#its not like he was the sole factor holding my army together for the first half of the game

[larachelledrawsfe]

Did you enjoy Louis from engage?

Ehhhh. He's alright.

[testudoaubrei-blog]

“I’m loyal, that’s my whole thing.” - Scorpia, Season 4 Episode 6, Princess Scorpia

“Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless” - Lonnie, Season 4 Episode 5, Protocol

Rewatching Season 4, I just finished Princess Scorpia. This is an episode that has always stuck with me, especially the A plot of Scorpia realizing how badly Catra has treated her and everyone else and deciding to leave. One thing I’ve been thinking about since I finished the series, though, is what this episode is telling us on a larger level. Looking beyond the character arcs and more at this show’s larger themes and message. Because this show is very much a show that says things, made by people who believe them. That earnestness and depth is one reason I keep coming back to it.

In the pull-quote above, and throughout the episode and before it, Scorpia defines herself in terms of loyalty. It is her identity - as she says, that’s what Scorpions do, they’re loyal. Her actions for three and a half seasons bear this out. When she first shows up, she tries to position herself as Catra’s new best friend, the one who won’t leave her and will stick by her no matter what. And that’s what she does, until this episode. She sticks by Catra through Catra’s increasingly villainous plots and erratic behavior. But she doesn’t just stick around. Until the portal, she barely contradicts Catra, and even afterwards, does so only furtively and immediately backs away as soon as Catra pushes back. For more than a year of show time, Scorpia has not just stood by Catra, or supported her, she’s actively assisted her in her most villainous and destructive acts. Scorpia is fighting by Catra’s side, eagerly carrying out her orders, and doing her utmost to see that Catra succeeds. But her loyalty goes beyond this practical help. Because for all that Catra loudly declares that she doesn’t need a new best friend, she consistently seeks out connection throughout the show, even when she’s at her most isolated in season 4. She needs moral support, and connection, and to know that she isn’t alone. Scorpia provides that, and keeps Catra going. Though Scropia isn’t initiating Catra’s various misdeeds, she’s assisting and supporting Catra throughout. On a personal, psychological level, the only word that seems adequate for this is ‘ennabling’ - Scorpia, sweet as she is, is Catra’s enabler. We see in the next few episodes what happens when Catra doesn’t have Scorpia’s support - she breaks down, and realizes that her actions really do have consequences, and that the affection she took for granted for so many years is something she can’t live without. But as long as Scorpia’s still around, Catra can’t make that realization.

Now I’m not going to say that Scorpia is morally culpable for Catra’s own actions. She’s not. Catra is solely responsible for her various betrayals, manipulations, violent outbursts and assorted murder attempts against...most of the rest of the cast (though being raised by Shadow Weaver sure as shit is a mitigating factor). But while Catra is obviously being a bad friend to Scorpia throughout, Scorpia isn’t actually being as supportive or helpful to Catra as she thinks, because Catra doesn’t actually need unconditional support, she needs people to be honest with her and express to her how she’s hurting them. She needs people who will stand up for themselves just as she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. This is part of why she and Adora have such a healthy dynamic in season 5 - Adora doesn’t take her crap, and Catra takes responsibility for her crap.

However, Scorpia -is- responsible for her own actions. And as I said above, she’s been with Catra every step of the way as Catra has attacked just about everyone and made war on Etheria. On a larger, political level, Scorpia is a willing participant in upholding the Horde’s oppressive system, and executing a war of aggression and colonization against innocent people. Speaking of colonization, perversely, she’s loyal to the very organization that dispossessed her and literally stole her birthright, then discarded it like a useless trinket when it was no longer useful to them. No one ever suggests ‘why don’t we let Scorpia connect with ~her runestone~’ until Glimmer does (and Glimmer’s motivations and arguments aren’t exactly forthright). Scorpia’s loyalty makes her an accomplice in her own oppression (like a bunch of the themes in this show there’s some interesting post-colonial stuff that the show doesn’t fully explore, probably because Noelle and the crew felt self-conscious about telling a post colonial story, or just didn’t know where to go with it). Interestingly, Scorpia’s loyalty to the Horde here parallels her loyalty to Catra, which has made her completely disregard her own wellbeing, which is the most obvious take away from the episode.

But I would argue that everything above shows that for Scorpia loyalty has been a way of avoiding developing her own moral compass. Scorpia repeatedly shoves aside questions of right or wrong in favor of being loyal to her friends and to the Horde. Loyalty has made Scorpia not only willing to accept her own mistreatment, but to willingly mistreat others, and to keep herself from asking any hard questions about what she’s doing or why. This is despite the fact that Scorpia is, by inclination, an incredibly gentle, kind and compassionate person. She’s willing to silence the best parts of her nature out of loyalty to Catra and the Horde. In the end, she also commits acts of violence and perpetuates the oppression of Etheria. And this is so insightful, because we see this sort of thing in our world all the time. So many oppressive institutions depend upon the loyalty of their members to keep them ‘just following orders’; so many abusive systems depend upon loyalty to stifle dissent and silence potential whistleblowers before they even speak. We see this in some of the most oppressive institutions and the worst scandals in our own society, and looking back through human history we see it in some of our nation’s and our species' most infamous crimes.

And when we look at the Horde as a system that Hordak has built in imitation of his elder brother’s empire, we see just how central loyalty is an ethos. Hordak himself is motivated entirely by loyalty to Prime - being a former clone, he spends the entire series not fully capable of accepting himself as an autonomous being (even when he acts like one and enjoys it, there’s some fucked up religious shit there that I won’t get into). He seems to have instilled this in his followers. The Horde Trio, Catra and Scorpia all hold loyalty as one of their highest values. Catra clings to it as her biggest accusation against Adora - that she was disloyal, as expressed in Catra’s perception that Adora broke her promise and abandoned her. Loyalty keeps the Horde Trio together and fighting for the Horde, and Scorpia with Catra. I think we can read between the lines and say the Horde runs on loyalty (as well as fear) and this is a very insightful portrayal of oppressive military and paramilitary institutions like armies of conquest and occupation and other instruments of state violence.

There’s another, related way of looking at how a sole reliance on loyalty as a moral framework has stunted Scorpia’s moral growth, and I think that brings together both the ways that it makes Scorpia willing to accept her mistreatment and participate in the mistreatment of others. Namely, loyalty in the Horde style isn’t just sticking with someone or something, but subsuming your own will into theirs. Following orders. Supporting your friend in what they do no matter what. Whatever you call it, it’s about turning off your own self - your self preservation, your self respect, your conscience, whatever other things you value - and just going along with what the person or institution you are loyal to wants you to do. And this is where Horde loyalty goes full circle, back to its origin - Horde Prime, the narcissistic self-made god who wishes to control or destroy everything that is not himself. Loyalty as Hordak conceived of it and as the Horde believes in it is a reflection of Prime's absolute control over all his domain.

In a way, self-determination is one of this show’s highest values (together with love). It’s at the heart of Adora’s 5-season, 3 year struggle to become her own woman and her own hero as she shrugs off one imposed destiny and then another and finally embraces what she wants. In a more negative form, it’s at the heart of Catra’s arc, as she finally accepts responsibility for her own actions and their consequences and starts working to make a world that she actually wants to live in, as well as admit to herself that what she really wants is love. And I could go on. This self-determination is existentially, obviously threatened by Prime chipping people, but it is also stunted by horde-style loyalty that demands unquestioning support and obedience.

Both the Horde Trio and Scorpia reject the Horde’s ideal of loyalty and walk away, but I think it’s interesting how they do it. Neither rejects loyalty entirely (not on the way Adora does) - the Trio, realistically, remain loyal to each other and simply walk away and walk out of the war (this might save their lives), joining the other disillusioned cynics in the Crimson Wastes. They reject loyalty to the horde and embrace a more supportive and respectful form of loyalty to each other. Scorpia leaves, but she actually comes to her crisis and makes her decision out of loyalty, and because it’s clear that her loyalty isn’t returned. The immediate situation - loyalty to Emily and Entrapta’s memory on one hand and Catra’s orders on the others - creates the conflict between loyalties that forces Scorpia to actually make her own choice rather than deferring to Catra. But she also reflects how Catra betrayed her loyalty to Entrapta, and thus how all of her friends’ loyalty to Catra is not returned.This is another point about horde-style loyalty - it’s one way - Hordak or Catra will demand your loyalty, but they feel no obligation to return it, which reflects Prime’s view of every other being in the universe as disposable. It’s only when she’s with the Princesses that Scorpia starts to find a new moral center, though sticking up for and protecting her friends remains important to her. In neither case, though, are these kinds of loyalty coming at the cost of either the Trio or Scorpia’s autonomy or ability to make moral choices of their own. In the very next episode, she says she wants to 'be A good friend' which is how the Princesses typically describe sticking together, which is a much more active and holistic concept than 'loyalty'. Scorpia confesses that she doesn't even know how, but she wants to learn and thinks the princesses can teach her.

There's another interesting counterexample to Horde Loyalty. Adora repeatedly breaks with the people around her to do what is right. First she leaves the Horde, then walks away from Catra by stages when it is clear that Catra is going to continue to harm other people and Etheria. Then she walks away from Glimmer, defies Light Hope and breaks loyalty with her supposed destiny and purposes as well as loyalty to the homelans she has never known. By season 5, Adora is loyal only to herself and the people she cares about, but she isn't constraining her will to anyone else's. For all that she seems like a rule follower Adora has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and she will do what is right, no matter what. This is what allows her to save the universe 3 times.

