Season's Eve AMA (Answers)

Answering all your questions about Fantasy, Life, etc.

Sep 10, 2023

Hey folks,

I really enjoyed reviewing all the questions you dropped in my AMA post this week and am hoping you enjoy the answers here. I answered every question with exception of some that would have required an answer before today. Let’s Dive in!

Questions are bolded and sorted by category.

General Fantasy Questions

It seems like analysts (including you) often discuss paths to elite ceilings. Two of the most common examples of this are: Teammates getting hurt and leading to more targets — OR — A team’s offense being much better than expected…

Do you have historical data to determine (which) outcome is more likely?
I know this is very team dependent (Eagles last year was a team you anticipated, vs the Bears being unlikely this year), but I’m curious if anyone has done analysis about the best bets to make vs the market in reaching an elite ceiling.

This is a great question, but hard to answer particularly well, mostly because it’s just not as binary as you’ve laid out (which I presume you know).

A couple years ago I did an article on the anatomy of a league-breaking stack. The idea was to search for indicators that made a team’s offense (specifically their passing game) more likely to hit a compounded ceiling. What I found was that almost every “league-breaking” stack which provided elite finishes at moderate or in-expesnive prices featured either a proven elite QB with un-established, young WR(s), an established elite WR inheriting a new, young QB, or a volatile or youthful QB and WR being paired together.

This is pretty intuitive. The more situational change and the shorter the track record, the more possible untapped upside there is in a situation. We certainly saw this happen last year with the Eagles in which Jalen Hurts and Devonta Smith ascended at the same time A.J. Brown was added, resulting in an offensive environment in which each of the three propelled each other to a fantastic season.

Both the Bears and Falcons technically fit that criteria with a new, young QB on Atlanta surrounded by young weapons, and D.J Moore being added to the Bears. There are of course massive question marks on these offenses and coaching staffs. But I would say if you’re investing in the receiving weapons of either offense you should be investing in the QB as well. Due to Fields’ elite mobility, and Ridder’s cheap price and possible mobility, if Moore or Pitts/London have a true apex season I suspect their QB will be one of the bigger hits in fantasy this year.

My favourite spot to attack this year is the Ravens. Lamar Jackson returns off injury to an entirely new WR core, healthy star RB and a new offensive coordinator. If they have a major hit in either Bateman or Flowers, this could compound with a change in coaching strategy and completely shift how we view this offense.

Who are some of your biggest potentially impact unknowns? For me it's james cook and the guys in the ATL offense. I cant seem to land anywhere on either side with those guys which usually has led to missing out on them.

Not 100% sure I understand the question here but the way I’m interpreting it is: Who are some players you have the hardest time reaching a convicted take on with a wide range of outcomes?

There are a lot of “unknown” situations, which I generally approach with a lot of conviction (see my answer to the above question) regardless of my certainty in the specific outcome. But the two players in dynasty I am the most conflicted about this year are Travis Etienne and Christian Watson.

Etienne I’ve written about glowingly in this substack for most of the summer, but that’s typically within the context of either my appreciation of his real-life play, or his range of outcomes as a Round 4 seasonal pick.

At RB8 in dynasty, you are swallowing a much higher portion of the risk when you click the button, in addition to the general heuristic that we should be more conscious of downside risk in dynasty than seasonal due to the long term investment.

My baseline projection for Etienne is that he continues being an efficient and explosive runner, but loses some work to Bigbsy and struggles to carve out a difference making pass-down role. In best ball, that could still lead to massive weekly upside. In redraft, you’re getting a fairly affordable access point to the chance he can add the passing work on top of this baseline. In dynasty, his value depends on his ability to ascend to a level he hasn’t yet shown which makes the bet far more concerning, on top of the standing fragility that any RB carries at all times. I think he’s slightly over-valued but I do believe in the player and could see myself immediately wishing I had bought him everywhere if he catches six passes in Week 1.

