— "You know...I'm not going to tell a Palestinian voter to vote for Biden. I'm really not. I won't."

— But...

— "What I am gonna do is tell a white voter who couldn't find Gaza on a map 6 months ago to miss me with their work-from-home-slacktivism and choose the lesser evil."

[Easy: Success] — Of course. Only the white votes matter to her.

— The Yemeni maritime border meets Saudi Arabia's near Al Qunfudhah, splitting the Red Sea across the middle. From there, it stretches all the way South to Aden, and then continues a few hundred kilometers off the coast into the Gulf of Aden.

— Is that why the United States is bombing Yemen?

[Easy: Success] — Partially.

— It's the Houthis, sire. They've warned all of those ships heading down the Suez Canal that they're going to blow them to bits if they enter their sea-space. The captains haven't been listening, so they've been getting shot at. And the United States! Oh! The United States have started giving the companies military escorts! It's a dreadful, dreadful situation! Everyone needs to know how you feel about this!

— But...if Yemen says that the ships can't go through, isn't it illegal for the ships to go through their borders anyway?

[Medium: Success] — The international rules-based order doesn't seem to like it when other countries enforce the rules.

[Legendary: Success] — The weight of a world is lifted off of a dozen others. In Vietnam, in Bangladesh, in Timor, in Cambodia, in Chile, in Cyprus; the undercurrent breathes a collective sigh. One more piece is off of the board. The empire is running out of material.

— τελειωτικό χτύπημα.

— What happens now?

— For you, Detective? Or the world?

— For the world.

— Nothing.

[Hard: Success] — An old man who did his damage is dead. His spirit is gone, but the mark will remain. Him being gone solves nothing.

— And for me?

— For you? You celebrate.

-1 MORALE

[Impossible: Failure] — You are submerged deep within the milieu of news cycles and chauvinism, and you are drowning. Air. You need air. It burns at the corners of your eyes and claws at your throat. Everything hurts. If this is the way it's going to be, you don't know if you can keep going.

— How could you, when everything is so terrible?

[Challenging: Success] — A world away, further than any place you'll ever go, a young boy sits outside a crumbling, concrete apartment block. Sea spray and smoke swirl through the air together, salty and acrid, coating the world in a shade grayer than usual. He sits and stares up at the sky, at the planes carrying missiles overhead, and he listens for the sounds of catching powders and marching footsteps. He sits with two million siblings. None of them may make it to tomorrow. The sufficiently old and sufficiently able take to the streets. The shelters and tunnels curling beneath them like veins tremble against the tension.

— Have they given up?

— No. They haven't. And that means neither can you.

[Hard: Success] — The perspective on the doctor's right hand is impossible, like an Escher mezzotint. The ring and middle fingers cannot connect to the palm at the angle they're sticking out from it. The "baby", similarly, is anatomically incorrect; the large, hollow tube emerging from its right shoulder doesn't match any bone that a human has.

[Challenging: Success] — In June of 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces marched into Lebanon in the hopes of forcing Palestine Liberation Organization members out of the area. The Lebanese Forces, an umbrella party made up of all of the right-wing militias in Lebanon, were engaging in a civil war with the Lebanese government, and agreed to partner up with the IDF. On September 16th of that same year, the Lebanese Forces armed themselves and walked into the neighborhood of Sabra, and then into the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. The IDF encircled the area, preventing the Palestinian and Shiite Lebanese civilians from escaping.

— Don't ignore that feeling in the bottom of your stomach. Hearing this is going to hurt you. Make sure you're ready.

::: spoiler [Endurance 12] Listen to the rest of the story. — An estimated 3,500 civilians were killed in the ensuing massacre. Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist present in the area, wrote that she saw "...dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles."

— What happened after the massacre?

— Nothing. The UN held a vote to condemn it, which passed. Representatives and speakers for the United States, Canada, Singapore, and Ireland complained that it was unfair to call the actions of the IDF and Lebanese Forces a "genocide". Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Forces leader accused of ordering the civilians to be killed, was later assassinated by an Israeli car bomb before he could testify as to who was responsible for what.

— There's nothing Israel can accuse Hamas of that they haven't already done themselves.

— Bad news. The wömen are acting up again.

— Oh, no. What have they done this time?

— The same thing they always do: take something from the past that you love and hold dear and shit all over it. Shit all over what was once strong, and proud, and good. Shit all over your ancestry. Instead of King Bowser calling Kammy Koopa an "airhead" like he did in the original release, the new version of the game makes him call her a "lunkhead", instead. It's sickening.

— "Kim. The wömen censored Paper Mario."

— He lifts his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure they did, Detective. Let's try to focus on the murder for now."

— The phrase "business meeting" drips out of his mouth like gutter rain.

— "Who is Soon-Yi?"

— The lieutenant shifts his weight to one side. "Soon-Yi is Mr. Allen's wife. Their relationship is very...public."

[Medium: Success] — He means "controversial". The two of them have been under active investigation for over thirty years now; too many late nights across too many precincts have been spent investigating claims of sexual coercion, child abuse, judicial misconduct. Most of it's been buried beneath mountains of red-tape and corruption, but even the most crooked cops can't entirely cover up the Epstein connection.

— "This is just how it always starts, don't it? Every inch you give them, they take miles. It's the same obvious type of bullshit that the people who push these ideas through never think about. Around these parts, we take care of our own — at least, that's the way it ought to be. Last thing we need is more shitstirrers coming in here to mess with the closest thing we've carved out to something decent. Hell, we barely had ourselves sorted out before whoever-on-top opened up their cages on us." He spits. "Bunch of fucking assholes."

— "It's not brigading, Harry! It's simply inciting a conversation! There's nothing that says we can't all engage in a simple little conversation, is there?"

[Hard: Success] — He's right. There was a rule against it, back in your old haunt; but here is not there.

— "There's nothing stopping us from banning you for brigading, anyway."

— "Oh, don't be an asshole, Harry. You're a good man, and you're certainly not an asshole. Besides, while your mod powers are still missing, I don't believe you'll be able to ban anybody. Now, if you'd like to take this conversation a little more seriously, I'd be more than happy to assist you in locating that banhammer of yours again."

[Medium: Failure] — "The friend-zone" is the single worst place any wöman could dare to put you in. It's where you're sent when — for some unknown, female reason — she doesn't value you as a potential mate. That she values someone with better mate qualities than you. That's what the friend-zone is; it's wöman's way of saying "fuck you".

— It's really that bad?

— Of course, bröther. The gynocentrists want you to think it's fine. Break your conditioning. Keep pushing. Your persistence will prove how much you deserve her.

— TIA stands for "transient ischemic attack", but they're more commonly known as "ministrokes". The difference between a TIA and a stroke is almost entirely in the duration; the blockage of a TIA lasts very briefly and causes no permanent damage, while the blockage of a stroke lasts much longer and is highly likely to result in permanent damage, if not death. The underlying cause of atherosclerosis is the same in both, however, meaning that about a third of all people who experience a single TIA will have a stroke within the year.