So the show’s argument is that loyalty is not a good moral framework to base all of our actions around. I don’t think it goes so far as saying that loyalty has no place in our ethics (being a good friend, which is such a huge part of the show, certainly includes loyalty, especially sticking with people when the going gets tough), but the show stresses time and again that being loyal to something or someone shouldn’t make you disregard yourself and what you think is right. Because it’s only by living out our own values and taking responsibility for our own actions that we can come into our own as moral beings. Moreover, if we insist on maintaining loyalty to institutions that oppress us and others, we can’t dismantle the systems of oppression that are holding us and other people down. (Yes, this is a pretty radical message, but I suspect that Noelle is some kind of anarchist? Anyway, it’s a thing.)

Okay, so that’s what I, a 35 year old, get from this kids show. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this lesson applies to younger viewers too, in their most immediate lives. Younger viewers will have had friends who didn’t treat them well, or might not have treated other people well, and who might have pressured them into participating in the mistreatment of others (this is kind of how bullying works a lot of the time). I think it’s important that younger viewers see how being a good friend never means disrespecting yourself or other people and it means a lot to me that She-Ra shows this in such a nuanced and realistic way.

[aboveallarescuer]

How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices - Battle of Yunkai

This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn’t act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she’s facing. I won’t include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. 

Since Dany doesn't receive a lot of advice in this chapter and I want to highlight her agency and skills here, I’m putting the verdict above so that people who don’t want to read the entire meta can at least find its synthesized points right away.

Chapter (s):

ASOS Daenerys IV

The advice Dany receives:

Both Jorah and Barristan warn Dany that she won't convince neither the Stormcrows nor the Second Sons to switch allegiances.

Verdict:

In this chapter, Dany:

Applies Barristan's lessons when she willingly chooses to assess the enemy forces and makes a reasonable guess of how many men the Yunkish forces have.

Has in mind that the sellswords, who are fighting on horseback, are more likely to cause damage and kill too many of her freedmen. (This will inform her plan later)

Embraces her limitations to mock those who will underestimate her for them. (And the author will give plenty of reasons to challenge the simplistic notion that Dany is just a young girl who does not know the ways of war.)

Applies historical knowledge to support her opinion that her forces will overwhelm her enemies'.

Maintains her self-composure and offers excellent comebacks when the captains and the envoy try to slut-shame and/or sexually harass her.

Is doing what she's doing for no other reason than to free the slaves in Yunkai:

She didn't have to worry about the freedmen's safety when they take part in the battle for her, but she does because it would otherwise render her fight for them meaningless.

She could have kept the chest for herself, but she didn't.

She could have taken other chests from the city like she suggests she might do, but she promises instead that "Yunkai will not be burned or plundered" (and that will bite her in the ass later in ADWD).

The only thing she requires is that the former slaves are "allowed to choose freely from among their masters' possessions" and that they are given "food, clothing, coin and goods". Doing this doesn't benefit her in any way, it only helps the slaves.

Outlines a tactical plan that is motivated by her desire to prevent a high number of freedmen casualties and that implies knowledge of:

The Yunkish forces' tactical formation.

The basic topography of the area.

Her enemies' weaknesses and how to exploit them ("I made no promises about tonight", "We will take them under cover of this darkness", "they will see hundreds of campfires burning").

Stays in the room while her captains decide how to better execute her plan. We don't know how much she contributed to the conversation, but it nevertheless shows her willingness to learn more.

When Daario shows up and declares that he and his men will fight for her, she:

Considers if he might be a spy, worries if there are others and is initially suspicious if he's just trying to save his own skin.

Only changes her mind when she sees that he killed the other commanders and that the dragons are fond of him.

Knows that she can't be too distrustful in general, despite the prophecies.

Realizes that the Stormcrows switching allegiances will guarantee that the Yunkish are overwhelmed.

Is more morally flexible concerning the sellswords than one might expect from a traditional hero(ine) fighting against slavery.

Beginning of the chapter

ASOS Daenerys IV is set in motion here:

Her Dothraki scouts had told her how it was, but Dany wanted to see for herself. Ser Jorah Mormont rode with her through a birchwood forest and up a slanting sandstone ridge. “Near enough,” he warned her at the crest.

Dany reined in her mare and looked across the fields, to where the Yunkish host lay athwart her path. Whitebeard had been teaching her how best to count the numbers of a foe. “Five thousand,” she said after a moment.

Even though her Dothraki scouts had already done so, Dany wants to apply Barristan's teachings and assess the enemy forces by herself. She estimates five thousand, which Jorah considers to be a fair guess. I would also note that, while it's not explicitly acknowledged that Dany would know how to describe the terrain the way the narrative does (in the parts in bold above), she is still sufficiently aware of it to concoct a successful outline of where each of her forces should strike the Yunkish later, as we'll see below.

Jorah notes where each sellsword company is positioned and Dany realizes that the Yunkai'i are located in the center. She asks if they lead slave soldiers and the knight confirms that they do, but they aren't equal of Unsullied. Jorah thinks they can "easily" defeat their army, but Yunkai has been forewarned, so any fight might result in more casualties than Dany is willing to accept.

Dany considered. The slaver host seemed small compared to her own numbers, but the sellswords were ahorse. She’d ridden too long with Dothraki not to have a healthy respect for what mounted warriors could do to foot. The Unsullied could withstand their charge, but my freedmen will be slaughtered.

First, here we see Dany using the knowledge she acquired from living with the Dothraki to make a more precise assessment of how her forces might fare against her enemies.

Second, I've seen Dany be criticized before for "breaking" her word with the slavers ... You know, these people who think selling other people is acceptable. This little fact already makes this criticism a moot point at best and slavery apologia at worst, but even then ...

Let's not forget that thinking Dany was "breaking" her word with the slavers means accepting that slavery is valid and that they have the right to sell other human beings.

Let's not forget that Dany's fear that too many of her freedmen will die is what leads her to decide to attack Yunkai and the sellswords when they don't expect it, as the passage above shows.

Let's not forget how awfully we see the Yunkai'i treating their slaves in Tyrion's chapters.

Let's remember all of this.

So, with these considerations in mind, Dany decides:

“The slavers like to talk,” she said. “Send word that I will hear them this evening in my tent. And invite the captains of the sellsword companies to call on me as well. But not together. The Stormcrows at midday, the Second Sons two hours later.”

Jorah thinks they might refuse the invitation, but Dany is quite certain that they won't:

“They’ll come. They will be curious to see the dragons and hear what I might have to say, and the clever ones will see it for a chance to gauge my strength.” She wheeled her silver mare about. “I’ll await them in my pavilion.”

I have no doubt that the previous reactions of the Qartheen and the Astapori to her dragons are informing her attitude here.

Negotiation talks

On my rereads, I've noticed that the negotiation talks in ASOS Daenerys IV are actually quite formulaic: a) the commander/envoy underestimate and/or insult Dany, b) Dany shows self-assurance and/or makes a threat and c) Dany makes a proposal only to be rebuked. So, instead of analyzing dialogue by dialogue chronologically, I think it's more interesting to display these patterns and focus on Dany's voice to highlight her rhetorical skills.

With both the Stormcrows and the Second Sons, Dany points out their blatant military disadvantages while embracing her youth and ignorance (because otherwise they will use these factors to hold her in low regard) and pretending to underestimate herself (because to do so right away means to undermine their propensity to do that):

“Five hundred of your Stormcrows against ten thousand of my Unsullied,” said Dany. “I am only a young girl and do not understand the ways of war, yet these odds seem poor to me.”

~

“It is true that I am only a young girl, and do not know the ways of war. Explain to me how you propose to defeat ten thousand Unsullied with your five hundred. Innocent as I am, these odds seem poor to me.”

The captain of the Stormcrows, Prendahl na Ghezn, is adamant that they don't stand alone, for they have the support of both the Second Sons and "the stalwart men of Yunkai". Dany questions if the Second Sons will stay by their side with such poor odds, but Prendahl doesn't flinch. Misogyny undoubtedly plays a part in his reaction, but there's also the fact that, as Jorah later told her, "[l]ikely he had kin in Astapor".

The captain of the Second Sons, Mero, doesn't even bother offering counterarguments. In his mind, since the Second Sons won battles with worse odds and have him as a leader, of course it will be easy to win against a "little girl".

With both Prendahl and Mero, Dany applies her historical knowledge to support her case:

“Woman?” She chuckled. “Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man.” Dany met his stare. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo’s riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.”

~

“The Second Sons have faced worse odds and run. At Qohor, when the Three Thousand made their stand. Or do you deny it?”

The first passage, in particular, is often quoted by fans, and rightfully so. All of the three men with whom Dany negotiates try to underestimate her on behalf of her gender and/or by sexualizing/slut-shaming her. It speaks volumes that Dany is able to maintain her self-composure and offer such an excellent comeback. She knows what happened to the last man who dismissed her as "an ignorant whore", after all.

