#the purpose of the poll was to see if other people had the same opinion of me that emp garm and lord garm are kinda seperate people

[nonbinarykai]

garmadon is a bad person no matter which form he's in, so it doesn't matter whether resurrected Garmadon is him or not

When he's "good" again he embarasses Lloyd in front of the ninja and a class of kids, calls his son and friends fools behind their backs, continues lying about the Misako letter, chokes a teenage girl to threaten her elderly father, acts butthurt after his lies are discovered and divorce is imminent, chooses to die instead of face the consequences of his actions, lets himself be resurrected evil, and wooo after he comes back? He's an awful monster who attacks his young son, his brother (a baby), and his wife, and then expects to be forgiven because he "helped" a couple times (he was mostly useless in the Oni and Overlord fights)

the venom is an excuse. The Oni Masks are an excuse. The memory loss is an excuse. Everything he did was still his own choice, and he almost always chooses evil because that's who he is. There's a reason his name is Garmadon, his father picked up on his bad vibes even as a baby, who deserves everything that will happen to him

(What Garmadon haters sound like to me)

Hold on I need another minute to comprehend this /nm

While the poll wasn’t really about if garm should be held accountable by the fandom for his actions (he was a bad person either way, it’s just the severity of it that differences emp garm and lord garm imo). It does make me question to what extent is lord garm responsible for his actions? You mentioned that the great dev venom was an excuse. And while your clearly being satirical, I do wonder to what extent it really impacted him and made him evil. (Overlord bullshit not counted fuck that).

There is a interesting comic that goes into this issue, it’s titled “Destiny of doom” and I highly recommend people check it out.

[evilwickedme]

that 88% statistic literally comes from a poll conducted in january by tel aviv university called the peace index survey. if you google anything along the lines of israeli support plus 88% the first result is a nyt article that cites it with a link to the study. it took literally two seconds to find. 88% of jewish israelis surveyed believe that the number of palestinian casualties, including both deaths and injuries, is justified. it also found 94% believe the idf has used adequate or too little force in the war (43% believe it’s too little!). this survey was taken at a time when 20000 palestinians had already been killed and much of gaza leveled 

unless you’re going to claim that tel aviv university is disreputable/has anti israeli bias/is antisemitic, this clearly shows overwhelming israeli support for the level of death and destruction in gaza. the fact that netanyahu is unpopular is completely irrelevant and i’m not even sure why that was included in your post as some sort of evidence that the 88% stat must be untrue. support for the war clearly goes far beyond just the right wing parties

also the fact that so many in the notes of that post talk about the importance of sources but made 0 effort to even look up the original statistic and claimed with 0 evidence that it was made up is. very telling.

Dude, I wrote in the post itself that I might have googled the wrong terms. I googled variatiojs "destruction in Gaza + 88%" instead, because that's how I saw it quoted. I went on a Google deep dive, and still left doubt in my post BECAUSE I COULD HAVE BEEN WRONG.

The post covered two different subjects because I wanted to talk about two different subjects - the fact that people don't understand how the Israeli government works, statistics regarding that, and that since I saw the statistic quoted multiple times unsourced, including in a professionally published piece, I decided to talk about statistics literacy in general. This isn't an academic article - it's my own personal blog.

Also, chill. I cited multiple sources ranging a wide range of subjects, and didn't even conclude that Israelis don't support the destruction in Gaza at all.

Now I have found the source you're referring to and am looking at it. It covers a lot of questions, such as a majority doubting that the war in Gaza even has a purpose (52%). You're right on the 94% percent and the way it's divided.

I however once again point out that the (actually slightly less, but that's frankly irrelevant, I'm just a pedant) 88% you're citing IS DIVIDED INTO TWO CAMPS. Relatively justified is 21.3%, which still has doubts.

I also clarified again and again in my original post and in other posts *that I'm opposed to the war in Gaza*. I've also clarified that I think that people on both sides of the conflict are people even if they have opinions that I find horrific, such as MOST OF THE OPINIONS I cited. My point, overall, was to view people complexly.

Support for Hamas has increased in Gaza and more than trippled in the West Bank since the war started. Does that mean that Palestinians are all evil? That I should avoid viewing them complexly, say they should all die, call for a second nakba? Because I see people on the website and irl calling all Israelis (and really all Jews) evil, saying they should all die, and calling for another intifada.

My post, same as everything else I post, talks about viewing all people as people. And also about citing your sources and showing how I cross reference multiple sources, not that I suppose that matters to you.

I think it's very telling you're on anon, and I think I know the kind of content I'd see on your blog. And that's the last thing I'll say on that.

[starlitangels]

Announcement!

Welcome to the “Official (Unofficial) Redacted Sexyman Tournament!” I will be your host, Star(litAngels)!

I have made a randomly-generated bracket with as many of the Redacted characters as I could remember and I know I still forgot some, and I left some off on purpose, and I will be holding polls every day to see who will advance, and who will not

This is Voiced Characters Only. And Prime Universe Only. If you’re interested in an Imperium Sexyman Tournament or a Sexiest Listener Character Tournament, let me know. Either of those would probably be after the boys because I don’t think I’ll have time to keep track of two or (heaven forbid) three at a time.

The winner will be the Ultimate Redacted Sexyman According To Tumblr. (The Tumblr part is very important. This ain’t no Redactness or Redactness After Dark in a Discord server with Erik watching. This is Tumblr where we’re all allowed to be 137% more unhinged, among other things, with no Creator Supervision™)

Now, remember, this is randomly generated. I didn’t choose the initial line-up of which character against which. So if your two faves are against each other for the initial round, sorry. Not my fault.

I will be tagging the polls with “Redacted Sexyman” so you can either blacklist it or keep track of/follow the competition

Other important note: this is just for fun. No one is allowed to start drama or discourse over this, you hear? We’re all just fans having a good time and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t have a good time participating in a slew of silly little polls that are ultimately meaningless and an entertaining way to pass a little time.

Rules:

You must vote for the sexiest character, in your opinion. This is a Sexyman contest, not a favorites contest. If your fave is less sexy than the boy they’re competing against, you gotta vote for the sexier one in your opinion. Yes I’m aware that “favorite” and “sexiest” are often the same. But if they’re not, you have to choose whichever person you find the sexiest

Be nice to everyone else voting. No harassing others over their opinions

Be honest. No voter fraud or anything. Don’t go to your friends outside the fandom and be like “hey I need you to vote for this person even though you have no context”. This is for Redacted Fans Only.

You will have 24 hours to vote each day, as per Tumblr poll mechanics, and there will be a new duel every day. However if I skip a day, please don’t harass me about it. A reminder is okay, a demand is not.

More rules can be added if necessary

This is a 25-round competition, and it’ll take us most of the way through March, at this point. So tune in here every day to make sure your Sexyman gets his vote!

Caelum is not included because he is a literal child before anyone asks or gives me any grief. He is not qualified to be a “sexyman.” Honestly I wasn’t going to include Regulus for similar reasons but he has a BA so I felt like I kinda had to? Some people are into that? Anyway

[retirement-home-rumble]

just caught up on this tournament and I do want to say that you definitely are biased towards that one tie bc you reblogged the post multiple times saying you wanted a tie; so it’s not just tagging it “in this house we love tiesweeps” that makes people think you’re biased. also people saying “it’s not that serious, it’s just a tumblr bracket” goes both ways - like if it’s not that serious and we’re all just having fun then why should anyone care that the votes actually say it should NOT be a tie? like, weren’t you pretty “seriously” invested in this specific poll being a tie, enough to make an exception to the existing rule?

at the same time it literally would have been at most two votes that decided it (sorry to the other anon but their math was wrong). only 968 or 969 out of 1896 would show up as 51.1%. and while I am not in favor of tiesweeping it personally, it is your poll and you should do what you want & what makes you happy. but if you have thousands of people voting in these polls then you have to expect that a decent number of them might be upset if you do make that choice rather than following the rules.

I mean as to your first point, I reblog all propaganda I see, no matter what side it's for. Sure I miss some, but I try my best to get all of them. So along that same vein, if a post gets a lot of propaganda, of course I'm gonna be reblogging it a lot. It just so happened that most of the propaganda that one was getting was for a tie. If there had been tons of people reblogging it with anti tie propaganda, then I would have been reblogging that just as much.

Also, as to me saying I wanted it to tie: I have literally stated that I want as many polls to tie as we can. I also reblog all polls that are close to a tie when it's down to the last few hours, just to give people the chance to tie it if they want.

So combine those two points together, and it just happened to be that after I reblogged that post with the last call for a tie, that it got reblogged a lot by others. So of course I would then reblog their propaganda. And since it's been stated that I'm biased towards all ties, I don't think it's exactly fair to say I was biased specifically towards this one tie. Like if any others were close enough, I would have been just as invested.

Idk. I guess I just don't get people acting like I'm not allowed to be invested in and have fun rooting in my own tournament? When I make it perfectly clear that I love ties, maybe don't act surprised when I get excited about a potential tie?

Even then, I wouldn't have even said anything if it wasn't, as admitted by you, decided by less than 2 votes. I understand that some people could be upset by this, but it was a weird situation and it's impossible to please everyone.

I put out that second poll to try to make it as fair as possible. I've also been trying to share both sides of this (posting asks with people explaining their opinions about it and reblogging the propaganda against the tie) so that everyone can make their own choice. Yes I said I personally would like them to tie, but I didn't force anyone to vote. Everyone has their own agency here. I said I would honor the results of that poll, and people have voted for them to be allowed to tie.

Anyway, sorry for the long rambling answer. This whole situation has just been a bit exhausting and I really don't want to lose interest in this blog because, before this, I was having the most fun I'd had in forever. I felt like I actually had a purpose.