Christian Watson is a similar predicament in which it’s a player I like, and an upside case that I don’t want to miss out on.. it’s just very expensive. The upside case for Watson relies on a little less progression than with Etienne. If he’s the same player he was over the second half of last-season he’s unequivocally worth his cost. Early in the off-season I felt he was a must-buy while priced with plenty of room to grow if that was the case. Now, he’s one of the first WRs off the board after the elite veterans and sub-elite young WRs are cleared out. We’re betting on a small sample of rate stats reliant on a fairly limited route tree and against a longer view prospect profile that’s highly suspect. Watson’s fairly priced in my view, as a massive hit or major bust would be a significant impact to his team’s roster value and the market is hedging in the middle of each.

For both players, I would prefer to be roughly “at market.” There are several players you can choose to leverage your dynasty season on either by targeting or hard fading. There is no shame in simply trying to avoid a major stance on either side of the players you think are fairly priced with a wide range of outcomes.

My Content Delivery / Fantasy Industry

What is your content going to look like during the season? Will there be a focus on waiver wire? Outperformers/underperformers relative to their underlying peripherals? What KPIs are you going to most focused on? I think a weekly updated Rest of Season valuation ranking would be useful.

Thanks for the Question! I’m going to be writing two articles per week *most of the time.* This will be the in-season version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to RB. In the first part I’ll be doing a quick recap to some major shifts for backfields’ rest-of-season outlook due to unexpected usage, injuries or anything else, with an eye to immediate trade targets or waver adds. The second part will be more flexible. Most weeks I will use it focus on 1-2 backfields each week to do a deeper dive into some pressing questions flowing from that week or profiling a player in particular I think it’s worth discussing as a trade target or frame of reference for interesting analysis.

In some weeks, the second part will be scrapped or merged and I will add a dynasty strategy column in line with the relevant period of the season. In others, the substitute column will be on in-season best ball or play-off best ball. At least twice this season I’ll be compiling my three-level charts from all qualifying backs and try to identify some under and over valued players from a talent perspective.

I will not be doing weekly rankings updates. If I have major shifts on players outside of injury I will let you know in the course of my weekly columns. You will get one seasonal rankings update in time for Best Ball Resurrection, and I will be doing periodic dynasty rankings updates, likely once per month.

How have you managed to balance writing and content production with your career/graduate school? I have been slated to do some writing for *our* Tennessee football volunteers, but have found this incredibly difficult when trying to balance with graduate school applications and other school obligations.

It’s definitely not easy. When I’ve had massive time crunches with school and can’t get content out, I find myself refreshing the subscribers tab and see people leaving. It causes a lot of anxiety. But ultimately what I try to tell myself is that I’m doing this because I enjoy it first and foremost and as an opportunity for supplementary income second. I’m pretty open about my additional responsibilities (I start work at my firm Monday) in hopes you guys are understanding if there are weeks I don’t have my intended articles up. I also want to make sure whenever I’m writing you’re getting my best work — and my best work comes when I have the time and energy to devote myself fully.

All that being said, I’ve structured my content delivery to align with a full time job given the flexibility of Substack compared to working for a larger site. And my number one commitment is always to myself to make sure whatever I’m doing is enjoyable and something I look forward to. Hopefully that remains the case throughout the season. If you ever find yourself adding additional stress or exhaustion due to writing about your favourite hobby, try to take a step back and make sure it stays fun.

Is the rise in popularity of Best Ball killing managed high stakes? (see FFPC FP Championship with 4.4k remaining)

Impossible for me to say. I just don’t have the sufficient knowledge on the trends of entries into MHS leagues over a period time. Speaking personally I could never see myself giving up the managed format. Being able to have control over the dynamism of your roster season long is a legitimate edge and part of the appeal of the game for me. As well, the hybrid format between substantial prizes for league wins merged with the high-end pots for the sprint is my ideal format. Best Ball is a blast but it’s fairly dispiriting just how little EV you gain by hitting on one of the most important players over the first 14 weeks of a 17 week season.

I will however say that Best Ball has resulted in me scaling down my DFS action, as Best Ball Tournaments have become the predominant “risk a little to win a lot” vehicle for my portfolio. Managed has definitely lost its monopoly over seasonal fantasy but I think the structure will always retain a high level of appeal even if it’s slightly reduced.

In terms of fantasy knowledge, where do you put yourself on the classic Dunning-Kruger chart?