In fact, that's not the only rebut that Dany makes for being reduced to her sexuality. Mero's misogyny is particularly insiduous for pretending to be flatterous while he's actually both underestimating her authority and sexually harassing her. That's why her responses to him are more threatening than to the others:

“If you bring the Second Sons over to my side, I might not have you gelded.”

~

“No need. After my eunuchs cut it off, I can examine it at my leisure.”

~

“So it is from you they get their courage?” Dany turned to Ser Jorah. “When the battle is joined, kill this one first.”

The last example is particularly noteworthy. In Game of Thrones, the writers have show!Dany tell her advisor to kill Mero first after he is gone. In the books, however, Mero tries to paint himself as the one that gives his soldiers determination to fight only to be undermined by Dany, who simply asks Jorah to kill him first. As we can see, Dany acts like a boss here and undercuts her enemies' misogyny multiple times.

Then we get to the proposals she makes to each man she interacts with.

This is her proposal for the commander of the Stormcrows:

“Once battle is joined, do not think to ask for quarter. Join me now, however, and you shall keep the gold the Yunkaii paid you and claim a share of the plunder besides, with greater rewards later when I come into my kingdom. Fight for the Wise Masters, and your wages will be death. Do you imagine that Yunkai will open its gates when my Unsullied are butchering you beneath the walls?”

[...] “Tell me this—are the Stormcrows slave or free?”

“We are a brotherhood of free men,” Sallor declared.

“Good.” Dany stood. “Go back and tell your brothers what I said, then. It may be that some of them would sooner sup on gold and glory than on death. I shall want your answer on the morrow.”

Later, Dany's assumption will be validated: Daario Naharis will rather "sup on gold and glory" rather than be killed alongside his commanders. I'll get to him later.

This is her proposal for the commander of the Second Sons:

“Then stay, and fight for me. [...] Coins can be returned,” she said. “I will pay you as much and more. I have other cities to conquer, and a whole kingdom awaiting me half a world away. Serve me faithfully, and the Second Sons need never seek hire again.”

[...] “Can I have a flagon of this fine wine to take back to my captains?”

“You may have a tun. It is from the cellars of the Good Masters of Astapor, and I have wagons full of it.”

“Then give me a wagon. A token of your good regard.”

“You have a big thirst.”

“I am big all over. And I have many brothers. The Titan’s Bastard does not drink alone, Khaleesi.”

“A wagon it is, if you promise to drink to my health.”

“Done!”

If Mero had been more thoughtful and less dismissive of Dany (who had already conquered a city and freed thousands of Unsullied at this point), perhaps he would have considered that she might have used their inebriation to her favor (she did deceive the Astapori, after all, even if she was righteous in doing so). Perhaps he wouldn't have asked for an entire wagon himself if he had taken her seriously as a threat. If she were a man, I'm sure he would have been more cautious.

Finally, this is her proposal for the Yunkish envoy:

“I have a gift for you as well.” She slammed the chest shut. “Three days. On the morning of the third day, send out your slaves. All of them. Every man, woman, and child shall be given a weapon, and as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry. These they shall be allowed to choose freely from among their masters’ possessions, as payment for their years of servitude. When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?”

This moment makes it clear that Dany is doing what she is doing for no other reason than to end slavery in Yunkai.

She didn't have to worry about the freedmen's safety when they take part in the battle for her, but she does because it would otherwise render her fight for them meaningless.

She could have kept the chest for herself, but she didn't.

She could have taken other chests from the city like she suggests she might do, but she promises instead that "Yunkai will not be burned or plundered" (and that will bite her in the ass later in ADWD).

The only thing she requires is that the former slaves are "allowed to choose freely from among their masters' possessions" and that they are given "food, clothing, coin and goods". Doing this simply doesn't benefit her in any way.

However, the envoy calls Dany mad when he hears her terms, so she has her dragons burn his tokar. It's a moment that GRRM wishes had been included in the TV show, probably because it has ramifications later in ADWD (namely when Dany is trying to make peace with the Yunkish and they won't trust her word for that reason). 

Battle plans

I recently came across a good meta analyzing the Battle of Yunkai from a military standpoint. I will juxtapose certain excerpts (adapted as bullet lists) from that meta with passages showing Dany's actions and statements in the books to emphasize how capable a leader Dany is becoming:

“An hour past midnight should be time enough.”

“Yes, Khaleesi,” said Rakharo. “Time for what?”


“To mount our attack.”


Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. “You told the sellswords—”

“—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai’i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness.”

“They will have scouts watching for us.”

“And in the dark, they will see hundreds of campfires burning,” said Dany. “If they see anything at all.”

“Khaleesi,” said Jhogo, “I will deal with these scouts. They are no riders, only slavers on horses.”

“Just so,” she agreed. “I think we should attack from three sides. Grey Worm, your Unsullied shall strike at them from right and left, while my kos lead my horse in wedge for a thrust through their center. Slave soldiers will never stand before mounted Dothraki.” She smiled. “To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?”

~

1. We know that Dany had limited knowledge about warfare (after all, she's only a 14-15 year old girl), but nonetheless she outlined a rough tactical plan which her captains did not hesitate to accept.

2. She used terms such as 'left', 'right' and 'center', which suggest that her outline was based on the assumption that the enemy forces would be arrayed in some kind of linear formation. It also implies that she's familiar with the local terrain and topography. Because if the enemy camp had been protected by natural obstacles (by the coast, a mountain or a river for example), Dany's outline would not make any sense and her captains would certainly have told her so.

3. She also seems to realize her own limitations when it comes to warfare and that the implementation of military operations are better left over to her experienced captains.

4. Dany's plan made common sense and the battle turned out to be a success: The basic idea behind her plan was to let the heavy mass of Unsullied handle the sellswords on the flanks, while the Dothraki attacked the fragile slave soldiers. She deceived her foes, took the initiative, exploited her numerical superiority and took them by surprise.

5. But her plan involved certain calculated risks: Trying to direct a battle involving thousands of men at night can be very difficult, it can easily turn into a mess, and the danger of sudden panic is always present. That is probably why her armed freedmen were held back: Their lack of discipline and lack of fighting skills could easily backfire. The Unsullied, on the other hand, were very disciplined and they were also trained in night-maneuvers. (x)

As we can see, Dany's plan shows that she knows: a) the Yunkish forces' tactical formation, b) the basic topography of the area and c) her enemies' weaknesses and how to exploit them ("I made no promises about tonight", "We will take them under cover of this darkness", "they will see hundreds of campfires burning"). Even more importantly, as the reviewer acknowledges, her captains accept her plan without any objections. This is commendable, considering that it comes from someone who lacks both experience and knowledge.

This quote is also relevant:

It took an hour to work out all the details. Now begins the most dangerous time, Dany thought as her captains departed to their commands. She could only pray that the gloom of the night would hide her preparations from the foe.

To which extent Dany participated or gave feedback in the discussion above is unknown, but we can conclusively say that she at least listened to which military operations her captains would later implement to take the city, which highlights her desire to acquire more knowledge. In fact, I would argue that the author chose not to give attention to this hour of planning because he would rather focus on Dany's outline (and character development). GRRM takes great pains to give Dany agency, portray her as a competent leader and challenge the notion that she is only a young girl who doesn't know the ways of war.

Then, something unexpected happens (though, as I said above, Dany had already considered that this might have happened, even if not 100% seriously): Daario is captured by the Unsullied and unexpectedly declares that the Stormcrows are now on Dany's side. @rainhadaenerys already explained why Dany's trust in Daario does not make her stupid for a few reasons that I'll sum up here: a) he had already betrayed the other captains and would gain nothing doing the same to her; b) having him and his 500 men on her side would guarantee that the Yunkish would be overwhelmed; c) because, despite the prophecies concerning the treasons, she knows that she must trust other people, especially since no one's loyalties are certain. I would also want to add that she makes several considerations before accepting Daario on her side:

“The Unsullied caught one of the sellswords trying to sneak into the camp.”

“A spy?” That frightened her. If they’d caught one, how many others might have gotten away?

~

Dany was dubious. If this Tyroshi had come to spy, this declaration might be no more than a desperate plot to save his head.

This is not the reasoning of someone who can be considered "reckless" or "stupid", but who is rather aware of possible negative implications. However, she also proves to be flexible soon afterwards: if Daario killed the other commanders and the dragons trust him, accepting his allegiance seems worth the risk (and it pays off). Anyone who dismisses her for being "shallow" here has a shallow reading of the text themselves. He's handsome, but that's just a bonus.

In fact, there's a Doylist reason why we shouldn't criticize Dany for accepting Daario - doing so would mean validating Jorah's opinion, which is not a good look. Even worse, doing so would mean undermining this powerful and more than earned moment.

Aftermath

Things go pretty much exactly the way Dany had planned and expected:

“Your Grace, I bring you victory. The Stormcrows turned their cloaks, the slaves broke, and the Second Sons were too drunk to fight, just as you said. Two hundred dead, Yunkai’i for the most part. Their slaves threw down their spears and ran, and their sellswords yielded. We have several thousand captives.”

And, as more proof (if that was even needed) that Dany was concerned for the number of freedmen that would end up as casualties when she decided to attack the Yunkish when they didn't expect it:

“Our own losses?”


“A dozen. If that many.”

Only then did she allow herself to smile.