[ipsen]

kanae brainrot apparently

“oh that kanae gender poll is neat haha anyways” the next day comes “oh okay.”

my opinion on kanae is “interesting without the burden of hindsight.” if tg had positive trans rep in mutsuki or big madam kanae would be a very good character with a very compelling arc. unfortunately, tg slaps every trans or ngc character with the “GASP. lying about their gender?!” tag at least once. at least mutsuki kinda gets away with it.

anyways. let’s do some vacuum analysis. under the cut.

kanae’s purpose in the story is heavily related to her perception of his personal gender versus what gender she thinks will better serve her family legacy. As the very last remaining rosewald, she wants to be a man because for one reason or another, she perceives women to be weak. her mother succumbed to illness early on when they fled germany, for example, while her brothers fought unflinchingly to help her escape. She was very young, so these facts made an impression upon her.

of course, no one calls her out on this because no one around her understands. They don’t know what it’s like being alone. They don’t know what it’s like losing everything and wanting nothing more than to get revenge against the ones who think they’re better and stronger. They don’t know. They don’t know her. She wishes they knew her. She wishes they loved her.

Until one day:

(can i PLEASE take my eyes off this woman for FIVE MINUTES jesus christ)

eto hates two particular things: herself, and people who lie. this is a core character trait of hers and explains the targets of her torture. people who remind her of herself and think of themselves as superior to someone/something else. why?

because she’s been in those very situations, and it worked out for the worst.

eto targets kanae because kanae hates humans on a broad scale (see: how she treats chie), but this is born of fear as only the ccg are the cause of her suffering and the only ones who really care about her dying, and despite having been thrown about by “humans” (again, ccg) and seeing the value non-ccg humans bring to the table (again, chie (bless chie’s heart btw), who is also hunted by the ccg), kanae still despises them and sees them as beneath her.

eto was the same way at one point. she was targeted by V, who took Noroi, her only family at that time, away from her. In her quest for vengeance, she mutilated Kasuka Mado, who, for all intents and purposes, is not a part of V, but an unwitting weapon swung around by them. she presumably does similar things to other investigators out of rage and pain because there’s nothing left for her and she has no support system to reign her in. this is until she meets arima who decides to help her (and even then…).

and eto, more or less, broke free of the mindset kanae is currently in. only thing is: eto also hates herself. she hates how many people have died on her quest for change, how many people will continue to die even when she “wins”. she hates herself as the instigator, but it’s all she knows and all she will continue to do, and she wishes she could just mutilate herself and die and answer for everything she’s done. but that would be a purposeless death. so she turns to a different pastime and breaks out the sewing kit. surely she can “fix” this pitiful caricature of herself while getting the twisted satisfaction of “hurting” herself.

(spoilers: it doesn’t work.)

and you know what they say: as eto, so kaneki.

neither wants to hurt kanae, not really, but rather they want to hurt the image of themselves that kanae exudes. is it better? no, but it’s an important distinction when factoring in characters.

… this was supposed to be about kanae. please accept my apologies. let’s get back on track.

it’s tragic, isn’t it? the people who have real, genuine, human experiences (eto can eat human food, kaneki was human) are the ones who inflict arguably the most pain on kanae. she continues to be at the mercy of the humans she hates so much. their twisted perceptions of love have infected her and she dies.

and yet she thinks she dies happy.

—

well those are the morning thoughts while i’m supposed to be on vacation. thanks for reading!

[honeybyte]

you got questions oc meme! For the whole axe and cleaver gang: 6, 19, 35, 46, 47, 50 :)

YES thank youuu!!!

6. if they were badly injured and couldnt go to a hospital, who would they go to?

OOH okay so for goliath and euan, this is actually super easy bc it would be elle. elle first and foremost. really, none of their group has much of a choice BUT elle, but. but but.

elle is who euan took goliath to whenever he was bleeding. when goliath's eye was taken, it was elle who patched him up. elle may seem a bit strange, but they're who each would turn to in a time of crisis. and when it comes time for elle to call for help, they have 4 people who will come to their aid.

19. how easy is it to become their friend?

for agnes and angus, it's extremely easy; both are friendly, outgoing people. euan takes some practice and like. the emotional equivalent of cats sniffing each other thru a door. elle is friendly w everyone, but being their friend is a completely different thing, and that's a lot harder to do-- gotta earn their and 12 identities' trust to do that. goliath is just shut off from everyone, so you're not going to actually be his friend until you break thru level 14 of his trauma and even then he's not going to be super friendly w you, he just wont. try to beat you within an inch of your life when you close the door too hard.

odelia is very friendly. do not get close to her.

35. do they believe in fate, or do they believe they're in charge of their own destiny?

goliath and elle have no opinion on this matter, for several reasons. agnes is very romantic and believes in fate, angus and euan believe in taking charge of your own destiny (for different reasons, but they came to the same conclusion). odelia believes in fate and it enables and empowers her decisions. this is not a good thing.

46. would they lie to get out of trouble?

yes: goliath, elle

no: angus, euan, agnes

they lie anyway: odelia

47. would they lie to get someone else out of trouble? even if they had to take their place?

yes: goliath, elle

no: angus

they'd try to lie but they're terrible liars: agnes, euan

odelia, who lies 41546312316 times a day, regardless of circumstance, has no place in this particular poll

50. What's your favorite thing about them?

Agnes: i love that she's so romantic, esp abt her studies. she has a certain type of love for theology that makes me giddy to think abt, and her love for her studies seeps into the rest of her personality

Elle: they're very. hm. relatable, in a way. esp when we consider that they have a heavy mask, where they spend a lot of time acting as a jovial and lovely person, and when the sign turns to 'closed' they shrink in on themself and become fairly morose, a little too in their head abt everything that happens to them. but still they persist, which i find admirable

Goliath: goliath gives me an outlet for the chaotic. being a retired gladiator, there's a certain energy he has that i love to dive into every now and again just to feel esxcited abt what im doing again. he makes me absolutely thrilled to work on art

Angus: he's a big teddy bear! i like playing w him and euan when i want smth soft and sweet. he has a very steady and gentle attitude that balances everything out, i love it

Euan: i like the sainthood feel i gave euan. i dont draw it much, but i very much consider him the madonna of the group; he's a sort of weeping saint type personality. if you asked me what he reminds me off, i'd say cotton drying on the line, royal blue velvet, and red tears

Odelia: oh i always knew i'd have a cult leader oc (elle was originally constructed for this purpose, but as you can see: they're not one). i just didnt realize i'd make her so gruesome and sociopathic, but i think it's a good stretch for me to try to write an "evil" character and not try to justify or redeem them. i tend to do that but i've been enjoying having an oc who just does fucked up shit bc that's what makes sense in her brain and bc she Wants to

[extreme-investor-network]

The Post-Roe World: A Reality Check On The Implications Of The Supreme Court Opinion

Many claims are now being made about the post-Roe world and the sweeping away of such rights as interracial marriage and the use of contraceptives. The "parade of horribles" seems to get longer by the hour. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley took to Twitter to explain what exactly a post-Roe world looks like (and what it doesn't): "Once again, those claiming that Dobbs will undo ruling on contraception or marriage are ignoring the express language of the ruling and that fact that these other rights are supported by other constitutional rights/arguments" He went on to note that... "Five of the six justices in the majority expressly and (repeatedly) stated  that the opinion is not explicable to those rights and is facially distinguishable from their rationale.Only Thomas raised the broader application...""It is rare to see the level of repetition and clarity on this point of application to other areas. The majority stated that such comparisons are baseless since "abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged.""The justices specifically chastise those who are pushing this claim as part of an effort "designed to stoke unfounded fear that our decision will imperil those other rights.""Obviously, future courts can hold different views, but these justices could not be more clear that they view this opinion is inapplicable to these other rights. Turley wrote a detailed brief on the various 'parade of horribles' when the leaked transcript first dropped: The New Yorker magazine ran a cover in 1976 showing the view of the country from 9th Avenue. The map by Saul Steinberg showed civilization largely ending at the New Jersey border with a vast wasteland between New York and the Pacific Ocean. It appears that, for some people, not much has changed with that view of America. Recently the editors of the New York Times seriously warned that some states likely would outlaw interracial marriage if Roe v. Wade is overturned: “Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t.” It is hard to imagine because it is utterly untrue. Nothing in the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization supports such a dire prediction. To the contrary, the draft expressly states that “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Indeed, such a motive might come as something of a surprise to Justice Clarence Thomas, given his own interracial marriage, or to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, given her own interracial family. The purpose of the Times’ commentary seems to be to inflame rather than inform readers. And that is consistent with the position of politicians and pundits who raised alarms, even before the leak, over the need to reignite anger among voters to avoid a disaster in the midterm election. On MSNBC, for example, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) agreed with John Heilemann that Democrats must “scare the crap out of and get them to come out.” The Times editorial is part of a “parade of horribles” that is becoming increasingly grotesque in its exaggerated claims. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and former Clinton Attorney General Eric Holder had a preposterous discussion of how if Roe goes down, Brown v. Board of Education could be next. MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” host Joy Reid falsely told her audience that the decision “could apply to almost anything” in not just prohibiting interracial marriage but overturning the Brown decision. An apocalyptic post-Roe hellscape can be a motivating image, but only to the extent that it is credible. The problem is that the claims are detached from both legal and political realities. Consider three of these claims on interracial marriage, contraception and same-sex marriage: Interracial marriage With polls showing that 94 percent of Americans support interracial marriage, the Times editors do not bother to name the states that are largely composed of the remaining 6 percent. The claim is even less credible legally than it is politically. The leading case on interracial marriage, Loving v. Virginia, was based on different constitutional grounds and would not be negated by this opinion. While the court did discuss the due process right to marriage, it was primarily handed down on equal protection grounds due to the inherent racial classification. Then-Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: “The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States … There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.” None of that, however, deters some pundits from keeping alive the fear that interracial marriages soon could be criminalized. As ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel declared, “They’ll come for same-sex marriage, they’ll come for interracial marriage, they’ll outlaw that peanut butter that comes with the jelly in the same jar.” It might be a good comedic line — but this and similar claims make no constitutional sense. There is no reason to believe that interracial marriages would be banned in a post-Roe world. Contraception The cries of alarm include other areas expressly addressed in the draft opinion as not impacted by its analysis. For example, many critics claim that contraception could soon be outlawed even though the court’s draft specifically dismisses such claims: “Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged.” It is true that some activists have sought to outlaw IUDs and Plan B prescriptions as “abortion-inducing.” However, putting aside that the draft opinion expressly distinguishes the contraception cases, there is no basis for suggesting that the court would eradicate any semblance of personal privacy and intimacy protections under the Constitution. Such sweeping transformation of the private lives of Americans would involve curtailing a host of other rights, including equal protection. Moreover, there would be considerable practical barriers to such bans in preventing interstate availability of contraceptives. The polling on this issue is even more lopsided. While the public remains supportive of limits on abortion, some 83 percent support to the availability of contraceptives. Only 6 percent favor making contraception illegal. Same-sex marriage In 2015, the court voted 5-4 to strike down bans on same-sex marriage. The court’s specific foundation for this right has continued to be mired in controversy. Even some of us who had long supported same-sex marriage raised concerns at the time over the reliance of Justice Anthony Kennedy in his decision on a “right to dignity.” Once again, however, the court in this draft opinion distinguishes abortion from other areas as involving claims of an “unborn human life.” Nothing in this opinion endorses a ban on same-sex unions. However, even before this draft opinion was leaked, there were calls for a better-articulated foundation than the one laid out in Obergefell v. Hodges. As with interracial marriage, many of us have argued for an equal-protection foundation for the right. Putting this aside, the politics on this issue has changed dramatically in the last decade. Polls show that 70 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. Roe is not the basis for all of these rights, and its basis has long been debated. Nevertheless, columnist Maureen Dowd has declared that the “antediluvian draft opinion is the Puritans’ greatest victory since they expelled Roger Williams from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.” Such claims, however, ignore that the basis for the original decision was questioned even by liberals. Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe wrote that “one of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” At least some of the court’s justices clearly hold many of the same doubts over the basis for Roe in the Constitution. There is ample cause for pro-abortion advocates to organize over the loss of Roe. However, those claims are only undermined by a parade of horribles that leaves both the case law and credibility behind. A cynic might wonder if Democratic leaders in Congress truly want to preserve the status quo of Roe. After all, their recent proposed codification of Roe went beyond the draft decision, which the leadership knew would lose critical votes in the Senate - but which may provide what they hope will be a powerful rallying cry for the midterm elections. And finally, no, the justices didn't  commit perjury during their confirmation hearings: https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1540382759084257280?ref_src=twsrctfwtwcamptweetembedtwterm1540382759084257280twgrtwcons1_&ref_url=httpswww.zerohedge.compoliticalpost-roe-world-reality-check-implications-supreme-court-opinion Original Article Original Article Here: Read the full article

