to be solved.
How much a shield throws you also depends on the shield, a buckler was almost unnoticeable, a heather shield, not so much.
Still, if you are being shot at by disagreeable crossbowmen over yonder, these are all known as details. At most, you will be more likely to choose underhand as your style of choice.

Helmets

I have tested this in great helm – specifically a replica of Bolzano great helm – and a generic replica of a kettle hat. Both had a padded cap, a crevelliere/skull cap and a mail coif under them, in total clocking at 7 kg with great helmet and about 6 kg with the kettle hat.
And I found out… that helmet doesn’t really matter. This was especially surprising with my kettle hat, because it has a pretty wide brim, but it didn’t even interfere with my figure eight.
That said, if you already know how to sling, then helmets may well interfere with your style. I’ve seen some videos of slingers that moved their hands around what would be helmet-occupied space, and some of you lean quite far forward on release – something that is inadvisable with 7 kilograms of steel on your head.
There is also increased strain on muscles that attach your neck to your back. This doesn’t even require you to sling, and can lead to hell of a migraine if you decide to suddenly start to wear a heavy hat without getting used to it. I noticed that my accuracy fell off because of this at about 30 minutes initially, but I’ve gotten to about an hour by now.
If your helmet happens to have a narrow visor, such as a great helmet, you will also not be able to track the start of your projectile’s path. This didn’t affect my accuracy, it was just a bit disconcerting at first – then I got used to it and it was business as usual.
All in all, if you are someone who has trained in helmets, you will have no significant problems when slinging in them. About the only exceptions to this are helmets with heraldic figures (e.g. lion, tower) on top of them, but those are for tournaments – what on Earth are you doing slinging in them? Unscrew that lion and put the poor thing down.
And as an aside, if you are outside in cold weather and move around, your breath condenses on the brim of your kettle hat helmet or on your face-plate, creating a mini-rain eventually. This has absolutely nothing to do with slinging, it’s just a neat detail.

Armor

The armor tested was thick, standalone gambeson (~3-4 cm thick), padded legs with plate knees and helmets described above. I wasn’t able to do tests in chain mail, once the pandemic situation gets resolved and I will be able to see people I want to make it, I will let you know how it went. I do have experience with wearing chain mail, though, it’s just that I don’t currently have easy access to one.
With that in mind, the effect of armor is noticeable, but not drastic. Armor is heavy, though not as heavy as some movies, books and – what’s worse – schoolbooks would have you believe. I don’t know who put the thing about 70 kilos of armor at Lechfeld into our history schoolbooks, but I wish to yell at them, and possibly make them wear 70 kilos of armor by layering four chain shirts over them.
Accuracy of slinging, whether staff or standard sling, remained unaffected, what was slightly lowered was the exit velocity of the projectile. No matter what you do, fact of the matter is you are wearing added weight on your arm, and that will slow you down.
The effect of armor slowing you down on account of having to bend it at the joints was almost unnoticeable – I attribute that entirely to having a very good replica armor, I have no doubt that there are replicas that would affect you badly out there – I have owned some of those in the past.

The curious case of towel slings

After testing some of them, I’ve found out a few things about these emergency measure slings.
First of all, they are not as good as your standard slings, but they are good enough. The area where they are slightly lacking is, to the surprise of no one, accuracy.
The reason for this can be twofold.
First issue is the width of the towel, make it too wide and the sling releases kinda late – this can be fixed with making sure your towel is no wider than diameter of projectile plus about one half.
The other and harder to solve issue is that of weight. The release end of the sling is, on the more chunky sling models, usually made thinner as it goes forward – you could do this on towel sling, but even if you do, you will still need quite a substantial amount of fabric and that means more weight.
That means your projectile may well get tangled into it.
However, I discovered that the larger and heavier the projectile gets, the less this matters. If this finding holds up to repeat tests (feel free to do them and share the results), we just found out the exact reason why you don’t see towel slings in pre-medieval era: they would be awful to use with lead shot and small rocks that were used at the time.
Another possible solution, or at least mitigation, is to twist the release cord. Clearly, there is a lot of room here for further discoveries, and should I run some tests, I will keep you posted.

Staff slings

Staff slings are terrifying.
I don’t have anything that would allow me to accurately measure exit velocity of a projectile, but by sound and feeling, I estimate that staff sling projectiles I release are about three times faster than those I release from a sling. My standard sling is 75 cm, my staff is 26 cm sling, 91 cm staff (which is about the shortest you can make them) and hook that is 45 degree angle with the same diameter as the staff, 2,5 cm.
Or to put it another way: I had a pouch sling I was using for a month before the leather was worn through and broke. I made a staff sling with a pouch from the same leather – it broke on my tenth shot.
Part of this is because I’ve been fencing with swords for a decade and a half, so my swing is pretty damn good, while my slinging is still not where it should be, but still.
The crucial thing to realize is that the place where I am right now – good at sword swinging, mediocre at slinging – is where everyone without significant prior slinging experience would be in a medieval army. This means a staff sling is an excellent device to use for those without much slinging experience if accuracy isn’t as important as putting rocks out there.
That said, accuracy of a staff sling is a difficult matter. You can regulate speed of your swing to a degree and a different starting guard will give you different arcs with similar swing speeds (tested with low Vom Tag, high Vom Tag and behind the head Posta di Donna), but the ability to control your shot is nowhere near that of a standard sling.
What’s worse, the distance and the arc also depend on the shape of the staff and length of sling, something which you can’t change easily. I tried using slip knots, but they were unable to withstand forces of a full-power swing.
And a final nail to the coffin of accuracy is that the staff sling’s release angle changes with the projectile weight. When I switched from a baseball ball to a tennis ball, tennis ball released about 5-10 degrees sooner.
On the positive side, once the staff sling is calibrated, i.e. the sling lengths are set, there is not much you can do to screw up your shot. I handed my staff sling to a friend of mine and he managed to achieve accuracy similar to mine on his first swing.
Another good thing about these is that the angle of release can be anything you please, up to and including almost straight down – you could question if you really need a staff sling to hurl stone on tops of heads of people under a wall, but you can do it if you want to.
This also means that the idea I had in part one, the one about having a sling you could use as a stand alone as well as tie it to a staff is probably bust. You’d have little reason to do so if you are a skilled slinger, and you’d have to carefully make sure you have the right lengths of staff and sling, which seems like more hassle than it’s worth.