I won't comment much on the mhysa scene because it doesn't really concern Dany's decision-making. I will say, though, that their reaction shows that they are grateful for her actions (see above, again, how the slaves are treated in Tyrion's chapters) and that it highlights, once again, the righteousness of Dany's cause.

(I've already written about what mhysa means for Dany here and here. Also, because this scene is understandably controversial ... here and here you can find good posts about the racism in the writing of Dany's storyline as a whole in a way that doesn't mischaracterize her.)

How Dany assesses the advice she receives

I'm putting this section in the end because there are only two moments (and one goes beyond the scope of this post) in which Dany receives advice in this chapter. This makes sense: as I said, despite Dany's limitations due to age and experience, GRRM really wanted to highlight how influential she was on the outcome of the battle.  

The one moment that we see Dany getting advice is after she meets with the Stormcrows and the Second Sons. Both Barristan and Jorah agree that she is probably not going to get their support - Mero is treacherous and Prendahl had family amongst the Astapori. There isn't much she can do but accept their warning, but I find this line interesting:

“It is not his reputation that I want, it’s his five hundred horse.[”]

Dany is a traditional hero(ine) in so many ways, so it would be easier to portray her as someone who is unambiguously and plainly wary of the sellswords' lack of morals. However, moments like this and the one later in ADWD Daenerys VIII when she finds that being "dishonorable and greedy" can be advantageous if she wants the sellswords to turn to her side show that Dany is actually quite down-to-earth and flexible and doesn't suffer from moral righteousness like some think. In fact, if Dany had that problem, I'm not sure she would have thought that deceiving the slave masters (justified as that was) and revolting against an entire economic system would be okay; it's more likely that she would have had Barristan's attitude instead (i.e., leaving the region behind while feeling empathy but doing nothing about it). It's also a little detail that shows how GRRM maintains her characterization consistent, for it would be easy to forget that aspect of Dany by the time he got to writing ADWD.

(Of course, it's not so simple as to say that she's okay with their immorality. She is suspicious of them - we see with Daario that she doesn't fully trust him nor reacted well to that advice to kill all the masters in the Temple of the Graces.)

[advernia]

fic: a beginner’s guide to waltz

— is it really just a simple art of stepping forward and moving backwards? - the mad hatter & alice the second.

1) stand facing your partner, shoulder distance away from them

 This, apparently, has become some sort of routine; heavens above bless his soul:

once or twice a week Alice the Second would visit the White Rabbit’s home (his home too, as he’d like them to recall), and she is welcomed warmly despite his constant refusal and attempts to let her in past the doorway,

the two morons end up sipping their tea while talking over incredibly mundane things that only serve to make his eyes roll, and his carrot-munching-idiot-of-a-housemate expects him to contribute and participate,

for some reason he and the little girl end up playing tour guide and tourist, adamantly unwilling and awfully inquisitive respectively: they walk around and about the Central Quarter only to stop when the sky has stripped itself of its blues and dressed itself in oranges and reds, and before she heads back to Black Army territory she never fails to;

say her thanks and bid him farewell in the form of the press of her lips - the pressure light and kind - on his forehead.

                        In hindsight the last one is absolutely unnecessary and incredibly inappropriate for they are man and woman and simply just acquaintances, but he can’t exactly fault her for still thinking that he’s just a child because that’s what he physically looks like in her eyes (some ill-tempered young boy who's actually sweet enough to accompany her on walks around town), and in the end -

- it’s not that horrible of a sensation, really.

                                         2) leads, always take a step forward, guiding your partner 

 There are many possible reasons as to why one would hold another’s hand, such as:

a social interaction or event requires it, such as when greeting another or when dancing,

a show of agreement, friendship, or affection (because actions certainly speak louder than words and what else spoke possibly louder than physical contact), or;

person in question has no notion or respect for the concept of personal space and propriety, or even worse, has no common sense and just decides that ‘hey, I wanna hold that person’s hand!’

None of the above really apply to their situation or to them both for that matter, unless one would count their walks to be a form of social interaction: he spits out once that touring her around Cradle is a waste of time considering that she’s been whining every single day about wanting to go home, to the London where she belongs; but she’s as stubborn as a mule could ever be and rather offended that he thinks that she’s been whining every single day when it’s quite the contrary.

The argument goes nowhere but it still ends up with them wandering about Cradle on occasion, so all’s well that ends well - for her, at least. He’s still kind enough to remind her that her days are numbered and while she claims that she hasn’t forgotten, the sparkle of curiosity that dances in her eyes whenever she sees something that strikes her fancy doesn’t get past him.

And when she does find something fascinating, she pulls him along for the ride, quite literally and figuratively so - with their hands linked together and bubbling enthusiasm as her strength, he’s dragged along to follow her footsteps; to be swept into her pace with little room for escape.

People wag their tongues as they frequent the streets of the Central Quarter and some of them boldly ask sometimes whether they’re siblings. The mere thought of that concept is enough to make him contort his face into expressions unimaginable but she’s all smiles and white teeth as she laughs; hand and fingers lacing themselves a little more securely in his, eating what little space that was modestly left in between their palms.

                        And he wonders for the umpteenth time, if those people actually take time to realize that after asking the question they want answered -

- her laughter doesn't follow with a validating response.

                                         3) perform to a 3-count tempo

The day she’s exposed and informed of his curse is the day that she rues all those kisses that she had planted on his forehead - she buries her face into her hands and deeply onto the wood of the White Rabbit’s dining table, but her ears that poke out from the heavy mass that was her hair spoke volumes of her embarrassment.

Victory always felt so exhilarating, especially after when one has been played around with like a fool - or rather, like a child.

Their relationship shifts shortly after that, for she has gradually come to terms that he truly is not just some kid - he is an adult in his own right, albeit stuck in an unfortunate predicament - her words towards him become more straightforward and less cherry-picked (for she believed that there were things that children shouldn’t hear), gone is the ‘little’ she adds before his name and so is her doubt for his actual ability as an inventor.  

Their walks still continue, and while she insists on holding hands with the reason 'to ensure that they don’t get separated by a possible madding crowd in the market', she manages to stop herself from kneeling down and pressing her lips on his forehead by the day's end.

                        Still, it doesn’t stop him from mercilessly teasing her about it -

- and her face would bloom brightly with a striking red, always, without fail.

                                         4) move in a circle with your partner

They end up having dinner together once, and it leaves the White Rabbit and the Black Army figuring out the so-called intriguing mystery of who asked who first, then it escalated to the question of who does the asking the most of the time when their dinner engagements increase in frequency.

Seven dinners later, both parties still draw blanks.

Perhaps to repay her henpecking kindness whenever they go about their walks (surprise, they nearly did get separated from each other once if not for her vice grip on his hand) and for the baked goods she would offer to him as snacks when he would dive into long periods of work, he escorts her well throughout the night like any proper gentleman would - albeit the fact that she could be so positively air-headed and inelegant in demeanor, she was still first and foremost a lady and her dressing up like one for their appointments only serves to remind him further of that: lengthy honey blonde hair styled neatly into modest up-dos, light touches of rouge and powder meant to accentuate natural facial features and not flaunt them, smart-looking blouses paired with graceful skirts, dresses with manageable layers and tasteful designs to boot, simple shoes that would always end up complementing the sole piece of jewelry she wore for the night; either a pair of earrings or a modest necklace.

He had to hand it to her, she knew how to dress the part of the ideal London woman: a minimal, practical look; meant to turn heads through its unassuming elegance. 

                        He's never said so straight to her face without a single trace of sarcasm or scorn, but if she would insist or ask -

- he certainly had no qualms in calling her beautiful.

                                         5) do an underarm turn

 You're going back.

Are you asking me if I am, or are you ordering me to?

Their hands are linked together, elbows held up to her shoulder height - she squeezes his lightly, fingers lacing themselves even further into his; and he squeezes back, as light as he could muster.

It was a statement. You're old enough to make your own choices, and I'm not interested in asking you about a decision you've made since you arrived here.

... Fair point.

Her heels click on the cobblestones as she takes a step back, his boots thump softly as he takes a step forward. The humble space in between their bodies remain, unassuming and undisturbed. 

... Will everything turn out alright?

... How should I know?

The hand she had set gently on his right shoulder developed a trembling weight - with a quiet sigh, the hand that he had set on her shoulder blade now slid down to her waist.

Silence begins to creep in, a skittery wind doing small pirouettes by the movements of their languid feet. The night says nothing either, with its darkness blanketing the skies and dotting it with twinkling stars - it just watches wordlessly from above, streaming down faint brilliance that gingerly illuminates the path they stood upon.

A minute later and without warning, she rests her lowered head on him; her forehead meeting his shoulder. Seconds later and without warning, his arm now wraps itself around her waist and pulls her closer to him, his chin resting itself kindly on top of her head.

                        Their hands are still linked together so they continue to sway along to the wind, like the leaves of the trees that surround them: wordlessly going back and forth, back and forth -

- and when the clock strikes midnight, there they continue to be.

