October 9th, 2009. The Pluh Cult launched their attack just as Alyssa's pragmatic/liberal wing was beginning to finish reorganising. It was perfect timing—after the weekend, some members would've trained their debate skills to refute Pluh Cult's points. This day was horrific for the wing—a few members fled immediately, as quickly as the Portuguese were broken on April 9th, 1918, during Operation Georgette. The wing's morale didn't fully collapse, due to the heroic efforts by a few less pragmatic members to fight off the Pluh Cult's points, using the argument of the lesser of two evils to argue that staying with Alyssa was better than joining the Pluh Cult.
It seemed as if the Pluh Cult was attempting to split this wing into two. There were various reports of some very liberal members having so little support they considered surrendering or even stopping Alyssa from smoking ever and forcing her to quit. This news alarmed Alyssa, who stormed into action—she planned a counterattack to try to repair the gap between her hardliners and moderate liberals. It would start on October 15th. Trying to not let her motivation drop, she promised to reward herself with a tasty Honduran cigar if she managed to stop the Pluh Cult.
Time flied as the Pluh Cult was attempting to split the liberal wing in two and Alyssa was preparing for her counterattack. However, the Pluh Cult almost managed to split the liberal wing in two using their arguments, forcing Alyssa to counterattack earlier on October 14th.
The counterattack devolved into a brutal battle of attrition—both sides became very knackered attempting to argue for their case. It lasted a long time—up to October 25th, when Alyssa knew she wouldn't be able to make any more progress. While the cost was very heavy, this attack forced the Pluh Cult to halt their progress in splitting the liberal wing after managing a decent split on October 15th. It also gave Alyssa's supporters crucial days to hold on and Lucas Jones time to have more arguments against the Pluh Cult.
Alyssa suspected that the Pluh Cult had overcommitted its time and resources towards holding the split between the hardliners and liberals in her camp. It wasn't delusional—on October 13th, it really seemed as if the Pluh Cult would break through and disintegrate half of the liberal wing. Yet, a question remained: would the Pluh Cult continue attacking the liberal wing in an attempt to force their surrender or attack where Alyssa's hardliners were weak to improve their lines? After all, Operation Blucher was meant to be a large diversion to pull the French reserves towards Paris, so Ludendorff could continue attacking the British. It seemed as if the Fall Offensive followed the WW1 spring offensive, but surely the Pluh Cult wouldn't be that stupid?
By October 25, even though Lucas Jones was busy with his work, he had already prepared some points in order to back up Alyssa. He wrote a short supporting statement to support Alyssa in case she needed it:
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Regarding Who It May Concern:
My daughter Alyssa's father is myself, Lucas Jones. My daughter has been misinterpreted adversely by others for a number of years, and since September 2009, the Pluh Cult has made things worse. To depict Alyssa in a negative light, the Pluh Cult has exaggerated a few small imperfections.
According to what I understand, the Pluh Cult believes that a person cannot be "wholesome" if they have any sins, which they haven't defined specifically. A "wholesome person" is, in my opinion, someone who behaves well, is trustworthy, and generally has a positive influence on others. Many dictionaries concur with me, but none appear to concur with the Pluh Cult's "definition" of being essentially sinless.
Even though my daughter indulges in vices, such as her penchant for tobacco, this does not constitute a serious flaw in her character. Individuals are not flawless and are permitted to have some unhealthy habits, such as overindulging in chocolate, as long as they are generally morally upright and good people. She uses a pocket ashtray to put out her butts since she is concerned about the impact her habit may have on other people. She won't say smoking is a healthy habit. even though she may not be heavily anti-smoking.
The Pluh Cult should accept accountability for their own deeds and stop distorting the truth. They are criticising others for possessing minor vices in spite of their professed "wholesomeness." How is this polite conduct? I will have to escalate matters in order to protect my morally upright daughter if they don't comply by November 10th.