Slinging in battle

There are three skills you need in battle that are rarely trained, be it with slings or with other ranged weapons.
First is rate of fire, and to be more precise, rate of fire under specific conditions. Maybe you are a slinger with a shield in the front ranks, maybe you have a staff sling and squat up and down to pop up over the top of a wall and pelt the besiegers – all of these have specific bits to them that make them different from just standing at a range and going at it.
I don’t think people would necessarily train for these back in the day, but they would gain experience in the field and pass on tips and tricks – tips and tricks they then failed to write down and pass to us. Training for these circumstances is the only way to glimpse what slinging in them may have looked like.
Second skill is shooting at moving targets – often at targets running straight at you. This is where underhand is superior to overhand styles, since its lower release point means it will intersect more space that can potentially be occupied by a human (especially in a shield wall 10 people wide and 3 people deep), as opposed to overhand that flies over people’s heads for a lot of its trajectory.
There are probably several dozen observations about this, style-specific or otherwise, and it’s something that we should keep in mind when discussing military slinging.
Third skill is rapid target acquisition while on the move. Some styles can perhaps be used while running or jogging, others should at least bet rained to be used with as little stop time as possible. Stop running, pick a target at a random distance, hit it, start running again.
As an unofficial fourth skill, we have formation cohesion and situational awareness, these are, however, not specific to slinging and belong to a more general battlefield skill set.

Slinging in re-enactment

As usual, first rule of anything in re-enactment: don’t be an asshole.
That said, I’m operating under local re-enactment rules for steel battles, which are that you should have a gambeson and a good helmet as a bare minimum.
Slings can be very powerful, and even something like a tennis ball can be very bad for you when it hits a face at full speed – that means you need to limit yourself to relatively light ammunition and slow down your release velocity.
Slowing down release speeds should be trivial once you have some practice under your belt. About the only time you can afford to go full blast with your lighter ammo is when all of the enemy opposition happens to be wearing helmets that protect their faces – visor-ed bascinets or great helmets are fine, kettle hats are not, unless they happen to be late German models with visors and bevors.
Ammunition choice is pretty much limited to tennis balls or baked potatoes (potentially other vegetables as well? More research is needed). Former is lighter and can be reused, latter is heavier, can’t be reused and splatters in a manner that threatens people hit with it with some small potential for potato-in-the-eye incidents – and also looks pretty cool from the spectators’ point of view. Both can be painted gray to look like rocks, but even if you don’t, people in the audience will understand why you aren’t pelting each other with actual rocks.
Staff slings represent a category of their own, and when it comes to them, I’m leaning towards not allowing them at all under a certain distance – maybe 30+ meters? We don’t know enough about them to be able to tell, really.
A final note is this – you have an audience when you’re re-enacting, and you must always, always keep in mind that should your sling miss and nail a toddler behind the enemy lines in the head, your ass is on the line. Always watch your backstop, and observe how your ammunition of choice bounces. And only showcase rock slinging if you are confident in your ability to not send it wide.

Final conclusions

And so we come to an end.
This last part was all about testing things in practice, and as far as that goes, it was an unmitigated success. While there are no theories that were overturned and no drastic surprises, there are many details that surfaced, and several theories were confirmed.
The simple sling was, during the medieval period, in the same place bolt-action rifles are today: not entirely useless in a battle, but decidedly obsolete in most applications, with a few niches where it is still the best tool for the job. Fittingly enough, both the medieval sling and the modern bolt-action rifle use larger ammunition than their more common counterparts: assault rifles and bows and crossbows.
Staff sling shared the fate of its brethren, but managed to avoid several deal-breakers of a classic sling – namely, it was a lot easier to use, sacrificing some of its accuracy to accomplish this. The niches of its use remained the same as those of the sling, and it probably reached parity with it: there was about a 50/50 chance that, should a sling be used, it would be the staff variant.

Where to now?

As I have said right at the start, the entire field of slings is under-researched, so there’s a lot of room for improvement.
I have already managed to find some illuminations of mounted sling use, as well as someone who claims his father was able to use it, something that I was very skeptical of at the start. It seems that mounted slingers were perhaps a feature in areas north of the Black Sea – but it is too early to tell.
There are also several new avenues for experimentation open to those of you that want to go for them, be they two-handed slings, relationship between length of staff and length of string in staff slings, comparing staff sling velocities to standard slings or even an almost-entirely unexplored possibilities of towel slings.
Then there is the potential for actual, live tests of slings in reenactment battles, albeit with a wimpier ammunition, that also have potential to reveal a thing or two.

Good bye for now

And that is all for now.
I hope that this series helped you in some way, whether it was in learning something new about your hobby or in giving you a place to start in the unexplored waters of medieval slinging.
I now return to blessed anonymity and will continue to gather data and practice my slinging. Who knows what exact area will strike my fancy next? I’ll keep you posted. (It’s probably gonna be the mystery of mounted slingers, honestly)
Sling you in the next one.

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