It’s pretty hard to know, right? I mean if I always knew exactly where I was on the chart it would defeat the chart’s purpose. But I do love this question and then chance to reflect on some things.

When I started doing content I came at it from the approach of wanting to say something unique I felt was missing in the game. But after winding up in the content mill and the twitter economy for enough time I definitely shifted my view more towards wanting to try to have an answer for everything. I learned pretty quickly that I don’t.

The next step was realizing I didn’t have everything figured out but thinking if I just made some changes or tried harder I *could* figure everything out: not from the standpoint of always being right of course, but in terms of always making the *right* bets. Ultimately you probably make even more egregious mistakes during this “over fitting” period of trying to correct past errors than you would just staying the course. The reality is that mistakes are inevitable and if every single wrong take requires an explanation and a future shift in approach based on that we will just chase our tail repeatedly.

One of the best lessons I’ve learned in fantasy and would emphasize to anyone is there is a very big difference between a descriptive reason why something unexpected happened, and a predictive takeaway based on that result. For example, I can describe to you why Josh Jacobs hit, but if we try to apply those reasons in search of the next Josh Jacobs we are more likely to overfit a fairly unlikely outcome onto several other poor bets.

I know that when you’re on the other side of someone on a take, and your take turns out to be correct, it’s extremely irritating to hear that person say their process won’t change as a result. But often times that’s the correct take. It takes humility to admit a mistake, but it arguably takes more humility to admit that you can’t possibly get every take correct. Once you accept that, you can’t then expect to change your process as a result of every wrong take.

Probably the most important shift in my approach to fantasy is seeing people still support my work after taking some embarrassing Ls on major takes. Like if you drafted Trey Lance or Skyy Moore on my advice and still value my content, that’s re-assuring to me that I am in fact hitting on my original goal: providing a unique and actionable perspective on fantasy football. It’s taken a lot of time to slowly wear down the immediate defensiveness of trying to either defend a poor take or be one-hundred percent certain of what went wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I don’t take missed takes seriously or don’t seek to evolve my analysis. But I do think my job is generally to provide you with a line of reasoning that you presumably find value in, and you can take or leave what you agree with or what you don’t. If that line of reasoning is resulting in a net benefit to your teams then I’m doing my job.

Anyhow to answer your question, I am nearly 100% sure that I will be a better analyst next year than I am currently. But this is probably the first off-season where I have absolutely no expectation that I’ve figured out any authoritative process to approach fantasy football and I think that’s a fairly significant sign of growth.

Dynasty Strategy

When filling out the end of your dynasty rosters, especially in deep leagues, what types of players do you prioritize keeping? Is it better to focus on streaming RB types, young backup QBs, young WRs, etc?

I use the heuristic of the “Samaje Pe-Line.” This stands for the proposition that you should never roster a non-rookie WR who has no realistic chance to enter your starting lineup as a contending team over any backup RB. It earned its name while Perine was one of the most commonly available backups while with the Bengals, and I would instruct patrons to drop Marvin Jones or Robert Woods types who were “below the Pe-Line.”

Where exactly the Pe-Line is depends on your league’s roster settings. The value of say, Tyler Boyd, could be legitimate in a 14-team start 11 while he has effectively zero value in a 10-team start 9. But speaking generally, I’m only rostering WRs I could feasibly start + some rookies (though I don’t often target WRs in late-rounds of rookie drafts). Beyond that I’m focusing on reserve RBs and stashing athletic TEs or QBs.

Thoughts on swapping same year future firsts as a throw in for a trade? Seems to be a great source of advantage if you can identify an overconfident manager whose team is more likely to be poor, but you lose your tanking flexibility. Worth it?

3 years ago, when I started playing dynasty it felt very much as though the meta was extremely RB heavy, with very few QBs going early. This offseason the opposite is true, and it’s never been harder to trade for QB, especially elite ones.

Firstly, I get the impression that you feel the general weighting of positions with respect to one another is not just better, but perhaps close to optimal - is that correct, or do you still feel the market has somewhere to move that would be better at from a high level position perspective?
Secondly, if you cast your mind to the future (next offseason, 3 years hence, whatever your preference) what would you predict the ‘next’ meta will be? We see shifts over time and so I personally can’t see that QBs will always be so highly valued (even if perhaps they should be), but what’s your take on this?

