“It’s A Wonderfully Stabby DipLife”
I wrote a tribute to It’s A Wonderful Life, for the December 24, 2021, Diplomacy Briefing, but as noted by Umble, things got out of hand.
Originally I had asked Ed to write an article based on the Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life." What follows is more akin to Festivus than a heart warming tale full of holiday cheer. So my friends, brace yourself for Ed Sullivan's 2021 airing of grievances. - umble
“It’s A Wonderfully Stabby DipLife”
“Remember, no one is a failure who has friends.”
—Clarence Odbody, It’s A Wonderful Life
Given my guilt over a few harmless deceptions in the earlier part of 2021, I’ve been working hard to earn my Angel’s wings for 2022.
All I have to do is save one 2021 Diplomacy tournament winner from self-destruction. It should be easy, right? Think again.What if my candidates are unlike George Bailey? What if they have no real friends? And that’s the dilemma here. For sure, our 2021 tournament winners all pretend to be friendly, but their version of friendship is akin to a “heads I win, tails you lose” relationship. You serve their needs, and they get the glory. You do the work, and they get the credit. It’s like having David Hood as a partner at a law firm. How on Earth can I save them?
Mastbaum
Great job, Jason, on winning Whipping. Everyone’s so proud of you. Jason tricked Matt Crill into thinking he cared about Crill’s dignity in a 17-17 draw. He spent hours bonding and lying to Matt by telling him how much he wants to show the world that a 17-17 split is possible without pointing out that it also gave him tournament win. Jason nurtured Matt, and much like the mother who later eats her young, savagely took home the victory. I can’t save a practitioner of infanticide.
Katie
This year’s 2021 eCarnage winner has garnered many who think Katie is their friend, but to her, they are not friends—they are minions. She uses them to perpetuate the myth that she is just a friendly ole’ player. Umble had it right: Katie is a textbook vampire. Instead of just acknowledging my well-deserved tournament lead as insurmountable, she got her minions to cheer—yes, cheer—to “make Ed cry” by giving her a victory. I mean, is this honorable? I am not a vampire hunter. It’s a fool’s errand.
Karthik
Did you hear Karthik won Dixiecon in 2021? Of course you did. He can’t stop mentioning it. How did he do it? He guilted Tommy Anderson into voting his uncrackable position out of a draw. Yes, you read that right. Did he go to Tommy and say, “good job, you’ve stalemated me, let’s all be part of the draw?” Did he say, “you know what, I’m just going to realize that another better player won the day?” No! He just went up to the dude and said, “Hey, unless you want Ed Sullivan to win, you have to quit.” And Tractable Tommy said, “sure. I’ll play seven hours to take a zero. Just as long as Ed doesn’t win it’s cool.” The sad thing is, Tommy doesn’t even like Karthik. A person who wins like that has no hope of getting himself right.
Farren
Do you think I could save deserving Boston Massacre winner Farren? Really? She fixates on my centers like a honey badger. She needs a refresher on the Confucius saying: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” At VDC 2021, I literally dropped down in the Paris Method to pick a country as far away from her as possible. Yet, when it counted, she prioritized revenge over winning by retreating Tunis, and dug two figurative graves for both of us. And to be perfectly fair, even if I wanted to save Farren, I would have a geographic obstacle, as no one knows where she lives. I do, however, have one clue: I can confidently tell you it’s not in Paris, since she continually cedes it to her allies while politely, but firmly, chastising those who keep predicting the obvious to her. (It seems like she may really be French). Farren, I won’t save you, but you should save yourself.
Seren
I love how players were amazed when Seren won the virtual Summer Classic and the Tour of Britain. Do you know who wasn’t surprised? Me. Please listen carefully: She’s not a quiet wallflower! She’s Anton Chigurh without giving her victims the courtesy of a coin toss. I would like to save her from her constant deflections and deceptions about her play, but I’m not a masochist. “What, oh, little old me? I’m just learning this game. You big, brave men have so much to teach me!” And yet, y’all just make it easy for her because you fall for her ruses time and time again. We all know it’s an act, and yet we keep watching Our American Cousin over and over again waiting for Booth to shoot Lincoln. I can hear everyone on DBN exclaiming, “Wait, wait, here’s the good part. This is where Seren takes four dots from her ally!” My God, she is the Meryl Streep of Diplomacy, and can play any role, at any time, for any person. In her Summer Classic victory, Karthik thought he could outplay her. He couldn’t. And even though Mikalis was topping the board, after Seren used some Jedi-mind-control dialogue on him, Mikalis fed her dots for reasons that make zero sense. I mean, she’s already great player when she’s being attacked, but when people move their units away from her without firing a shot, even a poor player like me could figure out what to do next. Given the hot streak she’s on, she doesn’t think she needs saving, and you can’t help a lady who won’t help herself.