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On November 2, 2009, Alyssa gave a speech to her friends about having more help to defend them. Morale was wavering, especially in the liberal wing. It seemed as if some were ready to surrender or at least pull back significantly. She spoke passionately about how help would arrive soon and even showed Dad's supporting statement to improve their morale. It worked—though morale was still a problem, it improved over the next few days even when the Pluh Cult conducted a few diversionary dramas to test the waters.
It gave Alyssa and her wavering supporters time to prepare for more attacks, although not as much time as they thought. Alyssa believed the Pluh Cult would use all their time to prepare for more attacks on hardliners and her, but instead the Pluh Cult attacked a hardliner on his "rigid" standing for Alyssa, claiming that they were too friendly and thus the hardliner was not being objective.
Surprisingly, this shocked the hardliner. He really didn't expect that the Pluh Cult would attack him; he expected them to focus on destroying the liberal wing and part of the moderates. Therefore, he retreated and conceded the debate to the Pluh Cult.
It was a morale drop for some of the hardliners—seeing one of their comrades verbally stumble in fear was devasating. Nevertheless, one hardliner called Adrian rallied other hardliners to fight back against this attack. Adrian not merely reiterated Alyssa's ideology like that hardliner did, but gave arguments for why it is possible to be wholesome even with sins and showed how this was important. Most importantly, he gave practical reasons (like mental health) for this, showing that the hardliners weren't being rigid for the sake of it. The attack ended on November 10th with Lucas Jones coming in for the first time, uttering the words, "My daughter's hardliners are not stubborn supporters just because they are stubborn."
Another attack came on the day the other attack ended. It was aimed at the most liberal of liberals—designed as an attack to force their surrender before numerous reinforcements could come. Alyssa knew the Pluh Cult knew they had to act quickly before Lucas Jones could rally more teachers to her aid.
On November 12th, the most liberal supporter, Alexey, offered to surrender to the Pluh Cult and cease defending Alyssa. He ranted about how he was disillusioned with Alyssa's ideology and "Traumatised" how he saw old people suffering from COPD due to smoking. He cried as if the world was ending, as if Alyssa would create doomsday.
Alyssa and James rallied with great effort to prevent a collapse of the liberal wing. Both were worried Alexey's surrender would set a precedent for surrender, leading to the full collapse of the liberal wing. While Alyssa's ideology may not collapse, there certainly will be great internal pressure to sue for an unfavourable peace. Besides, Alyssa's academics were beginning to stagnate, owing to the pressure from the Pluh Cult. She wanted to return to her very wholesome, extremely productive self with some vices, not her conflict-stressed self as she is now. Her smoking habit of half a pack a day provided solace from the near-constant conflict.
At least this delayed Alexey and another person's surrender to November 19th, even if one of the main points of the liberal wing—their independence from the hardliners—had been defeated by November 20th. Alyssa used this time to catch up on her academics and prepare her plan to skip eighth grade in order to escape. She may even choose to skip a second grade or simply enter university early. This time gave the liberal wing time to withdraw somewhat, freeing up time and resources to plug the gaps left by Alexey and the other one's surrenders.
As the time ticked closer and closer to the New Year, tension brewed up. The liberals and parts of the moderate wing were clearly vulnerable; the withdrawal was done to prevent further escalation. At the same time, Lucas Jones was coming in with his reinforcements, with some teachers willing to reinforce Alyssa at heavy costs. Even though Alyssa was stagnating in academics, Michael doesn't seem to be doing that well either, leaving a tense competition for later.
The Pluh Cult was very sensible, focusing their energy on weak areas to attempt to force a peace. They knew they couldn't fully win. But who will crack first?
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Defending Alyssa's Smoking & Bad Habits
General FictionOnly daughter Alyssa may be outstanding in many ways, but she has her bad habits that are difficult for society to accept. Despite that, her idealistic, warm father defends her character and accepts her for who she is. Her mother does have her grie...