[jjheejz]

About Internet Water Army in the case

This is an ongoing update about the case from start to development. List of all related posts can be found on this blog's pinned post (link provided at bottom of each post as well).

19 August 2021 update: Added the scale of his success for reference, before bonus below

18 August 2021 update: Added timeline of events, orange title in post, found out the official English term for Immoral Media = Internet Water Army)

Major updates since first draft: Added bonus, added disclaimer, certain info details

Originally posted on 16 August 2021

[The purpose of this post is to provide a perspective as to why the Media is raised/blamed regarding the issue. Especially for international fans, as all the encounters happened on Weibo. Also, those who were on weibo, do read through if you will. So although it's lengthy, do try to read all, at least if not the last two parts].

The Media referred by most, is not the common perception of the Entertainment Industry (celebrities, directors, shows, channels, staff etc), but the dark side of the Entertainment industry: Antis, toxic fans, toxic marketing accounts. They are called Internet Water Army💧.

Toxic Marketing Accounts is one of the things they do, these accounts on Weibo has millions of followers, each of their post likes are in the hundred thousands (buyable) to give credibility to passer-bys. Some use similar names to Official accounts, some use similar logos. Their posts are usually subjective or aims to steer view points of a certain celebrity/movie/show. Before the latest update of this post (18.08.21), I just group them all together and term them as Immoral Media*.

*Below is my original post using my original term because at point of first draft, I did not know the official term (so have changed/added the term from Immoral Media to Internet Water Army in content below but retain the content based off first draft).

If you have chased before celebrities, or just simply passed by an article about certain celebrities, recall how some title that caught your attentions were like. Clickbaits is one of the many things they do. If GZ is your first and you do not have Weibo, then this read(link) is good enough.

Just as the term Immoral Media (Internet Water Army), it’s immoral and unethical, but they exists because they are paid to do so. Who pays them? Entertainment Companies, and maybe other Organisations

Normal Media/Marketing vs Immoral Media/Toxic Marketing/Internet Water Army

When a show or movie comes out, the normal Marketing department will generate outreach and buzz so that people know a show is airing soon/know the show exists etc. Official announcements are not enough, because there isn’t much context (limited content to put up as well) so having some other Marketing accounts do the buzz in a planned period to gain awareness through posts, some articles about the casts, the plot summary, the production details etc is normal. This is Marketing, bigger companies will probably have stronger Marketing departments (aka influence) and can hire more Marketing accounts to generate buzz. Celebrities (aka casts) themselves, are also Marketing point.

Then we have the Internet Water Army/Immoral Media, these are what they mainly do:

Create Fanfiction-rumors: Creating rumors about celebrities to shift audience perception of them. [eg. XX was seen with XX leaving a hotel, XX was drunk on Event Y and did ZZZ to AA, XX is dating BB and has been in a relationship for N years etc]

Honing their brain degrading skills: Come up with titled clickbait headings/ trending topics with negative written contents. For articles, exceptionally out of heading content related to the celebrity. [Refer to Baidu, it’s a winner of these, feel free to Google Translate]

Regressing their common sense and understanding skills: Take everything a celebrity does completely out of context in a negative way and create a topic out of it [eg. XX said AA is a ---, “XX raised his finger, a sign of ---?”, XX pushed BB aggressively on Variety Show Y - A competition variety show, XX is in beef with CC because XX was caught giving CC the eye]

Using their fingers to stir shit and bathe each other in it: Escalate all smallest form of possible tension created by fans/themselves into a huge thing by acting as the fandom's fans/lurk in fandom chat groups, and voicing their disguised opinion to spread tension/exaggerate severity of the issue [eg. XX fans mocked AA - in groupchats: tbh I've never liked AA before, AA just gives off a vibe that I dont like and now this? It just disgusts me even more > Yea, i feel this way too. AA has problems / XX Lurkers expressing views on XX about NN, slowly to NNMHFXW - XX did NNMHGT - I cannot accept NNmHfHw, I'm leaving = multiply by 1000++]

Epitome of a self-deteriorate: Creating something out of nothing and react to that something negatively to gain massive attention/reaction [eg. “XX raised his hand on show Y” - dk what XX fans are thinking, are they literally blind? XX fans are tasteless just like XX hahaha / “XX did community service” - they are acting / “XX breathed” - From the start, i thought XX was NN, but I am so ZZZ that XX breathed. Goodbye fandom, i’m leaving. Those who still want to stay I urge you to rethink your life choices] - if I may add, Xiao Zhan’s fanfiction case as well. 

Metaphor - Ability to use bare hands to collect paychecks from the urinal/toilet bowl where their boss/client peed in: Doing all of the above.

Apologies for any term offense, but not apologetic of the term context. This is what they do for a living. Any normal human being who do not like anything, will generally not be interested at anything about it in the first place, so to have some antis/toxic fans knowing certain things and inside jokes/references in their posts questions their goal.

On involved in Internet Water Army/Immoral Media 💧

Fans on weibo during these few months witnessed many of the above on GZ. From rumored girlfriend (spammed with articles) to mean and nasty comments on trending topics, to bouts of insults and fake emotional cryouts by certain fan accounts that GZ's office has to release a number of Lawyer’s letter to them. 

Aside from WOH there were also a few other BL adaptation films that were actually released this year but they did not reach exponential success like WOH. BL adaptations are so highly followed by because this is the key to wealth. Literally. Successful BLs like The Untamed and  Dao Mu Bi Ji saw the amount of wealth fans are willing to spend on the celebrity as compared to say BG or idols (younger fan groups). This is why when WOH shot up exponentially, Immoral Media start to sweat.

Major anticipated adaptations were supposed to air this year eg. Hao Yi Xing(HYX), Sha Po Lang(SPL) etc but was severely held back due to the stricter change in BL adaptations submitting their scripts for approval regulations (WOH manage to submit earlier before the change). Because of this, most final films were rejected and they have to keep re-editing, by then WOH was already months into reaping tonnes of major brand endorsements, shows/movie casting, variety show appearances etc, something that is seen as too successful in the Immoral Media’s eyes, because they have to create buzz for other celebrities, some are specific celebrity oriented and thus circulate rumors about having endorsement opportunities shifted from celebrity X to GZ (think fanfiction-rumors and shit stirrer) causes tension in celebrity fandoms. - A real event just in July:

The Untamed’s cp fandom is called BJYX which had always been in the Top 1 of Cps for 2 years dropped for awhile to Top 2, over taken by LLD. Both of them had a war and hated each fandom, one fandom is somehow not allowed to like the other fandom even casually after everything broke out because it started out with some BJYX toxics photoshopped GZ on of portraits .

Also another case of which he wore the same costume as WYB did in a previous photoshoot and it became a useless comparison of who wore better, who looks better, degrading the other. (Finger stirring shit).