Village Idiot/Ewok
This man does not care that you hate him. The Nexus Season 6 Main Event winner does not care about beauty or truth. He cares about one thing: Winning by slowly dotting you and then claiming his hands were tied. As Aaron Altman said in Broadcast News, “What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Come on! Nobody is going to be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail! What’s he gonna sound like? He will be nice and helpful. He’ll never do an evil thing! He’ll never deliberately hurt a living thing…he will just bit by bit lower our standards where they are important—just a tiny little bit. Just coax along with flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit.” This is how VI/Ewok plays the game. It ain’t pretty Diplomacy, but it’s effective if you allow him to dot you without consequence. I’m not an exorcist—he’s beyond redemption.
Umble
How am I going to save 2021’s Alpha Weasel? In Weaselmoot XV, I gave him the gift of a pliant ally, and he returned the favor by gifting me a superfluous two-center stab when he already had the board top. He doesn’t care about feelings. He’s a machine. He cares about winning.
Even when he loses, which is rare, he has a unique ability to burn bridges. Instead of complimenting Andrei Gribakov and Katie Gray, he dedicates an article shaming them as vampires. He further libels me by calling me the Great Goblin. The sad part of all this is that even though he’s correct about Andrei and Katie, he fails to recognize that this is no way to win friends and influence people, and God knows Umble needs some friends out there, especially after losing his mind at VDC 2021 by failing to cover Munich. Is there a player out there who doubts that Umble would stab his own mother and claim she failed by trusting him? He stabbed his only friend in this game at Weaselmoot. How can I channel my Clarence Odbody and show Umble all the good he has done when he has never done any good? No, he’s doomed.
Silverman
This guy. Another actor. The guy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But he’s self-aware Cylon who knows he’s a wolf meant to kill us humans. He just goes about his business, and his business this year was winning Carnage. He didn’t go full Karthik in his Champion’s Corner post and talk about his greatness. No, no, and no. He literally wrote that winning Carnage was not even one of his top three priorities. If you don’t believe me, go read the most self-serving article ever written in Diplomacy Briefing history. He wants us to think his win magically happened while he was socializing with friends and acting as the hobby’s ambassador. Oh really? Well, maybe the readers should know that he duped Tiny Tim Johnny Gillam into accepting a weak draw to give him the tournament win that he claims he did not even want. How did that little fact fail to make the Champion’s Corner? I cannot save someone so disarming, gentlemanly, and willing to lie about his motivations. Now he says he won’t play DBNI – wow, I guess he’s just too good for the little people.
Nicolas
Oh yes, I guess I could try and save two-time World Champion Nicolas Sahuguet. But why would he listen to me? He’s got a pleasant disposition and a legion of friends. Oh wait, that’s Tanya Gill. Nicolas has rough edges and a killer instinct, with his soft spot only appearing when he has the luxury of merely having to act generously. One wonders why Nicolas plays Diplomacy when all he does is complain about everyone else’s sub-optimal play? Hey, Nicolas, not all of us can be Michael Jordan, okay? Us lesser mortals have to work on our games. I can’t save Nicolas. That’s like the sixth man telling MJ how to be better at basketball. And, Nicolas doesn’t even think I’m the sixth man. To him, I’m the water boy in training. I could tell Nicolas that he could still get his great results with less ruthlessness and more charm, but that would be like telling Samson to cut his hair, except that analogy doesn’t precisely correlate with Nicolas, but you get what I mean. But I digress. The point is, I can’t cut Nicolas’ hair, for both an obvious physical reason as well as a well-established biblical reason.
To The Others
Sorry, I don’t know Cyrille Sevin, the winner of CDFv, but he’s French, and he wins a lot, so clearly something’s wrong with him. Alex Lebedev, whomever you are, I’m sure you did some detestable things to win in Europe. And, to whoever wins VDL, probably Brandon Fogel and his Spock-like Mirror, Mirror play this season, you’re beyond redemption, as well.
CONCLUSION
Do I have some animosity here? Why, yes, I do! Here I am, a poor country lawyer and a reformed Diplomacy player trying to ply my trade the right way. I am now using my powers for the betterment of the hobby without a hint of self-interest. That’s why I covet those Angel’s wings—to show others the light, so to speak. It’s fun out here in Heaven. These folks should join me.
Alas, however, I play in a village of the damned. I’m not going to be able to save 2021’s tournament winners. They think they found the key to success, but all they really did was lose their souls. So, for now, I will continue to search for the Diplomacy player that I have a realistic chance of saving, someone like Morgante Pell or Liam Stokes. I’m pretty sure I can get my wings through one of those dudes. That Christmas bell may yet ring!