This is a great question. First off I think it’s important to separate the macro-market from micro-markets. I.e. don’t assume that what happens in your league(s) is always representative of dynasty leagues as a whole. That being said, it’s definitely true that there is a higher allotment of capital going to QB and lower to RB at the top of drafts.

I think a part of this is due to content emphasizing this as a preferable approach. However, part of it is just the change in where talent is across the league. The 2017 RB class is one of the best of all time, featuring Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon, Austin Ekeler, Aaron Jones, James Conner, Chris Carson and Kareem Hunt. When you get a single class with this many multi-time top-12 finishers at their position, it will influence the market to prioritize that position. As that class has aged into their back nine, the market has naturally soured on RBs as a whole.

At the same time, we are in a golden age of young, fantasy friendly QBs. I don’t expect the “meta” to change in that elite young QBs will cease to be the most valuable asset in super-flex dynasty, but I do suspect the nature of the market will change as the distribution of value across positions changes. The 2021-22 QB classes could wind up spawning only Trevor Lawrence as a long-term elite option. If that happens, and we get another 2017-esque RB class when the current top-end QBs approach 30, we will likely see more RBs in the 1st round of startups again soon.

The most important thing you can do is root yourself to your own valuations, so that you aren’t pushed around by the market. If the market ever goes too far in a given direction — even if that’s your generally preferred direction — you should be willing to exploit that. For example, I’m a long-time Zero-RB seasonal league drafter but I’ve altered that this year due to a very different pricing of upside RB options than years past.

Dynasty Trades

You seem like you massively shifted your expectation of JT playing after he stayed on PUP. Would you be trying to tier down to your other RB buys (eg Jacobs+, Rhamondre++) on a contender or just riding it out?

This one really depends on your team. The higher value your team is the more willing I am to take a “loss” on a player in order to increase your chance of a bye now. Let’s use an example of my home league dynasty team. The core of my roster was as follows:

QB: Josh Allen, Trevor Lawrence
RB: Bijan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor, Aaron Jones, Rachaad White
WR: AJ Brown, Stefon Diggs, Christian Watson, Jahan Dotson, Diontae Johnson
TE: Mark Andrews
+ assorted Bench assets, extra 1st in 2026 and three additional 2nds

This team is fairly loaded on value to the point where I’m not overly concerned about its staying power over the next few years. I was able to move Taylor + Cedric Tillman, my 24 1st and 2 2nds in a deal for Ceedee Lamb, Geno Smith and Roschon Johnson. While it may prove to be a long term value loss, this unquestionably makes me better this year.

As I’ve written about before, there is a point of diminishing returns to any year’s team once you’ve already hit the range of projection where you are favoured for a bye. At that point you want to be shifting value into other years — either moving veterans off an extremely win-now team for future buying power, or moving picks / injured players off a high-value young team to help your immediate roster.

Basically, if you can withstand a loss on Taylor while retaining a high value position for the foreseeable future, and moving off Taylor now could materially impact your chance at a bye this year, I would be willing. If you can withstand the loss of Taylor and remain a bye favourite I would hold him. If you can’t withstand the loss of Taylor to remain competitive, and can’t take on the loss in value if you trade him, then hold him and trade other players: you may not have sufficient value or production to be focused on contention this year.

If you're holding the bag on Swift in dynasty when is the right time to move him ? And what kind of RB are we shipping him off for?

I’ve warmed to D’Andre Swift quite a bit this summer in seasonal leagues where his price carries relatively little opportunity cost. In dynasty, I’m still concerned about chasing a player with significant holes in his game. My take is that based on his seasonal ADP, the market is lower on his immediate value than I am. But based on his dynasty value, they will likely be much more excited about the long term ramifications of a hot start than I would be.

Therefore he’s a hold for me today if not offered a R1 pick in any year or equivalent value. But if he starts hot I’d definitely want to sell for a 1st or move him into a more well-rounded RB or similarly volatile upside bet + a pick to insure your bet.

I notice you are suggesting to move off of CMC. Would you do this as a contender, even a favorite? What kind of return would you look for?