Now apply all of the above things the Internet Water Army do and we have them earning money, while both fandom reacts and hate each other.

In LLD, our own fans started suspecting each other on who is a spy from BJYX and what not.

The first few months of Internet Water Army saw LLDs mostly mocking them because the average age is 30-40s, they know and see through all of their intentions so nothing was big. They were trumpeting and LLDs didn’t even care, what with all the doing tedious stats was not even important to them.

Over time, as the issues they create became more and more serious LLDs did start to care, reporting Toxic Marketing accounts/toxic fans became a daily task, go vote for GZ at certain polls etc, solo fans, and LLD fans also split apart. Solo fans think cp fans use GZ to furnish their fantasies, and cp fans thinks they are the ones furnishing their dreaming-girls fantasy with (aka my boyfriend).

There was also a period where LLD had a habit of continuously mentioning “we are in the 30-40s so we can see through everything about the media, we are all fans for the first time, we are good at spending money (because of purchase power compared to other fandoms)” it was prevalent for so long it felt odd, ‘chasing celebrities the first time’ in particular sounds more vulnerable as a weakness than a strength / sth to be proud of.

Gradually, more secretive/insider confirmed ‘sweets’ were flying around. Fans advised each other to not circulate, and the mindset of “if you know, you know, dont tell.” (This is a problematic mentality, of which fans will still be curious to know and search for it themselves, but this secretive hook is unhealthy. Over the long term, it becomes hard for existing fans to know a lot of things properly to judge for themselves, especially those who knew and publicly reacted, but blasting those who ask and telling those who know to keep quiet, this did not help some to understand why on certain things, even so for international fans, dont know and dont understand, causing misunderstandings. Yes, certain information should not be shared, so why should you react about it publicly in the first place? - Internet Water Army effect)

The last few months (for example the July fan war) created a tonne of seriousness and anger. A period even broke out with a tonne of ‘insider confirmed sweets’ (which is LLD’s daily dose of happiness), it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake. Trending topics became negative and everyone warned each other not to enter because it will give the trends ‘views’ and trend statistics, in reality entering there is to enter an exhibition by the self-deteriorates, collecting the fandom's traffic data (it's a sure lose for fans each time they enter the topic). Everyone even starts thinking that the trend’s popularity was caused by each other (it's true but it can be bought daily and not caused by fans). There was a raise in the number of fans who were getting emotional because they want to protect but Internet Water Army kept coming and got worse, because fans, tbh, not just GZ fans, every other celebrity’s fans are always fighting with an Army, getting played and plotted in that Army's calendar.

Even so, despite all of these, LLD is actually a fandom Internet Water Army may find the hardest to break because they understand GZ so much, they could tell what are fake news regarding GZ, because among everything above, there are still plenty of logical fans to stop many fans from drifting too far and debunking them. Why? 30-40s are grown up adults.

Why 13.8.21 and the Japan issue is plotted?

First of all, in the political climate of China, there are many political dates in a month that is NO-Entertainment news. Because it’s the honoring of certain important political events. It’s like Remembrance Day, thus the sensitivity is higher. On these days, there are usually no news and even the Internet Water Army zip their pants. This year also marks the 100th year of the Chinese Communist Party(link)

Secondly, he had no work schedule on 13 August 2021. A great full day to focus on any other news (because if he had schedules, everyone will turn their attention to his events, what trumpeting outside is just bird chirps). 

Thirdly, when the news broke out, especially about the shrine, the reception was actually quite serious within the fandom so the scale of this might be big but to what extent in reality?

Lastly, 15.8.21 marks the 76th anniversary of the announcement of surrender of Japanese in World War 2(link). Also a day of NO-Entertainment news. 

Timeline of events:

13.8.21 - [His rest day, Eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, Japan News broke out] His rest day, no schedules = increased attention about him online. Lowered guard among fans because they are getting ready for tomorrow's Chinese Valentine's sweets = Caught off guard = Huge break out of fans' reactions

14.8.21 - [Chinese Valentine's Day, Eve of the 75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender] Keep a wishful and happy demenaor to not destroy the mood, suppressed thoughts about ZZH's Japan news

15.8.21 - [75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender, Official announcement of ZZH's boycott and all China social media account ban] NO-Entertainment news day, Solemn day, not allowed to voice anything so the fandom can only wait for tomorrow to start voicing out/debunking but before they can wait out, the boycott and social media ban happened, every official accounts about him was gone overnight, fans had no time to react

17.8.21 - [All official fandom accounts related to ZZH and JunZhe were locked/removed]

Forced to be silent since the day his matter broke out, over the course of official news release with everything taken down in a day because of the Japan correspondence, his accounts banned overnight across the Chinese media and the overnight cancellation, fans could not speak anything about it. Overnight cancellation like this scale happened for the first time in China, leaving no time to react by the fandom, by the time they can, they are silenced.

When the period of events occured within a set of special dates, it’s not coincidence.

Conclusion

Because he was too successful and had many actually honorable past things, and a hard to influence fandom, Internet Water Army view him as a huge threat enough to want to destroy him, because it’s hard to defeat. With a chance they have, they will hold it till the end, bringing up this issue to the Government during this period also shows a sign of how scared they were of him and perhaps his fandom to plot something like this.

Updated on 19 August: Here's a screenshot of assumed calculation on the scale of GZ success for reference while chatting with a fellow fan, assuming GJ also has 27 brands, and there are 1000 brands. Rationale of numbers used: Only big brands can hire big celebrities.

Bonus

Mentioned in the first post, will mention again in case. After the news broke out within 2 days, there was a drop on his weibo followers from 18.9mil to 18.7mil. 200k+ drops, if the politics was such a big national issue, there should at least be a huge drop, even at least a million right? Because weibo is a China-Chinese majority right? Nope, we get a puny 200k drop.

What's funny? The self-deteroriates:

Translation: "Are his fans bought? Why didnt he drop fans? Those people got brainwashed to this point?" / "I've never entered his weibo and today i feel like having a look yet it showed I've followed him. All his fans were bought right? It disgusts me, i immediately unfollowed. This kind of process is worse than WYF..." / "i dropped fans because of him...no...I just reposted 2 posts and I've dropped 4 fans?"

Isn't the tone and regressing brain cells, all too familiar and same?

//

Added above, will remind again to read this link. It has an even more in-depth knowledge on who are paying them.

So what should we do? Link here

Related posts 🛏️:

[21st-century-ninja]

Lloyd Garmadon: fave or knave?

(yes I know that title is terrible just roll with it jasdk;flgh;)

So a little while ago, I took a small poll of 55 people in the fandom, asking them a couple of questions about our favorite green bean.  The biggest question: is Lloyd even “our favorite” at all?  And if he is, how long has he been the favorite of the fandom?  From the very start, or did something change along the way?

If you’re curious to any of these answers, then read on for more!  Disclaimer: I’ve literally never taken a stat class in my life so lmk if any of this is egregiously wrong :D

To start our discussion off, let’s look at where Lloyd ranks for folks across the board.

The results show that 45.5% (25 people) of the poll takers put Lloyd as their favorite ninja.  21.8% (12 people) place him in second place, followed by 14.5% (8 people) with him in third.  4 people each put him in fourth and fifth place, and 2 people place him in last.

What do these results show?  Over two-thirds of the poll takers rank Lloyd as either their first or second favorite ninja.  Of course, this could be test taker bias, as it’s likely that people who like Lloyd are more likely to participate in a survey about him.  But from my experience in the fandom, these numbers seem accurate, or at least accurate enough for the purposes of this poll.  I will be using this first-and-second place statistic throughout the rest of the evaluations.

The next question that I asked people was whether or not their opinions of Lloyd had shifted over time, and if so, when?

According to the results, the amount of people who rank him higher now and the amount of people who have kept him in the same place is near even: 41.8% to 40%.  Of the 22 people who responded that they ranked him higher, 13 of them said it was during the Oni trilogy.

This was both surprising and unsurprising for me to learn.  Surprising, because pre-s8 ninjago fandom was very wary/even opposed to the new seasons because of the new designs, changed voice actor, and different tone, among other things.  Unsurprising, because looking back, that’s when my ranking of Lloyd shifted too.  Apparently, my experience is not unique among the fandom.

The next 2 questions on the poll go hand in hand.  I asked for the poll takers’ first ninjago season, as well as whether or not their first experience with Ninjago was with the movie.  My hypothesis was that people who started with the movie or ns8+ would rank Lloyd higher on average than people who didn’t.  

Therefore, the results were fascinating to me.  People who started with the movie were exactly as likely to have Lloyd as their favorite (top 2) as people who didn’t!  Therefore, the movie had little impact, at least directly, on how people rank Lloyd.  Of the three people who watched s8 as their first ninjago season, only one ranked him in their top 2, making this point moot as well.

The last question on this poll had to do with age.  Specifically, what age were you when you started watching Ninjago?  My hypothesis for this one was that people who started the series young, pre-ten through twelve year olds, would be more likely to rank Lloyd as favorite (top 2).  I thought that younger viewers would be more likely to see themselves in Lloyd and sympathize with him more.

And like the movie results, age also seems to have little bearing on a person’s opinion of Lloyd.  44% of that “under 10-12″ age range ranked Lloyd in their top 2, but 42% of all the other age groups put together also had him there.  

There are more conclusions that could be made from this data, but I am too tired and not smart enough to do it XD.  If anyone would like, here’s the sheets link with all the data for your viewing pleasure.  I’ll wrap this up with the most important statistic.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Just read your post and agree with everything, esp about bad ship theories. One thing you said, kinda stuck out. The voting argument where Jimin went without JK, so therefore they seem to live in different areas. Then does this mean you think Vmin live in different areas? I mean, if they have been together for years, why would they not be living together? IDK, I just always kinda felt Vmin low key live together this whole time, but now your answer has me doubting that. You don't think Vmin do?