                                        1: this was a nearly finished draft last month with a formatting i liked + a plot nonexistent but eyyy fe3h arrived and my soul is consumed by fe hell... again... i knew i should've finished this before the game's release date (٭°̧̧̧ω°̧̧̧٭) 2: i’m neutral with oliver, but i totally can’t deny that his colorful verbal abuse is a big mood. plus, that one scene in fenrir’s ‘say i do’ route always comes to mind - i found him to be rly sweet, wiping away mc’s tears. 3: step 5 went along the lines of 'this could be romantic if only he/she wanted it to be', thus the word turn... plus, this is me implying that for this fic's purposes, mc returning to london means never going back to cradle at all. honestly speaking, the drama factor of 'different worlds' became pretty minor to me once i learned that mc can just... go back pretty easily... what a shame, methinks (๑���̆૩•̆) 4: i do hope his route gives a rly interesting explanation about his curse + origin... i mean, its hinted that he used to be from london himself, so i'd like to know what makes his circumstances different from the alices. i could play the jap ver itself or just look up spoilers... but... (*´σー｀)

[beanmaster-pika]

I ended up getting encouraged to talk about my aus so thank you all for enabling my self-indulgence

Swan Prince AU

This one’s the first one? And it’s more of a royalty AU, actually. Licht vacations in the Servamp kingdom every summer but one day he gets cursed by an evil magician (Touma) to turn into a swan. Hyde, who’s the same age as him and therefore his designated playmate when they were kids, recognizes it’s him and freaks out because if the Jekylland kingdom finds out they let this happen then there could be a war and no one wants that thank you very much.

I’m actually more interested in worldbuilding than the plot so :/ For reasons I have not thought up, there’s the ‘older bunch’ of Servamps (Kuro to Freya) and the ‘younger bunch’ (Hyde to Lily) and there’s like a ten-year age gap between the olders and the youngers, and then there’s Tsubaki, who’s twelve and illegitimate. Kuro inherited the throne at 17 when their dad disappeared and by the time Tsubaki’s mother showed up a couple years after with a baby that had the last king’s eyes, the kingdom had stagnated. However, a baker named Mahiru starts showing up at the castle to petition the king, and he appears so frequently and his words are so sensible (”He’s got to have studied statecraft,” Hugh declared. “There’s no way he hasn’t.”) that Kuro’s siblings up and offer him a job as the king’s advisor. After many arguments and finally a heart-to-heart where Mahiru learns that the last king once allowed Kuro to make a decision that almost led the whole country to war, they start to work towards understanding each other and cooperating and it’s tough, but by the time the present story rolls around the kingdom is flourishing. 

The older bunch all hold a place in court; Hugh is a minister of internal affairs, and he, Kuro, and Mahiru are at the heart of the kingdom’s laws; Jeje is the most knowledgeable about magic, especially curses, and works as both a consultant and investigator, though he’s sent to the Alicein kingdom along with Lily (16 at the time of the story, two years younger than Hyde) to serve as ambassadors and tutors to the king’s sons; and Freya’s the head of the army and the most terrifying person in the kingdom. The people love her. There’s a more even distribution of power than there was before Kuro inherited the throne - Mahiru’s influence and Kuro’s reluctance to be in charge of literally everything see to that - and provincial courts have juries put in place so that people are no longer solely at the mercy of sometimes corrupt judges.

On a different note, Hyde starts out as a sweet kid, but when his friend-and-maybe-crush Princess Ophelia two kingdoms over dies when he’s sixteen he goes wild in his grief and takes up with a group of bandits and starts hurting people. When confronted by his siblings, he declares that if the world is so cruel as to take Ophelia’s life, then his actions are just a drop in the bucket. Now, this is very much wrong and a problem, so Kuro manages to seal him temporarily into hedgehog form for a month (EDIT: yes he can normally transform into a hedgehog, no Licht doesn’t know at first, yes animal transformation is a common ability in their kingdom, and no the sealing is not a common or easy practice. It’s legitimate grounds for Kuro to self-prescribe absolute bed rest in order to recover from the drain on his energy, and he’s stronger than normal mages and had assistance to boot; a month is the very limit he can achieve with that) saying that if he’s lost his grasp on his humanity, then perhaps he’ll find it again in an inhuman form, and then they drop him off at the summer villa reserved for Prince Licht with Guildenstern as a caretaker. Now, unbeknownst to everyone, Licht arrived for vacation even though it’s midwinter, and he is absolutely taken with the hedgehog that’s wandering through the villa (”Oh Shit,” Guildenstern said. Hyde agreed. This was very much an Oh Shit situation.). It turns out that while he hadn’t known Princess Ophelia personally, he’d had mad respect for her for stepping up to enact a change in her kingdom’s politics even though it had ended in her assassination. He and Hyde end up having furious arguments over ideology (Licht still doesn’t know that Hyde’s there, and he doesn’t connect the voice with the hedgehog) and in the end, he helps Hyde regain his humanity - to be human is to desire, to desire is to dream, and to dream is to push your imagination past its very limits and work for it. That ends up breaking the seal prematurely, much to everyone but Licht’s relief. Licht’s pissed that the hedgehog turned out to be Hyde. And when Licht is cursed to be a swan, well, Hyde’s worried about it affecting relations with the Jekylland kingdom, yeah, but he also wants to do for Licht what Licht did for him: make him human again.

ANYWAY HERE’S THE DOODLES

Teacher AU

Because now they’re teachers.

This one has basically nothing in it yet aside from it being fun to consider what subjects they’d teach (Mahiru’s home ec; Kuro’s phys ed; Hugh’s history; Jeje’s art; Freya’s a counselor; Hyde’s literature; World End’s either a history or foreign language teacher; Lily’s a student teacher; Licht’s a piano instructor now; Otogiri’s the school’s doctor) and what everyone else would be (Tsurugi and squad are bodyguards; Iduna’s an engineer; Tsuyuki’s with the government; Sham’s with the government; Higan’s a wandering artist; Sakuya’s a psychologist; Ryuusei and Koyuki haven’t factored in at all oops; everyone else either has their canon profession or they’re college or high school students). One of the tidbits I actually spared thought to is that Kuro took a couple gap years and ended up in the same freshman Psych 101 class as Sakuya (who at present shares an apartment with Mahiru) and they somehow bonded and even after the class ended they became texting buddies (usually of memes) and hung out from time to time, but then Mahiru (after getting fired from his first school for some sort of reckless behavior) gets hired to the school all the Servamps are gathered at and starts out pretty argumentative with Kuro but eventually they gain a mutual understanding and maybe the beginnings of a relationship and Sakuya puts two and two together from conversations with Mahiru and texting with Kuro that the man he’s in love with might be in love with his texting buddy and he doesn’t know how to deal with that and so stops texting Kuro, and Kuro finds out about it from talking to Mahiru and then this happens

Kuro, throwing a chicken nugget at Sakuya’s window: why are u ghosting me Sakuya, opening the window: can u throw another

And they talk and all is well again. A poly ending is absolutely in the stars because Mahiru loves them both and they agree to it.

Also the other thing is this

Pokemon AU

This is the one I like the most right now! I actually have a couple of chapters written for it that I haven’t posted yet but basically the whole Servamp thing remains, but the pokemon that they transform into actually have their own personalities - rather than a transformation, it’s a shared body thing, and the human form is a manifestation of the vampire (formerly human) soul. I haven’t ironed out all the details of why this is happening, but I like the idea of them never being alone, though I haven’t figured out quite how this will change them. Hyde’s gonna be fun and also painful to figure out.

Fate AU

LET’S GET THIS HOLY GRAIL BREAD

Mahiru’s uncle was going to take part in the holy grail war but Mahiru accidentally summoned instead and what he summoned was Kuro, a Lancer. Add to that that Sakuya is still his best friend, was meant to be a pawn of Touma’s but ended up being Master-napped by the Saber he summoned (Tsubaki), and Tsubaki wants vengeance on Kuro, and we’ve got another round of heartbreaks on our hands because Fate is nothing but heartbreaks. The Alicein brothers are also there, summoning the same Servants (Caster and Archer) that their grandfather and Mikuni’s mom summoned, and they know that the Grail is tainted so they’re out to destroy it. Their backstory is a little tweaked with Mikuni just stealing his mom’s command seals to protect Misono instead of killing her, and he grabs Misono and absconds to the Church where they stay until Mikage ensures that Mikuni’s mom can never hurt Misono again after the War. Misono goes home, but Mikuni goes to study at the Clock Tower and comes back just in time for the next war. (There’s more under the pictures)

Tetsu summons Rider, but his sisters are the masterminds of the operation; they’re doing their best to restore their family in an age of declining mana, and Tetsu’s got the best Magic Circuits among them so he’s tasked with summoning, but they’re operating under the strict principle that if any of their lives are endangered, especially Tetsu’s, then they halt the project immediately and seek refuge with the Church. Hugh’s hyped about the whole ‘restoring the family’s magic’ thing.

Licht, on the other hand, comes from a family that’s at the very height of their magical power. He doesn’t believe in an omnipotent wish granter because he feels that it’s cheating, but to win the Grail is the goal of every mage out there so he’s in it for the glory. For a summoning catalyst he uses a bracelet that was supposed to belong to a martyr princess of old (”She gave her life for her goals,” Licht said in awe. “Yep, it’s very impressive. Please do not do the same,” Licht’s mother said.), but it turned out to belong to the other person connected to her legend, a man who was terrible and cruel, uncaring of others after he was driven mad in grief, and so Licht summons a demon of an assassin and Crantz (regular human) is left babysitting these goons while Licht’s parents hold down the fort in Austria.

