One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is non-traditional story structures.

(Spoilers for The Matrix, Sicario, and John Wick if you haven’t seen them by now…)

A good example of a traditional story structure is The Matrix. It’s a typical three-act structure with an underdog protagonist who explores a whole new world, powers up via his mentor, and then takes down the stronger villain and gets the girl. But it’s more creative and better executed than most. Top shelf stuff.

In contrast, a movie like Sicario is less traditional. We mostly follow the story from the protagonist’s perspective. But then toward the end, she basically gets defeated and her worldview is invalidated. And then a supporting character, like a dark anti-hero type, kind of takes over as the main character for the final 20 minutes of the film. It’s quite highly rated and very good, but that kind of structure can be risky because the protagonist that we've come to care for goes through an anti-climactic and unhappy ending, with the dark/cynical side winning over the light/optimistic side. And it’s not even as simple as “villains win”, but rather, the anti-hero kind of takes over as the main character and defeats villains in the original protagonist's place, so we have partial "protagonist rotation", where a supporting character kind of ends as the main character. It’s a higher difficulty level to land that type of ending because the viewer is like, “Damn. I mean amazing too, but damn.”

A less complex example of a non-traditional structure is John Wick. It’s an action movie, one of the better ones for its genre, but the non-traditional element is that we know from the start that the protagonist John Wick is the biggest badass around. None of the villains are as strong as him individually, or even close really. The villains are the underdogs. And so to make that non-boring (“John Wick just kills everyone and wins easily”), it requires things like greater numbers of villains, and/or various schemes to surprise or outsmart the protagonist. It’s also a little harder to stick the landing because the climax can be less satisfying if you know from the start that the protagonist is stronger than the antagonist, and so it either needs emotional depth, complex situations, or other ways to make that ending satisfying.

I’ve been exploring some of these and thinking about it a lot because my novel has a number of these types of non-traditional elements, which elevates the difficulty in terms of making them satisfying despite going against the basic structure that people expect as a baseline.

Are there books, shows, or movies you like that go through rather non-traditional story structures?

I’m taking a needed mental health break for a couple of days.

The last few months have just been ridiculous and the next few will probably be even more so.

Everyone should pause when they can to focus on their own wellbeing.

🫂🧠

For clarity you’re a fucking troll.

This is about human children.

For clarity you’re a fucking troll.

This is about human children.

❓What if your family is being arrested, tortured, or deported—not for what you did, but for who you are related to?!

The Knesset just legalized collective punishment—a crime under international law. Families of ‘suspected’ militants can now be arrested, tortured, and deported if they ‘knew’ or didn’t prevent an act of resistance. Even ‘sympathy’ for resistance is criminalized—a word so vague, abuse is inevitable.

Entire Palestinian families can now be wiped out. #Children as young as 12 can be labeled terrorists. When Belarus detained a neo-Nazi militant, Western outrage and sanctions followed. But as #Israel commits state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing, the West remains silent.

Ask yourself: If another country did this, would they be called a democracy—or a rogue terrorist state?

My wife said something today that I can’t shake: Some people don’t care if they win, they just want to be the ones making noise.

how much a president really cost

Bitcoin can give many freedoms. And … the highest freedoms, Bitcoin cannot give you. No asset or technology can. You can have all the self-custódiese Bitcoin, but …

If your mind continually from past events, to future plans, and you are unable to have it stay anchored in the present, then you are not free

If you get triggered and your emotions are decided by the words of others, then you are not free

If you get irate and frustrated whenever someone criticises bitcoin then you are not free

If you have many unrealised desires and ambitions that you believe you need to be fulfilled before you can be content, then you are not free.

If your mind gets unsettled when events do not go the way you want without delays or imperfections etc, then you are not free

If while maintaining money, you fear losing it in the future, then you are not free

If you feel fear when you lose some money or resources from your life, then you are not free

If after realising one financial goal you feel compelled to quickly set a bigger one, then you are not free.

Fingers crossed eh

Definitely - I have it.

15K retweets💀

Don’t overlook this sentence in the Preamble of MiCA:

"Hardware or software providers of non-custodial wallets should not fall within the scope of this Regulation." [see: Item (83), Preamble, MiCA]

It shows the way forward.

#MiCA

lol stop the steal part 2 begins😅

What is life?

•Dostoevsky : This is hell.

•Socrates: This is a test.

•Aristotle: It's the mind.

•Nietzsche: This is power.

•Freud: It is death.

•Marco: That's the idea.

•Picasso: This is art.

•Gandhi: This is love.

•Schopenhauer: This is suffering.

•Bertrand Russell: It's competition.

•Steve Jobs: That's Faith.

•Einstein: This is knowledge.

•Stephen Hopkins: That's hope.

•Kafka: These are the beginnings.

You can add in yours...

What is Life??

I don't really care about my identity being linked to the transaction. My current issue with KYC is that my ID is expired and so the stupid automatic ID scans that everyone uses doesn't go through. I'm probably not going to be able to renew my ID for another month or two, so I'm just looking for a way to purchase in the meantime.

I'm an audiobook kinda guy, but 99.999% of that is fiction.

Learning through books, audio or paper, is still difficult for me. The reality is I didn't need the white paper for my journey, and that's ok!