Admin 2: Hello anon,

In my reply I will try to convey to you my personal point of view in regard to Vmin and their relationship and in this case, how I see the question of them of living together.

The fact that four BTS members voted at the polling stations of their district shows that not all of them are registered in Hannam in their shared dorm.

We know, and it is no secret, that Taehyung bought an apartment in autumn 2019 in which, as you can see, he also seems to be registered. We know that Hobi and Jungkook bought their apartments at the end of 2018 in the same building and supposedly even on the same floor. Taehyung has posted photos from what looks like his apartment more than once and it is no secret that he owns and stays in this apartment. During some program on TV, one of his Wooga squad friends talked to Taehyung on FaceTime, who seemed to be at home in his apartment and wondered what he should eat.

Of course, there is more information from illegal sources, but we will not touch any of that.

It is known about Jimin and his living situation that his apartments (building) are under renovation.

Ok that's official facts of things we know. However, we do not know what the actual living situation of the individual members looks like.

Actually, all options are theoretically possible, but based on some logical considerations, some arrangements can be deduced. The fact that Taehyung is not registered in the dorm does not mean that he does not live there, or at least that he does not stay for a long time.

Jimin likely being officially registered as living at the dorm does not deny that he could also spend some time at Taehyung’s apartment. Do you understand what I'm going for? However, I exclude that officially Vmin or any couple could officially be live together. We have heard more than once about the obsessiveness of fans, about the stalking of the saessangs, about them occupying whatever buildings BTS are staying at, about the way they even go after the members families to get their hands on any kind of information’s.

Therefore, the best solution for Vmin is that they have access to Taehyung’s apartment. I think that in the dorm, and anywhere else (except for their bedrooms within the dorm), it would be impossible to lead any kind of relationship in peace.

There are all sorts of people at the dorm, their staff (like their managers) have success to the dorm and could just walk in at any time. The mere fact that Vmin (we assume they are a romantic couple) is in a fragile relationship and therefore any kind of leak, so to speak, would lead to a catastrophe. Antis and alike are just waiting for such "interesting" details from the private lives of the BTS members.

I believe that it is not possible to have any romantic relationship in a classic way within the group, and it is completely impossible for two members suspected of a romance to live together. (The same applies to J/k/ok etc.)

However, I am personally convinced that Vmin spends a lot of time together, even if only because they study together for their now master’s degree. I suspect they stay a lot together because Jimin wears Taehyung's clothes (especially his oversized boots) because even after work he was supposed to go to Tae (or Tae to Jimin) during the Billboard H100 # 1 night. We have screenshots of conversations with fans during games where Tae said he had to stop because Jimin had just made ramen, some other time he’d mentioned he was planning on doing something with Jimin the next day etc. Jimin said during Vlive in April 2020 that him and Tae like to go driving at night and many other things.

"Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey

Stay with me by my side"

And that is also my opinion: A normal relationship will only be possible for Vmin when they are no longer the most famous musicians in the world living in a very conservative Korea, especially since they (and other members as well) still have to go to their military service in the VERY conservative Korean Army. Actual suspicions of a queer relationship within the group could and likely would only endanger the members during their service, just like I previously mentioned in my reply to an ask about Jin’s reaction to Taehyung’s “Jiminah I like you the most”.

I would also like to add some observations and thoughts to members speaking about their situation in life.

I have a strong impression that it doesn't matter so much to the fans whether Namjoon or Yoongi or even Jin live at the dorm or anywhere else.

What obsessive fans care about is where and with whom the maknaes live.

Therefore, I often get the impression that some dialogues, some scenes in RUN or interviews or other shows are shown in such a way that there is some confusion about who with who and confusion about where the maknaes live and whether they live together or not. I may be delulu, but I often get such an impression, especially when it comes to Jimin, that he deliberately says certain things in a way that can be interpreted in multiples ways, or like they mean something, even though likely it doesn’t mean anything at all.

We know Jimin is very private and doesn’t readily share private information’s, so it just seems like he “feeds” obsessive shippers, of whom I’m sure he’s well aware they are listening and just waiting for it, something that really is empty just so they have something to do, like JK saying he wants to make pizza at the end of some RUN episode to which Jimin asked “at home?” which was asked (or at least translated by weverse/vlive) in such a manner that shippers spent the next two weeks discussing what home he meant and if that means they do live together. Because of that, really, Jungkook can keep his privacy, as can vmin, since shippers will hold on to those empty phrases (fanservice) while the members can do whatever they want away from the cameras. Does that make sense? So, in the end, even if it seems like Jimin shared some insight into their living arrangements, we really still know nothing at all about where the maknaes live and with whom. It’s very smart PR and fits with the media training Idols in general seem to receive.

Edit: I read your comments and I want to clarify what I meant with the above part about Jimin, since I really didn’t mean to shift the blame for bad shipper behavior on him in any kind of way: 

I’m sure we’ve all seen bad shippers make the argument that the members that are part of their ship supposedly purposefully say certain things to send them “secret/hidden messages” or “hints” that “only they will understand” which in turn are meant to prove their ships. That’s what I meant by “seems to “feed””, not that he’s purposefully “lying” in their favor or feeding into their weird fantasies, but rather that the vague things he sometimes says, or his occasionally cheeky/teasing comments made in good fun with the other members, are taken by shippers and interpreted in ways to fit their narratives, even if what Jimin says has nothing to do with ships at all, he’s obviously just joking/teasing, or it’s just a vague “empty”/deflective statement to keep private info private. 

In all those cases the blame is on shippers and their bad behavioral habits of twisting the members words instead of listening properly and realizing that Jimin is joking or that what he said isn’t a hint or anything at all.

After all, Jimin said so much, supposedly, and yet we know nothing, not even about him and Taehyung studying together, which was quite literally never mentioned by them. Not even once in passing.

Of course, everything I've written is just my personal opinion and point of view. I could of course be totally wrong.

From anon: I agree that "Feeding the Schipers" isn't the happiest phrase, but I get what is going on. I think what J/m says and how he says it is like fodder for ships. I don't think he's doing it on purpose, however. Definitely not. J/m has this style of teasing, joking and shippers buying it as "secret confessions or notices" but a cool comment in general.

Admin 1: I’d like to quote myself from my asks post yesterday as reply to this ask, since it fits here as well:

Besides, at the end of the day, their living arrangements are not something we are privy to and that we shouldn’t try to figure out either. The members say they still live at the dorm, and if that’s the version they want us to believe, that’s the one I’ll stick to, unless they tell me otherwise.

[todaysdocument]

“It is our purpose to present facts and figures showing that woman suffrage, where it has been tried, not only does not better conditions but actually tends to have the reverse effect from a practical standpoint.”

“ As they cannot serve in the Army and Navy, assist the officers in arresting criminals and putting down riots, etc., it cannot be said they have a right to vote laws which they cannot enforce and which would not be enforced unless the men of the country desired they should be. “

--The D.C. Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, 3/29/1916

File Unit: Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents which were Presented, Read, or Tabled during the 64th Congress, 1915 - 1917

Series: Petitions and Related Documents That Were Presented, Read, or Tabled, 1789 - 1966

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. Senate, 1789 - 2015

Transcription:

STATEMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ASSOCIATION

OPPOSED TO

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

We desire to present some facts as the pernicious effects of Woman Suffrage in the States where it now exists. There have been many theories on this subject presented by the suffragists. It is our purpose to present facts and figures showing that woman suffrage, where it has been tried, not only does not better conditions but actually tends to have the reverse effect from a practical standpoint. Senator Thomas, of Colorado, has said that he concedes that woman suffrage has not and maintains that it will not change conditions. We agree with the distinguished Senator up to a certain point, but we believe that we can show positively that woman suffrage will in many instances change conditions for the worse. We will first present some figures which will prove conflusively that woman do not vote as generally as men where the franchise is given them.

FAILURE OF WOMEN TO VOTE WHEN GIVEN THE BALLOT.

In six suffrage States of California, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Washington - Oregon, Arizona and Kan-sas did not adopt woman suffrage until November 5, 1912 - the abstract of United States Census of 1910, pages 110 and 118, shows there were in April, 1910, 3, 170, 153 men and women over [handwritten strike through over] 21 years of age and over, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese. The Total vote actually cast for President, November 5, 1912, in the six woman-suffrage states was 1, 521, 590, so 47.9 per cent of the men and women over 21 years of age exclusive of Japanese and Chinese actually voted.

In the six adjoining and neighboring States of Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Nevada, South Dakota and Missouri, where men alone voted, the total number of men 21 years and over, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese, was (in April 1910, Abstract of Census, p. 110) 2, 295, 119; total vote in the six male-suffrage States for President, November 5, 1912, 1, 587, 984; 69.1 per cent of the men over 21 years of age, exclusive of Japanese and Chinese, actually voted, or about 22 per cent more of the possible voters in the male-suffrage States voted than did the possible voters of the six adjoining woman-suffrage states.If 69.1 per cent of the men voted in the woman-suffrage states, as men in the adjoining male-suffrage States did vote, then an analysis of the figures show that only 19.1 per cent of the women over 21 years of age in the six woman-suffrage states actually voted.  If more than 19.1 per cent of women did vote in the six woman-suffrage states, then less than 69.1 per cent of the men votes, so it is impossible to escape one or the other conclusion - that the women do not vote as generally as men when given the ballot, or if they do, their voting does cause less interest to taken in politics by men, and in either event the suffrage cause is harmful to the Republic.

