Annotated 39-7
Yeah, we’re not gonna do an actual recap of Shanna and Xan’s adventures here! Those three flashback flashes are just there to confirm that Shanna is leaving nothing out in her version of events.
Details I like, #1: the way the danger to the group is matter-of-factly mentioned here. It’d be irresponsible of Shanna not to mention it, but it’d ramp the tension up too quickly for it to be discussed in terms that are too concrete.
It’s also good how Shanna immediately takes responsibility for putting these people in the crosshairs. It shows how responsible she still feels about Ferris. This survivor’s guilt will be important to the story soon.
Details I like, #2: Xan’s already forgotten more about apps than Shanna will ever learn, but Shanna does know a few old-school tricks like shorthand that are still of use in the modern world.
Another detail: Shanna seems to have made it through her story without upsetting the gamers by framing part of it in an obviously anti-gamer way. That would have been easy to get wrong, but given that they’re not kicking her out at the end, she must have managed. She’s a professional journalist, so she knows about being impartial, but in this particular case, I think she probably rehearsed a lot beforehand :)
This pretty neatly predicted the annotation I’d already written for the next day! :-D
This storyline about Hurricane’s higher-ups hiring a hitman sure hits differently now in light of Bobby Kotick being investigated for threatening certain employees by telling them he’d have them killed if they exposed him covering up all the rape and sexual abuse going on at Blizzard…
That voicemail was left in 2006 when Kotick was the CEO of Activision–several years before their merger with Blizzard. There is no context provided to indicate why he would have said such a thing to her, other than the spokesdrivel excuse that it was “obviously hyperbolic” and an “exaggeration”. The present controversies surrounding Activision Blizzard seem to date back no further than 2016.
The allegations against Kotick are bad enough without making up new ones.
Full WSJ article for anyone who hasn’t read it already and is interested (can I even post URLs?):
https://archive.md/Bz892
I still don’t really get that version of short hand. Like, in what way is that “C” easier than a normal one, especially when the “D” next to it is just a backwards “C”. “E” is basically the same but harder to read “O” is just C and already a simple character to write. “XYZ” are all the same, but “S” needed to be turned into “P”!? It makes no sense.