Yes, I’m moving off CMC. At a Round 2 ADP he carries much higher value than the elite WRs who profile similarly from a near-term production perspective as well as having a similar expectation of games remaining considering the injury-rates and aging curves of the respective positions. My ideal trade on a contender is CMC for Adams, Diggs or Hill plus the market fill-in addition. But you can get there multiple ways. If I can get CMC’s market implied value of roughly 2 base 1s in any form I would do it on any team and try to buy back the points later if needed.

Remember as well that we don’t want to chase diminishing returns. If your team can remain a bye-contender without McCaffrey it’s best to flip him into future value.

Roster Management

I drafted Kupp and JT in my 14man league so I'm struggling for starts on my roster. 0.5 PPR how would you rank these players for my flex2. Mingo, J. Reed, Z. Moss. I have Moss on my bench and am deciding to pick up J. Reed or not.

This may be moot now with Zack Moss doubtful, but I’m not interested in his services. He’s likely the early-down only back locked in a committee on a poor team with a rushing QB. There’s no role or talent based upside here. If you’re taking a shot on a Colts RB it’s Jackson for Week 1 or Hull for the season. I like Mingo slightly more than Reed this week but they’re practically identical plays.

0.5 PPR how would you rank these flex options for week 1? Breece Hall, Marvin Mims, Jayden Reed?

At this moment I would go with Hall > Mims > Reed but subject to change as we hear more info on Hall’s role. (I’m assuming Jeudy is OUT and Doubs is IN)

Jayden Reed is on the waiver wire. Should I drop Rashee Rice or Kendre Miller for him? Superflex 12 team half PPR. We start 2RB/2WR/2Flex

RBs: Henry, Hall, Swift, Achane, K Miller, Allgeier, and S Tucker
WR: Wilson, K Allen, London, JSN, Zay Flowers, and Rice.
- I was hoping to get a look at Rice's usage tomorrow night but with Watson and Doubs missing practice I don't want to risk losing Reed to another team.

Possibly moot now? I hope you kept Rice though, we should be quite bullish on him after the way that played out. Miller is the safest bet to drop becaue he won’t play this week. So I’d pick him up next week and drop Reed if he doesn’t fire or perhaps Tucker.

Need to start 3/5 week 1 half ppr: Hall, Swift, Burks, E. Moore, QJ

I would start Swift > Burks > Hall > Moore > Johnston.

My roster is Tua/Anthony Richardson, Pollard/Breece/Penny/Warren, ARSB/Christian Watson/Addison/Elijah Moore/JSN/QJ, Mark Andrews — would you move Andrews in this scenario for JK Dobbins and Deebo? It would give me a lot of depth and I could grab a Dulcich, Musgrave or LaPorta off the wire (someone beat me to stashing Higbee)

I would not.

I’m assuming this is a redraft question but I’m going to give both answers because I think it’s more interesting that way. For redraft purposes I’m almost never giving up an elite asset for depth unless the league is far deeper than most. Most redraft leagues are won by a small number of players with outsized impact. Andrews has the chance to be that at a position of scarcity. I would not move him for two projected mid-level starters. If you’re able to hit late round picks or waiver adds you’ll find yourself with an increasing replacement level over time and will want to consolidate as much production into your best players as possible.

f we pretend it’s dynasty… I’m not moving elite TEs or QBs unless either my team value is exceedingly low where I don’t want to store any value in high-end pieces that can’t accrue upwards, or if I’m paid far above the value assigned to the player in my rankings. In this case I have a 2 base 1s value on Andrews and 1 base 1 on each of the others so it’s dead even.

Non-Fantasy Football Questions

Is The Smiths There is a Light That Never Goes Out under rated or over rated?

What I like most about the Smiths is their ability to merge the two things I look for most in music: intangible, emotional, visceral feeling from the flow of the song or the lyrics, and creative rhythmic vehicles to convey that. I always thought this was a pretty straight-up song with some fairly cheesy lyrics in the chorus that never hit quite as hard for me as my favourites. However, a few months ago I was at a karaoke bar and someone did this song, at which point I was just so excited to hear someone doing The Smiths I didn’t care whatsoever what track.