According to advice from Secretary of State Jordan's office at Sacramento, Cal.,where the names and addresses of all registered voters are sent in order that sample ballots can be mailed them according to law, 804,633 men and 180,000 women registered in California to vote at election November 5, 1912. (See Los Angeles Times October 27, 1912)

This shows that about 93 per cent of men in California registered and only about 27 per cent of the women.  The total vote for President November 5, 1912, and all the candidates in California was 673,527; total registration 984,633; sixty-eight and four-tenths per cent of men and women who registered voted.  If 68.4 per cent of the registered women actually voted, which is not likely, as women do not register as generally as men, - it

[page 2] 

15/118

-12-

Third: As the Father of our Country truly said "Government without force is a nullity", and is not just nor democratic for women to vote laws unless they can fulfill all the functions of government. As they cannot serve in the Army and Navy, assist the officers in arresting criminals and putting down riots, etc., it cannot be said they have a right to vote laws which they cannot enforce and which would not be enforced unless the men of the country desired they should be.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE NOT AN INHERENT RIGHT.

"The granting of the franchise", said Chief Justice Marshall, "has always been regarded in the practise of nations, as a matter of expedience and not as an inherent right."

If it is a right for all to vote who pay taxes and who live under laws they must obey, then all State laws preventing Chinese, U.S. Soldiers, and illiterate men from voting should be repealed. Also laws for punishing boys for crimes, or taxing their property should be abolished as boys have no xxx voice in making the laws of the land till they reach the age of 21 years, yet who would say that the laws pertaining to the youth of our land are unfair or unjust, or who would say that the illiterate man is living under unjust laws in the many States where he is not allowed a voice in the making of them? Would it be wise for our laws to be made by illiterate men? Illiterate men, Chinese and boys under 21 are people and are not allowed to vote, and it is not now, and never has been, considered expedient for all people to use the franchise. Only when the interests of all the people, men, women and children, are best served by granting the franchise to any one, is voting a right, as suffrage is a political and not a natural or inherent right, but entirely amatter of expediency.

The women of Colorado or Arizona might say that as men had always held the offices for the enforcement of laws against crimes, such as train-robbing, cattle-stealing, etc., that it was a right for women to be placed in these offices; but who would say that women could arrest criminals and enforce the laws as well as men? And as they could not, who would say it was a right they should be given such offices? The same is true of voting; as women only perform the duty of voting to a much less degree than men, and thereby the will of the people is not as well expressed at the polls, it cannot be a right, nor is it justice for women to vote.

We believe that you will all agree with us that the main object of voting is to register the will of the majority; that it may be crystalized into the law of the land; that any propaganda that tends to and does, in some instances, defeat the will of the majority is inimical to our form of government.

We think from the instances cited we have shown beyond question that women given the ballot do not vote as generally as men. When a man votes in a male suffrage State his vote counts one, but in a woman suffrage State, unless his wife votes, his vote counts one-half. If a single man, if the women of his class do not vote relatively as generally as men of his class and opinions, his vote is of less effect than if women were not enfranchised. The fact that the different classes of women do not vote relatively in so large a proportion as men of the different classes in the suffrage States tends to, and in many instances, does defeat the will of the majority, and the registration of the will of the majority is the cornerstone of demovratic government. No cause can be just or right that defeats

[geekgirles]

Your Heart

Chapter 6 -- A Ghostophobe, a Giant Iguana, and Vegan Nacho Cheese

Word Count: 14402

READ ON AO3

As an aspiring astronaut, Danny’s dream had always been going to space. 

Being able to look at the vastness of the universe, to literally look down on Earth and see every single country at once, to stargaze up close… All from the comfort of the space station as he leisurely floated around in zero gravity. 

Really, that was all he asked for. 

He was convinced he lost his chance when he got his powers. 

Although not directly connected to his dream, the birth of Danny Phantom almost put his GPA in jeopardy several times. Before the accident, he used to be a good student, granted, not as good as Jazz, but he brought home good marks. But once the first sleepless night trying to catch rogue ghosts came, countless more were soon to follow. 

Between the lack of sleep, being tardy to class or skipping it altogether, and many more instances of ‘teenage rebellion’ (all caused by his attempts to save everyone from malevolent spirits, not like anyone cared), Danny was sure his dreams of going to space had all but vanished before him.

There were no words capable of describing his joy when he miraculously pulled just the mark he needed to be accepted at Amity Park University’s Astrophysics degree. So what if he couldn’t go to a fancy college like Yale, or Stanford? That was Jazz’s dream, not his. Besides, studying at APU was perfect for protecting the town and getting access to the Ghost Zone. 

He seriously doubted any of those preppy colleges would have granted him permission to build a ghost portal in their labs, anyway. 

And so, he was closer to his dream than he’d thought he’d ever be during all of high school. During that time, he found solace in flying. Being one of the only two people in the whole world who could fly without help was even more special than being selected by NASA; a feat in itself. And it was so...liberating.

Even when he struggled most with his powers, just being able to fly made it all worth it. The immense relief that would envelop him whenever he just let the breeze guide him, lazily swaying in the sky and under the moonlight. The feeling he’d get whenever the adrenaline coursed through his veins as he picked up speed, sometimes even breaking the sound barrier when he felt like really challenging himself. Or just the chance to quiet the hectic voices ruling his life, even for just one moment: fight ghosts, save everyone, try to fit in, don’t let Mum and Dad find out what you are. Fight ghosts, save everyone, try to fit in, don’t let Mum and Dad find out what you are. Fight ghosts, save everyone, try toー

The mere chance to leave his worries behind, even for just a second, made the prospect of losing his one chance at his dream seem worth it.

Although...he did get the chance to be an astronaut during freshman year. But that was a story for another day. 

Now, at twenty-one and with even more things to worry about, flying was still the one place he could find solace in. Tucker often told him that’d change the day he found himself a girlfriend, but let’s be real; who’d want to date someone like him?

Unlike high school, however, his problem wasn’t his look or his personality. The not-so-subtle glancesーwhich were almost predatory, might he addーand shameless gossiping and squealing he got from the girls around campus confirmed he’d grown from ‘Scrawny, Awkward Fenturd’, to ‘Tall, Dark, and Handsome Fenstud.’ 

The moniker stroked his ego, he wasn’t going to deny it. But the problem wasn’t his popularity with the opposite sex. The problem was how the opposite sex would react if they knew his secret. 

Okay, maybe that was the wrong way to phrase that sentence. If the excited shrieking and squealing his alter ego received from the members of his fan club were anything to go by, any of those girls would faint in elation if they ever got the chance to date Danny Phantom. The polls from gossip magazines dedicated to discussing how hot the Ghost Boy was ーwhen were they gonna change that nickname to ‘Ghost Man’, anyway? When he was 40?!ー didn’t lie. 

The real problem would come when his girlfriend got involved in his double life. And even if he wouldn’t want her to be involved, let alone fight ghosts alongside him like Tucker and Jazz did, deep down he knew it was inevitable. The moment his enemies found out he had a new girlfriend, they would use her to get to him. After all, what better way to defeat someone than to exploit his weakness? If Technus, of all people, could come up with that plan, anybody else could.

As he surveyed Amity Park from above, lost in his thoughts, Danny suddenly registered a source of heat coming from his right. Quickly swirling in the opposite direction to avoid the incoming projectile, a pink beam of ecto-energy, he quickly scanned his surroundings to identify his opponent. And judging by the way his Ghost Sense hadn't gone off, that could only be one person.

“Valerie.”

“It’s Red Huntress for you, spook!” A snarl, accompanied by another pink blast, came from above him. After blocking the attack with an ecto-shield, he looked up. Lo and behold, Valerie was hovering over him on her forked, black and red hoverboard, an ecto-gun protruding from her forearm and aimed directly at him.

Valerie Gray, also known as The Red Huntress. Amity Park’s most competent ghost hunter, after him. Who also happened to be his sorta-kinda-maybe-it’s-complicated ex-girlfriend. Or his S.K.M.I.C.E.G.F. for short.

Somehow, that acronym never had a good reception.

His story with Valerie was...an interesting one, to say the least. Their relationship was full of ups and downs, with the downs eventually becoming an integral and exclusive part of their interactions as Danny Phantom and The Red Huntress. 

They started out as complete strangers. Well, not exactly. They both knew of each other back in the beginning to freshman year of high school, but they didn’t know each other. Valerie started out as another A-lister; haughty, self-centred, she made no effort to hide her disdain for those ‘bellow her.’ Of course, Danny, being Danny Fenton, one of the biggest losers in Casper High, was particularly low in her long list of those ‘bellow her.’

But that all changed thanks to a little ghost puppy he called Cujo. 

Cujo was the ghost of a guard dog trained by Axion Labs, where Damon Gray, Valerie’s father, worked. They got rid of the dogs after upgrading the security system, with the misfortune of preparing the labs for any possible kind of assault, except for a ghost puppy with the ability to turn into a bigger, more menacing dog looking for his lost chew toy. 

Needless to say, things could’ve gone better. If only because his accidental meddling had been indirectly responsible for Mr. Gray losing his job, the Grays losing their fortune and their house, Valerie falling from grace and losing her popularity, and her developing a huge grudge against all ghosts, especially him, that lasted well into present time.

If there were job applications for fucking people over that weren’t exclusively related to sex work, he’d be a pro. 

As expected when someone dedicated their lives to hunting you, regardless of your attempts to befriend them or explain the situation, the two didn’t quite get along at first. Between Valerie’s newfound purpose to waste him and the fact that she never really acknowledged she’d been as terrible to him and Tucker as the A-listers were now with her, the two often butted heads even at school. 

Their opinions of each other didn’t change until Skulker forced them to work together to survive his island and his attempts at hunting them both, when they actually had a heart-to-heart. Their civilian selves being simultaneously paired up for a Health class project also helped. 

But what really changed things was the very same events that turned Danny Phantom into the Ghost King. 

During Pariah Dark’s return, Danny Fenton and Valerie Gray really connected, and Danny learned to appreciate her in a whole new light. She was amazing while she fought Dark and the Fright Knight; the months she’d had to hone her abilities really shone through. Her attacks were intuitive, yet calculated. Her moves, nimble but they packed quite the punch. She was confident, and yet cautious enough to not get cocky. 