Now, the Berserker team. I just want you all to know that the ones I was most excited about is the Berserker team. Tsurugi carried out the summoning here, Touma’s other pawn, and he added a madness enhancement, changing Freya’s class from Shielder to Berserker. Tsurugi, unlike Sakuya, is a highly trained operative and adult and one of the Church’s Executors, and he’s also completely under Touma’s thumb so he’s an ideal proxy even though Touma couldn’t snatch Sakuya’s command seals like he intended to. Unfortunately, Freya’s madness has just released her inhibitions and she’s this fucking close to pulling a Tsubaki and Master-napping Tsurugi. She does her best - in her limited capacity - to get Tsurugi away from Touma and it all culminates in Touma deciding she’s too much of a loose cannon and trying to take Tsurugi’s command seals away, but the seals instead go to Iduna somehow (haven’t figured that out yet) and Iduna and Freya spirit Tsurugi away to help him recover. Shortly after Iduna develops a magic item that’ll dampen the effect of the madness enhancement, more or less reverting Freya to her original class.

Now, this Grail War is an absolute clusterfuck by this point, mostly because all the summoned Servants are siblings, so a Ruler comes in - drum roll please - World End! Because who better to solve a sibling squabble than another sibling, even if he is the third youngest. This is mostly because I want World End to be included in stuff. World End’s in my Pokemon AU. I failed to elaborate on that but since that’s the AU I’m actually writing it’s all good. Anyway they’re all gathered in a sort of war council at a family restaurant to work out their intense family issues and then World barges in ‘WHAT’S UP THIS IS A PRETTY AWKWARD REUNION.’

This actually might be one of my favorites on account of being able to have them all be different physical ages but keeping their age hierarchy since Heroic Spirits can be summoned at whichever point of their lives was significant, and also this means that I can just make up lore for them. In ten, twenty years I’m probably going to look back on this and groan but for now I’m going to have fun with it.

For Kuro, he took down an entire army on his own at age eighteen and then retreated from the world. Hugh stopped a war when he was small (this threat of war surfaced again when he was older; this was when Kuro took down a whole army). Jeje became a famous outlaw. Freya overthrew a government in order to protect her soldiers. Hyde served a princess, but she gave her life for peace, and shortly afterwards his older brother killed their father; Hyde turned cold and cruel after that. World End inherited his sister’s kingdom after she died in battle and stood strong against threats from other kingdoms, displaying sharp wisdom despite his brash personality. Snow Lily used his illusions to carry out a large scale rescue operation on a child trafficking ring. And Tsubaki? Tsubaki was but a man who inherited a sword from his father, then vanished into the night when that same father was killed. He could have - should have - been summoned as an avenger, but for the sake of story convenience and keeping the war to the traditional seven classes, I chose saber for him.

[dailycamilacabello]

How Camila Cabello Lost Some Friends and Found Her Voice

MIAMI — Camila Cabello has only been in love once. But when it comes to crushes, she’s a connoisseur.  The pop singer and songwriter, formerly of the girl group Fifth Harmony, has filled pages of notes on her iPhone with ruminations on the sugar rush of embryonic infatuation and its aftermath — words of hunger and grit that her fans turn into Instagram captions and scream back at her in concert. A pair of suggestive duets in the last two years, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” with Shawn Mendes and “Bad Things” with Machine Gun Kelly, have been streamed over 520 million times, according to Nielsen Music. Along with her breakout solo smash from last summer, “Havana,” which has led Billboard’s pop radio chart longer than any other song by a solo female artist in the past five years, they’ve helped turn her into an avatar for young girls on the cusp of steeper emotional terrain. On a December afternoon in a leafy neighborhood here, Ms. Cabello, 20, whose name is pronounced “ca-meela ca-beyo,” revisited ground zero of her romantic vicissitudes. Ten years ago, in the butterfly garden at Pinecrest Elementary School, a young Romeo set a date with her among the Panama roses and gave her her first kiss, unlocking the source code for a bottomless trove of love songs. “It was this boy that I was obsessed with my whole time in elementary school,” she recalled, standing in the garden. “He kissed me on the cheek and I ran away — I still do that when someone wants to kiss me. ”Though not yet of legal drinking age, Ms. Cabello has come a long way from the schoolyard. At 15, she was beamed into the homes of millions of Americans as a contestant on the United States version of the reality-singing competition “The X Factor.” The show placed her in a five-woman vocal group modeled on One Direction that the viewers at home named Fifth Harmony. Two albums — on Simon Cowell’s Syco label in partnership with Epic Records — and six tours followed in a span of five years, during which time Ms. Cabello was, if not officially the group’s lead, a consensus favorite, with the biggest voice and those disarming eyes. And then it all went to pieces. As manufactured pop groups tend to do. Only in this case, the split seemed sudden and surprisingly vicious: One day, Fifth Harmony was performing at the final stop of the Jingle Ball tour, smiling and hair-flipping. The next, a series of contentious and contradictory statements were released, and Ms. Cabello found herself on the lonely end of a sharp divide. That was just over a year ago. In the interim, Ms. Cabello has struck out on her own, putting her hands on the controls of her professional life for the first time. Her new album, “Camila,” arriving Jan. 12, will test her prospects as a solo proposition. The biggest stars to break away from groups — Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé — did so from stronger footing, in eras when the music industry was thriving. Today, Ms. Cabello is just one in a cacophony of voices aiming to break through in a harsh, post-streaming environment. “It’s not easy for anybody, regardless of your starting point,” said Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia, which recently booked Ms. Cabello solo for its Jingle Ball. “The field is so competitive that you really need the planets to align.” At times, sole proprietorship has been overwhelming, with people constantly asking Ms. Cabello for her creative input or asking what happened with Fifth Harmony — a subject she does her best to avoid. “I think there’s a healthy amount of space you need to give certain things,” she said. And so for 11 days in late December, in the cocoon of her hometown, she took a break. She settled into old rhythms at her family home and came to Pinecrest to pick up her younger sister, Sofia, only after wresting herself from a savored “Sex and the City” binge. (“In my heart I’m a Carrie, but sadly I think I act like a Charlotte,” she said.) On a tour of its green, al fresco campus, wearing True Religion overalls with one suspender undone and black hightop Chuck Taylors, she looked at ease and made everyone around her feel the same. An old teacher asked whether she would be going on tour soon and she said she was in no rush. “For now,” she said, “I just want to be a kid.” Ms. Cabello comes from a lineage of strivers. She was born in Havana to a Cuban mother and Mexican father and moved back and forth between Cojímar and Mexico City until age 6. One day, her mother, Sinuhe, told her she was going to Disney World, and the two spent the next month together riding by bus to an immigration center at the Mexican border with the United States. Sinuhe had been an architect in Cuba, but in Miami, where she and her daughter moved in with a close family friend, she found work in the shoe department at a Marshall’s. Alejandro, Ms. Cabello’s father, emigrated later and earned money washing cars at the mall. Eventually the couple saved enough to start their own construction company. “My parents’ story helps me to know what’s important in life,” Ms. Cabello said. “A lot of times you can be here and be on Twitter and you think that the world is the internet. But I know what it’s like in the places my family has come from and the struggles people go through.” It caught Sinuhe and Alejandro by surprise when, for her 15th birthday in 2012, Ms. Cabello asked them to drive her to audition for the second season of “The X Factor.” “She was so shy, so shy,” said Sinuhe, who now travels with her daughter on the road, describing how her oldest child would regularly burst into tears at family parties with large crowds and loud music. “We didn’t even think music was a possibility for her,” Sinuhe said. In Fifth Harmony — with Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jauregui and Normani Kordei — Ms. Cabello was living a dream. The group performed at the White House (twice) and released addictive hits like “Worth It” and “Work From Home” that alone racked up over one billion streams, according to Nielsen Music, and earned them legions of fiercely loyal fans. But dreams can change. In a statement released at midnight on Dec. 18, 2016, the four other members of the group suggested that Ms. Cabello had turned her back on them, communicating her intentions to leave “through her representatives.” Ms. Cabello, in a subsequent statement of her own, said that she had long been open about her desire to explore a solo career and was blindsided by what amounted to a public excommunication. Over a feast of Cuban food at one of her family’s favorite restaurants in Miami, and in a subsequent interview in New York a week later, she agreed to speak at length about how things fell apart. She said that her collaboration in late 2015 with Mr. Mendes — the first time a Fifth Harmony member released music under her own name — had created tension; t hat she had asked to help write lyrics for Fifth Harmony songs and was rebuffed; that she initially wanted to stay in the group while working on a solo album but the other members shut her out instead. “I was just curious and I wanted to learn and I saw all these people around me making music, writing songs and being so free,” she said. “I just wanted to do that and it did not work.” Ms. Cabello said that after the awkwardness of her collaboration with Mr. Mendes, things further soured when she began attending writing sessions with producers including Diplo, Cashmere Cat and Benny Blanco. Eventually, she said, she was given an ultimatum. “It became clear that it was not possible to do solo stuff and be in the group at the same time,” she said. So she made her choice, basing it on what she said was her conviction that “if anyone wants to explore their individuality, it’s not right for people to tell you no.” Since the breakup, Ms. Cabello has tried to move on from hard feelings, throwing herself into “Camila.” (She changed its name from “The Hurting, the Healing, the Loving” partly to wash her hands of drama.) But it hasn’t always been easy. In August last year, the remaining members took a less-than-subtle jab at their former groupmate with a stunt that opened a high-profile performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. As the camera zoomed in on a dark, elevated platform showing five women in silhouette, one was dramatically yanked off the stage as if hit by a truck. Ms. Cabello’s eyes welled up as she recalled watching it live. She had been at home in the living room with her mother. “It definitely hurt my feelings,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t prepared for it — especially because at that point I’d moved on from it. I was just like, ‘What? Why?’” She gathered herself. “I have to make space for the good stuff to happen in my life,” she said. “I don’t like holding onto the past, especially when it’s stuff that, in my opinion, is just petty.” Like the pop astronauts who went solo before her, Ms. Cabello is now both a known quantity and a blank slate, caught between an outsize past and an uncertain future. Her first single as a solo artist was an early artifact of this wobbly developmental period. “Crying in the Club” — an arch, dancehall-flecked power ballad released last spring — was produced by Benny Blanco from an original demo written and recorded by Sia. The track underperformed commercially and was left off the final track list of “Camila.” “The reality of that song is it doesn’t feel or sound like Camila,” said Roger Gold, Ms. Cabello’s manager and a former lawyer for Fifth Harmony. Mr. Gold said it took time for Ms. Cabello, free of the army of handlers and tacticians who maintained creative control of the girl group, to feel comfortable asserting herself in front of more seasoned collaborators. “The most important learning in this whole thing was that we were most successful when Camila trusted in her own instincts,” he said. A breakthrough came while she was working with the producer Frank Dukes, born Adam Feeney, who has made his name as a prolific but low-key co-conspirator of self-styled stars like Drake and Lorde. Many potential collaborators had come to the studio armed with sleek, brassy Top 40 munitions in the style of Fifth Harmony hits. But Mr. Feeney’s approach was more nonchalant. Over sushi during an early session with Ms. Cabello last winter, he played her a deceptively simple instrumental with a prominent salsa piano riff. It reminded the singer of her birthplace, and she wrote the chorus for what became “Havana” on the spot. “There’s not another artist in the world who could have done that song — she just owns it,” Mr. Feeney said. Many of the songs on “Camila,” which Mr. Feeney executive produced and includes writing by Ms. Cabello on every track, are infused with tonal or lyrical references to her Latin heritage. Ms. Cabello said she took inspiration from the Latin music that soundtracked her childhood, as well as more contemporary reggaeton revisionists like Calle 13 and J Balvin. Then she blended those sounds with the auteur pop of artists like her friends Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, hoping to unearth her own original recipe. “I feel like the best way to come up with something new and different is just to be the you-est you possible,” Ms. Cabello said. “If you pull from all the different little parts of yourself, nobody can replicate that.” Mr. Poleman, of iHeartMedia, said it is Ms. Cabello’s sensibilities as a songwriter that will define her career. With “Havana” and “Bad Things,” he said, “she has quickly established herself as one of the most important young artists in pop music. “It always comes down to whether or not you have a song that resonates,” he added. “I know she spends a lot of time thinking about that.” In an under-lit, overpriced restaurant in Midtown Manhattan after her break in Miami had ended, Ms. Cabello, who has lately imagined herself as a vegan, provoked a kale salad while bopping along to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” The song had been a highlight from a recent Christmas Eve karaoke night with her family (she was the only one who knew its final “Give it to me” pre-chorus), and she grieved for her cocoon. In 48 hours, she would perform before Mariah Carey at “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest” in a bejeweled, ankle-length coat and metallic jumpsuit that made her look like a glamorous conquistador. Then she had a tour to design, and music video concepts to finalize and a social media campaign to figure out. She started to explain why things were trickier now, how she no longer had anyone to pick up the slack. “Even when there’s a day off, there’s never really a day off, because there’s so many decisions to be made and you’re always rushing to make stuff,” she said, as Jackson ad-libbed in the background. The music kept making her lose her train of thought. Finally, after a few vain attempts to catch it, she gave in and stopped explaining herself and sang along.[source]