Belting out every lyric with friends in that environment while quite inebriated definitely increased how much I appreciate it. Morrisey’s lyrics are often cringey on first listen, but the way he conveys universal feelings in an extremely earnest way hits better when I’m separated from all the guard rails I put up in daily life to reserve myself and am just vibing at a bar.

The verse “I want to see people and I want to see life” followed by not wanting to be dropped at home because “it’s not myyyyy home, it’s their home, and I’m welcome no more” would be a perfect fit on any song from the Pop punk / Emo era. And as a very willing Blink-182 belter at Karaoke I was here for it.

The line ”in a darkened underpass, I thought Oh God my chance had come at last” with syncopation throughout is really clever. Every word is delivered on an off-beat between the start of “darkened” and “chance” so you’re naturally building tension through the darkness before receiving that tension when he thinks it “comes at last.”

Overall, if you’re a person who is at once super emotional all the time and simultaneously terrified of letting people see your emotions the Smiths are for you. No band will ever as perfectly encapsulate my general vibe of “I’m so fucking sad tra la la la la” as Morrisey’s literal interchange of earnest, personal lyrics, with gibberish sing-song syllables. Anyhow, I absolutely love them and I think if you’re the specific type of personality that clicks with the mode of delivery in his lyrics you’ll actually find them to be a much funnier band than they get credit for (at least in a macabre kind of way).

Final Verdict: UNDER rated

For what it’s worth, my favourite song by the Smiths is Reel Around the Fountain. The line “I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice” is one of my favourite lyrics in any song.

What is Elliot Smith’s most misunderstood song?

Misunderstood could mean a few things I suppose. Like do you mean a song that people don’t like / don’t get and should like more if they went deeper? Or a song that people just interpret the lyrics incorrectly?

I think Smith is generally a straight forward messenger so I’m not sure if there are many mis-interpreted songs. (Hint: it’s probabaly about drugs) Besides, I think once a song is published whatever it’s meaning is for you is valid and songs should have the opportunity to take on a relationship to you that naturally evolves.

So I’ll answer this question maybe a little more broadly and say the whole X/O album is a touch misunderstood, and certainly underrated.

The common sentiment in Elliott Smith world is generally that Either/Or is his best album and X/O is a strong follow up but that the polished sound after leaving Kill Rock Stars for Dreamworks loses the appeal of his raw, emotional work.

The thing is Elliott Smith — in my view anyhow — despite starting out in Heatmiser and coming to prominence in the mid-90s, is just not really interested in making static-filled, grunge-adjacent music with an acoustic guitar. His biggest influence to my knowledge is The Beatles. Two of his best known covers are Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and Thirteen by Big Star: two beautiful, soft songs that somewhat transcend the image of those artists. If you were to ask me to define Elliott Smith relative to other prominent artists of that time period, I’d say he’s whatever alternate universe Black Francis (of the Pixies) actually enjoyed writing Here Comes Your Man.

Smith clearrly led a troubled life, and experienced a lot of pain. But his songs are beautiful, vulnerable, sweet, and often more hopeful than you remember. (Say Yes)

Even in his darkest songs, Smith often sings with an air of questioning, or bargaining, or hope that by channeling his darkest thoughts through his saccharine, double-tracked vocals that perhaps something beautiful can emerge.

There is a line in my favourite song off the album, Tomorrow Tomorrow, that may be too on the nose for this point but I think it illustrates it consciously or not.

He sings, “I got static in my head, the reflected sound of everything…. tried to go to where it led, but it ddn’t lead to anything.” Smith does not want to wallow or glorify the static. He wants to transcend it, but that desire just doesn’t always wear naturally.

Elliott Smith is my favourite artist. And I think the reason X/O is my favourite album is because I don’t perceive its sonic superiority as an unfortunate byproduct of seeking the mainstream, but rather a culmination of a complicated man’s dream to become a pop-singer who just happened to release a lot of music in the 1990s. I don’t think someone writes a self-harmonied a capella track (I Didn’t Understand) out of a desire to “sell out.” I think someone does that because they think it sounds really cool and they were given the artistic freedom and budget to give it a whirl.