As odd as it sounded, seeing her fight was incredibly hot. 

...alright, so maybe he did have a thing for girls who could kick his ass. He blamed his dad for that one. 

That day, something sparked between them...but only between Danny Fenton and Valerie; she still hated the Ghost Boy with every fiber of her being. She was positively furious when she found out he’d been chosen as the next ruler of the Ghost Zone. 

Danny had to admit, anybody else with half a brain cell would have understood that crushing on a girl hellbent on destroying a part of him maybe wasn’t the best idea ever. Tucker and Jazz certainly thought so. But he was fourteen, hormones were high, and Valerie was the coolest girl he’d ever met so far, so…

Common sense be damned. 

And so, they tried going out for some time. During those few dates the two went together he was over the moon, walking on air, he couldn’t believe his luck! He’d finally found a girl who liked him for him. Someone real and approachable, unlike his previous crushes on popular girlsーironically enough since Valerie herself used to be an unapproachable popular girl.

The universe itself seemed to want them to be together!

Not only did they dates suddenly get better thanks to some weird coincidenceーa blackout turning a dinner in a greasy diner into a romantic candle-lit evening, winning carnival tickets at the baseball game, the ferris wheel stopping at the most romantic point possibleーbut they seemed to be enough to get the idea inside Valerie’s head that maybe their relationship was worth giving up ghosthunting for. 

Until Tucker, Jazz, and, surprisingly enough, Technus burst his little bubble. Turned out, Technus, who still didn’t respect him as his new ruler, seeing Valerie as a potential weakness, manipulated their relationship to keep him busy while he worked on his latest scheme. 

The self-called ‘Master of Technology’ was also responsible for Valerie’s hatred of ghosts being renewed, for the destruction of her original suit followed by an upgrade to her current armor, and for Danny’s one-time experience in space (a happy coincidence). 

Oh, and had he mentioned Technus’ meddling also led to Valerie breaking up with him before he could even ask her to go steady (hence the S.K.M.I.C.E.G.F. situation), giving him the most cliché excuse in the superheroing book, because she hated his ghost half more than she liked his human half?

Because it totally did.

Looking back, with Valerie’s icy glare set on him and a very menacing looking ecto-gun aimed straight at his forehead, maybe dating a ghost hunter set on killing him wasn’t his best idea. Fucking hormones…

“Look, Valerie, can we wrap this up? I’m really not in the mood.”

“Oh, we’ll wrap it up alright, Phantom,” she sneered, “with your ass in a body bag!” She shot at him again with the weapon protruding from her forearm. Seeing as the ghost only ducked the ecto-rays with relative difficulty, she changed tactics. Quickly typing down a command on her control panel, from between her fingers materialised three razor-sharp pink discs. 

The moment her attention was focused elsewhere, Danny took the chance and flew off at top speed. Noticing his attempt to escape from the corner of her eye, refusing to let him get away, the Red Huntress stepped on the hidden button of her board’s body. With a whirring sound, the engines roared to life, allowing her to fly after him. 

Once the Ghost Boy was within reaching distance and too busy trying to get away from her, with a swift motion of her arm, Valerie hurled the pink discs at him. At the sound of air being sliced, Danny turned his head just enough to notice the pink projectiles coming towards him from the corner of his eye. Maneuvering through the sky, he managed to dodge the first two, but as he ducked away from the second disc, the third came close enough to slice his upper arm. 

Wincing in pain, not once stopping his flight, he cradled his arm to inspect the wound. Despite the oozing ectoplasm coming out of it, it was just a superficial cut. He’d live. As he registered the sudden heat approaching his back, Danny understood the only way to get rid of Valerie was fighting her. 

As much as he hated fighting a friend, it was pointless to resist when said friend was trying to shoot holes into his body. And if he made the mistake of letting her get too close, he’d get caught in between her board’s forked ends, giving his chaser the perfect chance to activate the stinger and electrocute him. 

“Hate to break it to you, Valerie. But I’m already dead, so body bags are pretty pointless!” Charging up his ecto-ray, hands glowing green, Danny shot in her direction, holding back just enough so Val would be forced to swirl around the sky to avoid getting hit. It was his signature move when facing off against Valerie: distract her with the need for an evasive maneuver in order to gain enough time to escape himself. 

Just as he predicted, when the green rays of energy got closer to her, the Red Huntress willed her board to keep moving to the opposite direction of the blasts. What he hadn’t predicted, though, was that she’d change tactics and face the blasts head-on. The impact caused a plume of smoke to rise up in the air, hiding the girl from view.

Before he could fuss over her safety, however, Valerie rose up above him. Hunched down on her board before elegantly moving to stand tall, a smug grin on her face, she was surrounded by a bluish ghost shield coming from her preferred method of transport. He always forgot she could do that. “That’s too bad.” She said in a fake, sugary voice. “Guess I’ll just have to resign myself to seeing you fade.” 

In an instant, she willed three metallic cubes to manifest around her head and shoulders. As the devices charged up, the Red Huntress gave chase to him once more. 

Reacting almost a split-second too late, Danny resumed his own attempts of leaving her behind. Whenever an energy beam got too close for comfort, he either put all his years of flying to good use and miraculously managed to avoid getting hit, or he’d focus his energy on forming ecto-shields of different sizesーdepending on her ecto-rays' own intensity. The untrained observer would point out he could just turn intangible and the beams would harmlessly pass through him, but that was too simple. And fighting Val was never simple. 

Even when she’d first got her gearーand by that he meant her old, non-Technus-upgraded gearーthe Red Huntress’ various weapons were all capable of hitting him even when he went intangible. Therefore, lowering his guard like that around her was like a clear invitation to get his ass whooped. 

Getting frustrated, with Val still hot in his ghost-tail, he bellowed, “Would you just quit it?! I still got a mark from the last time we fought!”

Smirking darkly, Valerie forewent her cubic guns for her trusty ecto-grenade. “Then I know where to hit next.” She declared before throwing the dangerous device at him, hitting him square on his left shoulder.

As a burning pain suddenly spread through his left shoulder to the tip of his fingertips, not all was lost, for the resulting explosion had sent him flying across the sky to the asphalt, effectively putting some much needed distance from him and his pursuer. 

Hands propped on the street and barely supporting his weight, Danny laboriously lifted his head up. All around him, people were either running away in fright of the impending battle or crowding the street as they pointed at him, whispering amongst themselves. 

Lifting himself up to a sitting position, the halfa gently nursed his aching shoulder, wincing in pain whenever his fingertips touched the sensitive skin. Although whatever damage Valerie had managed to inflict upon him would soon be gone thanks to his enhanced healing factor, he knew he didn’t have the luxury to wait that long. Knowing the ghost hunter, she’d be around, looking for him. And the moment she found him, she’d waste no time resuming their confrontation.

The Red Huntress would never stop until the source of all her misery was finally banished to the Ghost Zone, or disposed off permanently. 

Grunting in pain, Danny willed the cold of his core to spread throughout his body until it reached his hands. The moment his hand blazed a familiar, chilly blue he began caressing his suffering shoulder, the cold emanating from his fingertips a welcomed painkiller. 

“Is there anything more unfair than being pummeled to a pulp when you’re actually holding back from hurting the other person?” He grunted, but his musings were cut short by another ecto-beam barely missing his head, a whiff of smoke coming from the asphalt that’d cushioned the hit. 

His heart suddenly in his throat, the halfa gingerly looked up, only to find Valerie a few feet away from him, a smoking, double-cannoned ecto-bazooka resting on her shoulder, which only elicited the whispers around them to grow louder, more frantic. “Gotcha.” She said, her glare colder than his ice powers. 

Adrenaline kicking his brain in overdrive, Danny frantically looked around, trying to find a way to escape that didn’t involve hurting Valerie or any of the onlookers. Argh, if only he could just turn intangible! As he futilely tried crawling away, his gloved hands moving against the asphalt floor below him, the sensation sparked an idea. Maybe turning intangible was useless against the Red Huntress’ weapons, but phasing wasn’t.

The only thing he needed was a distraction, and the whirring sound coming from the charging ecto-bazooka gave him an idea. It was reckless, but that seemed to be his thing lately, wasn’t it?

“Say goodbye, Phantom!” Valerie spat just as the weapon perched on her shoulder was done charging up, shooting a powerful blast his way. 

Using the hand that was previously healing his wounds, Danny shot his own ecto-ray at the incoming projectile, causing his adversary to gasp in surprise. “Goodbye, Red!”

As the two forces came into contact with each other, under the stunned gazes of everyone present, they exploded into a blinding light that forced everyone, Valerie included, to shield their eyes. Wasting no time, Danny turned intangible, phasing through the floor and into the Amity Park sewer system. Once underground, he let his transformation drop, knowing Val’s Ghost Radar would find him otherwise, before making his way around the sewers in search of the nearest exit, his body leaning against the wall for support. 

After what felt like an eternity, Valerie finally got her forearm out of her face. What was the point in having a dark-tinted visor if she could still be blinded? Once she’d regained the totality of her sight, that is to say, she no longer saw dark spots dancing around her vision, she quickly redirected her gaze to where Phantom stood. 

Nothing.

Gasping, Valerie looked up to the sky. As her eyes scanned around for a black and white, flying figure, or even anything amiss in case the Ghost Boy had turned invisible, she soon realised the green-eyed spook was truly nowhere to be seen. Despite her growing frustration at losing her target, the Red Huntress quickly typed a command on her suit, hoping her Ghost Radar could still detect him. No such luck. 

Growling in frustration with murder in her eyes, she jumped mid-air, summoning her hoverboard to appear right bellow her. Roaring the engines to life, she took off in direction to Elmerton, her home for the last seven years. 