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Dodge Avenger Cheap Insurance

Dodge Avenger Cheap Insurance

Dodge Avenger Cheap Insurance

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Dodge Avenger Cheap Insurance

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Army Victory However Political Defeat: The Tet Offensive 50 Years Later

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Army Victory However Political Defeat: The Tet Offensive 50 Years Later

“What I noticed was in all probability essentially the most intense floor combating on a sustained foundation over a number of days of some other interval through the struggle,” says Howard Prince, an Military captain who labored with South Vietnamese forces.

“We had been underneath hearth, underneath heavy hearth,” says Jim Coolican, a Marine captain.

Mike Downs, one other Marine captain recollects, “We did not know the place the enemy was, wherein course even.”

The enemy forces had been all over the place. Inside homes and tunnels and within the sewer system, they usually captured the citadel, a large castle-like expanse on this metropolis that was as soon as the imperial capital, simply north of Saigon.

It was the bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive and likewise all the struggle — and all of it took American officers fully abruptly, says creator Mark Bowden.

“You had the unbelievable rose-colored studies coming from Gen. William Westmoreland, who was the American commander in Vietnam,” says Bowden, who wrote the current e book Hue 1968. “[He was] assuring the American those who the top was close to, that the enemy was actually solely able to small sorts of ambushes within the far reaches of the nation.”

However then got here Tet. North Vietnamese troops and their Viet Cong allies swept all through cities and cities, into army bases, even breaching the partitions of the U.S. Embassy grounds in Saigon.

Again in Washington, President Lyndon Johnson referred to as his protection secretary, Robert McNamara, and requested for a proof.

McNamara advised him that the American individuals would notice that the enemy forces had been stronger than they’d been advised, that the Pentagon was trying to find targets however the Vietnamese enemies had been nonetheless a “substantial drive.”

A considerable drive. However simply six weeks earlier, a prime White Home official advised New York Occasions reporter Gene Roberts the struggle was already over.

Roberts was heading off to Vietnam, so Nationwide Safety Adviser Walt Rostow gave him a narrative thought. He advised Roberts a couple of new U.S. agricultural program, Roberts recollects, “which might double the rice yields in Vietnam and would win the peace now that Individuals had gained the struggle.”

The battle for Hue

Removed from successful, the Individuals had been barely holding on in Hue. Roberts noticed terrified refugees, wounded marines and heavy gunfire. His first story stated the Marines managed simply two blocks of the town. Reinforcements had been wanted. Not simply troops however artillery.

That was sluggish in coming. Jim Coolican, a Marine captain through the battle, stated his personal army superiors did not perceive how determined the Marines had been. The Individuals had been badly outnumbered.

“The response we received and I am paraphrasing now, however the response we received was that we had been overreacting. It is not that unhealthy,” remembers Coolican.

Extra reporters confirmed up at Hue, together with some from NBC. The images confirmed a determined scene, speaking to a Marine underneath hearth who stated he simply wished to go house.

Nonetheless, Westmoreland downplayed the scenario, telling reporters the true enemy goal was a big and distant Marine base at Khe Sanh.

“For my part,” Westmoreland advised reporters, “that is diversionary to his essential effort, which he had deliberate to happen in Quang Tri Province, from Laos towards Khe Sanh and throughout the demilitarized zone.”

However Howard Prince, a younger Military officer combating at Hue, stated Westmoreland had it backwards. Khe Sanh was the diversion.

“Westmoreland and his workers, the individuals who had been advising him, turned fixated on Khe Sanh,” says Prince, “to the purpose the place they merely weren’t able to entertaining different data.”

Others had been prepared to entertain the significance of the Tet Offensive. Amongst them was Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchor who arrived in Hue and rapidly realized he’d been deceived by his official sources again in Washington.

What Cronkite noticed on the bottom led him to go on TV and say it was time for the U.S. to finish the struggle.

“The one rational method out then,” Cronkite stated to a nationwide viewers, “shall be to barter not as victims however as an honorable individuals who lived as much as their pledge to defend democracy and did the very best they may.

Johnson is alleged to have advised an aide, “If I’ve misplaced Cronkite, I’ve misplaced center America.”

And perhaps greater than that. Bowden says Tet spurred not only a lack of belief about Vietnam coverage, however a extra common disregard for presidency officers that continues to this present day.

“On the heels of Hue,” says Bowden, “on the heels of Tet then got here the Pentagon Papers, got here the Watergate break-in, a sequence of form of catastrophic occasions when it comes to the general public’s notion of its personal leaders.”

A month after the Tet Offensive Johnson went on TV and stated he would press for peace, cease the bombing in North Vietnam. Then he dropped his personal bombshell: He wouldn’t search one other time period as president.

Howard Prince watched it from his hospital mattress in Texas, recovering from wounds he suffered at Hue.

“I used to be able to throw a mattress pan on the tv set,” he recollects, “as a result of to me what that was was an admission of defeat and a denial of the sacrifice that each one these younger males had made and that I had made.”

The Tet Offensive was an American army victory, says Prince. And Johnson ought to have taken the battle to North Vietnam and gone after the enemy’s secure havens in Laos and Cambodia.

“We’re doing the identical factor in the present day with the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Prince says. “We’re permitting you to run over into the borderlands in Pakistan and do the identical factor.”

