17 Comments
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Xlvntr Ampersand's avatar

Lol. You are a riot my guy! Keep the articles coming 👍

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Xlvntr Ampersand's avatar

Also, I just want to say, this article is an art piece. Everything tied in together well, all the threads got woven seamlessly, even the minute detail of the two footnotes. You did a very good job on this one.

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the author's avatar

thank you very much! :D

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Zani D's avatar

this is good. this is so good I almost closed it right away. omfg.

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Chris L.'s avatar

Ok but as a reader wtf am I supposed to do now? Subscribe? Buy you a coffee? Vanquish our common enemies through increasingly convoluted machinations of vile treachery? Wait for the next installment? You can’t expect us to read this far and suddenly think for ourselves! Tell us what to do. Telllll usssssss!

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the author's avatar

Now, Dear Reader, we stand together under the infinite sky of possibility!

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Michael Koopman's avatar

This is great reader advice. Since I started dozing about 1/2 way through, looking just like the “your reader” image, I skimmed much from there. Should I go back and actually read that part?

I shouldn’t because I have every one of your points down patently. My apologies for not writing this note as a single run on sentence. Perhaps your writing, here, has permanently mutated my style? Probably a side effect of “the jab.”

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The last cigarette before bed's avatar

Brilliant, as a style guide and motivational kick in the butt. I've been stuck on peice that's too self-indulgent.

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Emil Ottoman's avatar

Ok, so this is where I make a long discursive comment that goes down three different courses, somehow involves a personal anecdote and expresses my general level of confusion, I suggest that I agree or disagree with the essay, but if I disagree I don't feel like discourse around the disagreement because either A. I know more than you about the subject or B. More likely inevitably I will end up writing something about fuck you and fuck your family. There will be at least two references to Xanax, half a Moby Dick quote and three ancillary references to media or books so obscure that only three people on the platform would recognize them for what they are (and they're not reading this, and I'm absolutely abusing parentheticals for no reason) this was a fantastic read to start my day and then end abruptly on a non sequitur of some kind. Pussy money weed.

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the author's avatar

🥹❤️

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Zachary Dillon's avatar

Haha, accurate!

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Laura R. Gray's avatar

Really useful pointers ;)

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Alison McMahan's avatar

A great laugh!

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Cherales's avatar

I resonate with this, this is a thoughtful post, exactly so.

'really at this point nothing you’re saying has much to do with anything, but, haha word count go brrrrrr and nobody really reads these anyways'

I support that idea, that's a compelling perspective, for sure.

EH x

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JS.Hardy's avatar

Thanks for writing this, I've been wanting to write non-fiction on here but so far I've only been able to write fiction. After reading this, I still don't know how to write non-fiction but at least you tried.

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KC Chadwick's avatar

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

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Ithinkyoureworthadamn's avatar

Funny essay. I'm sure I'm guilty of some if not all of this at times since I'm a bit of a noob. A lot of stuff on substack has that "I need to post something to keep posting and building my subscriber count" vibe of an SEO article. If you've ever had to squeeze six 500 word essays out about acai berries, you know what I'm talking about.

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