I think a lot of Smith fans are drawn to Either/Or and his self-titled album (both of which I love by the way) because it’s easier to slot in with the music of the time and the two-dimensional version story of the troubled artistic genius. But if there is one defining feature in Smith’s music that speaks to me the most it’s his bravery. He had the courage to let us peak behind the curtain on his inner-most thoughts on nearly every song. And he had the courage to make music the way he wanted regardless of any archetype he may be slotted into, on an indie label, in a Dreamworks studio, and in a white suit on the stage of the Academy Awards.

I see X/O as the apex point in his musical capacity and to the extent I have any insight on the mindset of a person I’ll never meet (I don’t), I see it as the apex of his personal endeavours with music, and I hope he found joy in its creation.

What is the meal you cook when you want to impress a potential significant other?

My personal favourite dish is Stuffed Portabello mushrooms with a red lentil, couscous, goat cheese, kale, shallot and walnut filling. I typically then grate some Smoked Gouda on top.

What are three of your favourite movies?

I’ll give you three extremely different movies for different moods and different genres:

Moulin Rouge — best high-movie watch in the world
The Godfather: Part Two — the movie that needed to exist so that all my favourite movies and TV shows of the last 30 years would exist
Hoosiers — best sports movie ever, imagine not crying the whole second half

what kind of law are you practicing? did you know that was what you wanted to do when you started law school or did you figure it out along the way? how do you like it?

The firm I’m at is predominantly a labour / employment / human rights firm, but we also have some partners who have more unique practices and one does primarily work with First Nations bands focusing on economic development, financial management and governance. I will be splitting time between our general practice and that work, with the latter being my current hope for a long term practice focus.

At this point I’d say it’s pretty in line with my desired practice area going into Law School, but I don’t have enough experience to say whether I will like it or whether I will try to change course yet! This will be my first full year of practice as an articling student.

I’m Metis from the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba and always had a desire to use the practice of law or any of my previous work in politics and governance to benefit Indigenous communities, but especially coming over from a different area of the country and experiencing zero-visually-based racial discrimination in my life I don’t desire to ever be the “face” of a lot of Indigenous litigation in BC where I currently am. But I’ve had a lot of experience in governance, and really enjoyed some of the more taxation and corporate structuring focused classes I took in law school with relation to First Nations.

My baseline reason to go to law school was to have a better understanding of the systems that govern us, and try to leverage that understanding to benefit people who are not traditionally benefitted, and I think this is a possible way to achieve that while doing work I expect to find stimulating and doing it at a firm that’s been excellent to me so far. (They have even let me record podcasts from the office)

What originally got you into following politics and has it always been from the leftist perspective? Sorry politics nerd who loves to hear people w same perspective talk about it

I was always into politics. I think from a young age it’s just been an implicit belief about myself and the world that in order to feel fulfilled I need to have some level of impact in something beyond myself and I suppose I was born with the West Wing gene that gave me a sense of optimism politics is a viable route to do that.

I don’t think this notion has always been a positive one either for my own mental health or how I’ve valued individual relationships, but I hope I’m channeling it in a more healthy way now.

As for the perspective, no absolutely not always leftist. Being a teen is basically trying out a lot of shitty opinions until you find one that fits. And trust me, I tried out some horrific ones along the way,

But in general I have settled on a more consistent view of politics and my role within it over the last decade or so. I think a fundamental change in my worldview was when I began to experience that asking for help was a more sustainable way to improve as a person than trying to “knuckle under.” I want society to reflect the premise that asking for help is a good thing, and providing it is a good thing.

However, I would consider myself a “solution-oriented” leftist. I have definitely had stark disagreements with people on the left in my time as an organizer due to probably a greater willingness to concede some ground in exchange for incremental wins. Generally speaking, I think we need people working inside and outside the system in order to push society in a progressive direction and I find I work best inside the system when I’ve been more actively involved.

This is not to denigrate those who have a more natural fit “outside” however. I think we all have a legitimate role to play and that even includes conflict among leftists. What I hope sets us apart and what I have learned the hard way is that no matter what we remain committed to respect for each other as humans. That includes respect for ourselves, our limits, and our flaws.

Hope you enjoyed this! I’ll definitely do another some time :)

Good luck in Week 1 and see you soon with the in-season HHG!