Bowden agrees that even in the present day, there are army parallels to the Vietnam Conflict.

“We frequently discover ourselves mired in conditions the place we do not have the cultural understanding, we do not have the historic understanding,” Bowden says. “We will not acquire the help of the individuals whether or not it is in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it stems from a form of a vanity and a common ignorance.”

For his half, Mark Downs, one other younger Marine officer, will solely say he and his males did their finest.

This week Downs will keep in mind these from Fox Firm who had been killed or wounded. Their names are fastidiously written in a small pocket book he carried throughout these days a half century in the past. And he begins to learn the names.

“The killed had been, I feel he was a PFC, Stanley Murdock. D.I. Collins. A corpsman by the title of Gosselin, Doc Gooslin. Cristobal Figueroa-Perez.”

And Downs says they had been killed in simply the primary few hours of the battle of Hue, which might final for weeks. Throughout that point the casualty fee for his firm reached round 60 % killed or wounded, a fee much like the D-Day landings at Normandy throughout World Conflict II.

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New Post has been published on Add Crazy

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How the sponsor of a on line casino gaming

The stifling Senate committee room became packed to the factor that country Capitol police flanked the door and had been barring all rookies. So I cooled my heels and waited for Judy Craft to walk out.

She sooner or later did, and we strolled down the long hallway searching for a quiet spot. That found, Craft dug most of the many papers in her tote and pulled out copies of a questionnaire she had to prepare ultimate 12 months.

It had been geared toward Republican primary candidates within the race for Senate District 21. The subject turned into playing. Craft, a church activist from Forsyth County, might become dispensing the file to a number of the largest church buildings in north Fulton and Cherokee counties.

One question: “Will you vote for the enabling regulation…that supports horse racing and pari-mutuel betting and/or on line casino playing in Georgia?”

Incumbent Brandon Seashore of Alpharetta, who would win his contest, had scratched out the online casino reference and scrawled: “Horse racing simplest.”

The irony turned into that, twelve months later, Craft had simply exited a listening to on Senate bill seventy-nine, which could permit the establishment of “vacation spot inns” in Georgia. Casinos, in different words. The invoice’s leader sponsor is the re-elected Seaside. And it has no provision for horse-racing.

Since then, I’ve had smartphone conversations with Seaside. The first one commenced with something like a sigh.

“On the time, I wasn’t going to hold the casino invoice,” the senator stated. “I was looking to get horse-racing executed.”

This is a story of ways troubles morph and minds change — or have change foisted upon them — throughout the hothouse of a legislative session.

Seashore was, in reality, the sponsor of a bill to allow pari-mutuel wagering on the ponies closing yr. It was something of a natural healthy — north Fulton is a haven for stables and the horsey set.

inside the put up more that followed that summer season — after the primary in which Seaside secured his re-election — Seaside stated he became recommended to merge his horse-racing efforts with the ones of state Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, a top endorse for casinos in Georgia.

Champions of the 2 causes had been running at cross-purposes. country lawmakers, Republicans specifically, may tolerate one danger-laden vote. But no longer two.

And so gaming forces blended. The alliance survived until early January, whilst Seaside and Stephens walked into the workplace of Chris Riley, chief of a body of workers for Gov. Nathan Deal. We do not recognize who became inside the meeting. And Seashore could no longer expose what was stated.

But we’re instructed that during that session, the two lawmakers had been supplied very company suggestions about what ought to be blanketed of their rules. And what ought now not?

when S.B. seventy-nine made its formal debut overdue final month, horse-racing had disappeared entirely.

And Seashore is carrying it – trying to create an alliance of suburban Republicans, rural Republicans, and Democrats of all stripes. What changed into once a bill to enhance the benefit-based Hope scholarship would now additionally fund a laundry list of causes, consisting of Desire scholarships for terrible students, assistance for rural hospitals, and broadband gets admission to for rural Georgia.

Beach is pressing for a Thursday vote via the Senate Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities.

But back to that questionnaire.

“I believe the senator owes the church buildings an explanation in addition to an apology for announcing he’s against casinos after which sponsoring law to carry casino gambling to Georgia,” Craft said.

The Seaside disagrees. “[The bill] has developed and has changed. I have each right to alternate my mind. It wasn’t an ethical trouble. It was an enterprise trouble,” stated Seaside, who’s also president and CEO of the Extra North Fulton Chamber of Commerce.

In Beach’s thoughts, playing has been a settled be counted in Georgia When you consider that 1992, when a voter-approved lottery started out running, sending armies of youngsters to university. “It’s been the first-class component that ever took place to us,” he stated.

The contemporary dialogue is certainly about the form of playing that need to take area, Beach continues. If some other enterprise had approached lawmakers in the Capitol, promising a $2 billion investment and lots of jobs, without demands for tax incentives, “we’d throw them a parade,” Seashore said.

However, the questionnaire stays a touchy subject matter. It was dispensed at The first Baptist Church of Alpharetta, wherein Seaside and his family are members. Many of his fellow congregants are on the opposite aspect — together with the senior pastor, the Rev. Thomas Hammond, who’s also the contemporary president of the Georgia Baptist Conference.

Seashore says discussions had been civil. As proof, he pointed to the fact that he has invited Hammond to be the Senate’s “preacher of the day” on March thirteen.

As I was preparing to write down this on Wednesday morning, my mobile cell phone rang. It becomes Pastor Hammond, calling from Sierra Leone, a few 5,682 miles away in west Africa. He and different church contributors were wrapping up a missionary journey. Amongst different obligations, they’d helped expand a local health center that had been sole surviving treatment center over the past Ebola epidemic.

Hammond becomes responding to an e-mail I had despatched him the day before today. He assured me that the concept nicely of Seashore. “Brandon is a nice guy. I like his spouse. His children are the first rate,” he said.

However, he wanted to make certain I understood that he turned into adamantly opposed to casino gaming. (His Southern Baptist denomination, in truth, has helped organize the competition in the Capitol.)

Hammond installed acquainted arguments, maximum disputed through gaming supporters: That it would growth sex-trafficking in Georgia. That it’s sharpen gambling addictions. That gambling is a drain at the terrible, who can least manage to pay for it.

“What occurs in Vegas wishes to stay in Vegas. Don’t bring that to Georgia,” Hammond concluded. Even 5,000 miles away, some preachers simply can’t withstand a pithy line.

Florida Allows SB 788 No-Limit Poker Gaming invoice to Skip

A brand new bill has been exceeded by the Florida kingdom Legislature known as the SB-788 No-Restriction poker gaming bill. It Lets in diverse new venues to keep poker video games legally. A good issue for gamblers within the country of Florida is the reality that race tracks are actually allowed to have poker video games. Previously, games set in Florida had a maximum purchase in at $100, poker tournaments had the most Restrict of $1,000, and the Restrict bets in keeping with spherical had been $5.

Moreover, considered one of the largest modifications the sb-788 bill has added is the hours at which a card room may be open. The new invoice has Permits card rooms to be open 18 hours a day Monday-Friday and twenty-4 hours an afternoon at the weekends. It has additionally raised the criminal age Restriction wherein a player can play from eighteen to 21 in Seminole nation casinos retaining it in step with the rest of the kingdom. sooner or later, Hialeah park in Miami-Dade County has been also authorized for poker video games.

The SB-788 invoice turned into a widely debated topic before passing with the aid of a large margin. The votes of 82-35 and 31-nine the invoice regarded as if it turned into destined to Bypass all along even after some believed it became going to be very near. This turned into in large part visible as a facade, due to the expected $150 million a yr in revenue for the kingdom generated by using playing taxes. The billed regarded in precise form as nicely with Florida country Governor Charlie Christ endorsing the bill.

The Florida SB 788 No-Restrict Poker Gaming invoice is just to latest in a string of felony victories for poker gambling in Florida. As these days as 1996, most effective low-Limit poker gambling became allowed (with a maximum wager of $10 in keeping with pot), and even then it becomes simplest allowed humans’ houses or in network facilities. In 1997, when public pari-mutuel having a bet centers (such as poker card rooms) were allowed to open legally, the $10 in line with pot Restriction remained in impact.

In 2003, the $10 pot Limit become eliminated. It became changed rather by way of a $2 according to round most wager, with a Limit of most effective 3 increases allowed in step with having a bit round. In 2007, no-Limit poker turned into legalized in Florida. The brand new regulation, but, mandated a maximum purchase in Restrict of $one hundred. This effectively supposed that the best stakes poker game in Florida became simplest a $5/10 NL recreation.

In 2007, poker rooms have been allowed to carry No-Restrict video games with a most purchase-in of $100. This changed into because of the state of Florida passing A new invoice legalizing No-Limit poker. with the aid of doing this, it raised the stakes to the biggest ever inside the country to $5/$10 No-Restriction poker.

Lamentably, the Florida Best Court docket declared the settlement among the Seminoles and the Governor to be invalid. This becomes due to the Seminoles disagreeing with using the purchase in regulation, in which they have been forced to abide by way of the identical legal guidelines that maximum casinos in Florida had adopted.

The Governor had overstepped his authority, the Courtroom dominated, through not obtaining the nation Legislature’s approval of the Seminole settlement first. The Governor dutifully introduced the Florida SB 788 No-Restrict Poker Gaming invoice to the legislature, in which it recently passed.

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