As she soared the skies, Valerie kept looking back and forth between her radar and her surroundings, looking for Phantom. “I was so close, damn it! Every time I think I finally have that ectoplasmic punk right where I want him, he up and disappears!” With a furious yell to the sky, she leaned on her board, using her feet to increase its speed.

Her gear had to be the only good thing that came out of her first encounter with that ghostly bastard. Even if she’d lost everything and her dad was constantly working long hours to keep her in collegeーher wonderful, incredible, genius dad, who deserved much more than just being a crammy security night guardー, at least what happened at Axion Labs all those years ago had given her two things: the gear necessary to become Amity Park’s most powerful ghost hunter, and the purpose to eliminate all bodiless apparitions from the face of the Earth. 

Starting by Danny Phantom. 

Valerie could only scoff at some people’s stupidity. Although most citizens had half the brains necessary to figure out Danny Phantom was a threat, there were still some who revered him as some kind of hero.

Oh, it was true. He saved the town from falling into that Ghost King’s claws, but didn’t anybody remember what happened afterwards? Because she did. Not even a week after ‘saving’ everyone from a fate worse than deathーand causing her some injuries and for her dad to both find out about her ghost-hunting escapades and forbid her from ever touching her equipment again, to add insult to injuryー, he ascended as the next Ghost King. 

And people still celebrated him? Were they blind?!

It was clear that Phantom only ever fought the Ghost King, not to protect Amity Park, or whatever nonsense he kept trying to feed the public, but to dethrone him himself! He wanted that psycho’s position for himself, so he could keep terrorising the town with even less opposition than before! 

“Hero my ass…” Valerie scoffed in disbelieving disgust. 

But, apparently, only Valerie and the Fentons had any common sense on the matter. “Wow. Never thought I’d have anything in common with the Fentons…” she mused aloud. As much as she’d liked Danny when they were fourteen, his family was a whole different thing.

When she finally made out her apartment complex in the distance, the armored girl couldn’t help but carefully glide near their living room window, where she could see her father sleeping soundly on the couch after a long nightーtoo tired to even go to bed. 

Carefully resting her gloved hand against the window glass, worriedly looking at the man who’d been her only source of comfort for as long as she could remember, her heart broke. “Don’t worry, Dad. I promise, one day Phantom’ll be mine. And then we’ll finally cash in that reward and leave this shit hole once and for all.” 

With renewed determination, she went around her floor until she was right beside her own room. Due to her always leaving her bedroom window open, all she had to do was squeeze herself inside. Now standing in her room, she deactivated her suit, which disappeared in a swirl of electricity. Walking over her mirror, Valerie picked up a quasi-new set of clothes that were lying on her chair. “But first, let’s pay that college tuition. It won’t look good if I’m late on my first day.”

............

Phasing through the walls, Danny stumbled into his sister’s room. He would’ve fallen face-first on the floor hadn’t it been for his hands instinctively stopping the fall. 

Her head snapping to the distinctive sound of a ‘thud’, Jazz immediately swirled around on her computer chair. “A little help?” Danny grunted tiredly. 

Gasping at the state her little brother was in, the redhead all but threw herself at him in order to inspect any possible wounds, only to recoil in disgust when she caught a sniff of him, pinching her nose. “Ew! What happened to you to smell that horridly?! What did you do, die for real?”

“I phased through the floor and into the sewers.” The black-haired boy dryly corrected, not appreciating his sister’s skewed priorities. “Now, if you would be so kind as to help me out...”

Jazz at least had the decency to blush. Offering a hand to her brother, she helped him stand up before guiding him to her bed. Then she lowered him on top of it and resumed her previous inspection of him. She jumped back in surprise at Danny’s sudden, sharp inhale of breath when she accidentally grazed his left shoulder. 

In an instant, she was basically in his face, fussing over him. “Danny? Are you okay? Is there anything wrong with your shoulder?”

“Everything’s fiー”, he stopped short when he registered her worried look. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I saw Valerie today.”

“Oh, no.” The eldest Fenton kid lamented, knowing where the conversation was headed.

“Yeah...I tried losing her, but in the meantime she landed a few mean punches on me...figuratively speaking, of course.”

“So I’m guessing your shoulder cushioned a nasty one?”

He nodded, barely turning his head to look at her. “Ecto-grenade.” He said simply, and Jazz cringed in sympathy. “Yeah. I numbed the pain a little by applying some cold with my powers, but a few real painkillers might do me some good until it’s properly healed.”

“Sure.” With a nod, Jazz got up from the bed and crossed over to the other side of the room, where her closet was located. Opening the door and standing on her tiptoes to reach the higher shelf, she grabbed her hidden first aid kit before setting it down on her desk. “Any other injuries I should know about?” She asked as she rummaged through her supplies, taking a small plastic jar with Ibuprofen from it. 

“Just a superficial cut on my arm. It’s almost completely healed now, but putting a band-aid on it just in case wouldn’t hurt.” 

Flopping herself down next to her baby brother again, medical supplies in hand, Jazz helped Danny out of his t-shirt. When she saw the burns on his shoulder, though, she couldn’t help but wince. “Are you sure you don’t want me to put some bandages on it, Danny? It looks pretty bad…”

The halfa sighed. He knew his sister would fuss over his health; she always did. “It’ll heal, Jazz. It always does.” Then he caught her expression from the corner of his eye. “...but if it’ll make you feel better, I suppose a few bandages just in case don’t so bad.”

Nodding readily, the aqua-eyed woman went to quickly retrieve some of the aforementioned bandages from her kit. Then she proceeded to wrap them around her brother’s left shoulder and pectorals. When Danny sent her a questioning look, she just shrugged and said, “Just in case.”

With his shoulder taken care of, Danny, almost begrudgingly, stretched his arm out to her, letting her inspect his cut. Even though he was right and it was just a flesh wound, it was still important to clean it. Pouring some disinfectant on a bunch of cotton balls, with the help of tweezers she gently dubbed the cotton against his skin, prompting Danny to wince in displeasure. 

She rolled her eyes at his childishness, annoyed. “Oh, come on! You literally just faced a ghost huntress, walked around the sewers for who knows how long, and this is something to complain about? Don’t be such a baby!”

“Hey, you have no right to complain about me complaining! You’re not the one who’s routinely going through some kind of medical procedure.” And he’d never want her to go through one; not even a simple check up. 

“Whatever,” she said as she put the band-aid on. She dusted her hands off before smiling proudly at him. “All done. Now, go get some rest before it’s time to go and you have to shower.”

Danny pouted. “Do we still have to go? Jazz, I’m injured…” He tried to bargain with his best sad, puppy-dog look. 

Jazz wasn’t buying, though. “Should’ve thought about that before you assured me your wounds would heal soon. Come on, Danny, you know I’ve been dying to try this place out and you promised to take me.”

“Can’t you take Tucker with you while I rest, instead?”

“No, because,” she lifted three fingers up, ready to count her options off, “one, he’s not my brother, and I’d like to go with my brother. Two, if you turn your head to my nightstand ever so slightly, you’ll see it’s only 12:30 PM on a Saturday; we’re leaving at sevenーyou’ll have plenty of time to rest. And three...can you really imagine Tucker stepping foot in that sort of place even if I bribed him with $1000?”

Danny visibly deflated at that. “No…”

“Then it’s settled.” Jazz declared. “Go to your room and rest. I’ll tell Mum and Dad you came while they were working on the lab and that you’re tired from an all-nighter of working on an assignment.”

“You’d think they’d be surprised I’m not getting straight A’s with all the times we’ve used the studying excuse on them…” Danny muttered as he left his sister's room. 

Standing against the door, Jazz shrugged. “Mum thinks spending so many nights awake studying is actually counter-productive, so…”

Danny chuckled before standing in front of his room’s door. Before going in, however, he called out to her. “Uh, Jazz?”

“Hm?” 

“You’re the best.” He smiled at her. 

She smiled back. “Anytime, Baby Brother.”

..............

A deafening roar echoed throughout the manor. Her heart pounding, Sam ran as fast as she could along the corridors, barely registering where she was going. She took so many turns around the halls she lost count, all portraits and decorations merging together so it’d look like she was running through the same, never ending hallway. But she didn’t care. All that mattered was getting to the origin of the noise. 

When she finally arrived before the gates guarding the bloodcurdling sounds, she skidded to a halt so abruptly she almost gave herself whiplash. Now that she was closer to the source, Sam could also make out the sound of screaming coming from inside the room. And when she noticed just where the roaring and screaming was coming from, her heart all but stopped.

The training room. 

The place where the younger members of the clan practiced and perfected their magic. Whatever happened there now had a group of kids trapped! 

She had to do something!

But, being the queen and therefore not being able to afford anything happening to her in fear of unleashing a civil war, she’d promised she’d wait for Wilhelmina to arrive, or at the very least, for Paulina and Star to support her. 

Anxiously, her eyes kept darting back and forth in all directions, hoping against hope that someone, anyone, would soon come to help. They couldn’t risk their kids’ lives like that. Suddenly, the roars and screams only got louder, accompanied by the sounds of thrashing and the crunching of wood being broken. 

Whatever it was that was going on, it was mayhem!

The minutes felt like hours and there was still no sight of her Minister of War or her handmaidens. Fear gripping at her heart, terrified for the sake of the students trapped behind those doors, Sam threw all caution to the wind. Willing her mind to clear so she could establish a proper connection with her anima, the Witch Queen cupped her hands together in front of her chest, taking advantage of the extra dose of adrenaline to fuel her essence. As soon as she felt the familiar pull of power, she opened her now blazing, violet eyes and shouted, “Aries!”

From her open palms a host of purple light began to take form. In the blink of an eye, the spell solidified, shooting forwards to the gates and effectively crushing them by sheer force. As the dust resulting from the impact cleared, allowing Sam to finally see what was going on, all she could do was gasp. 

Standing tall and imposing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a group of terrified students who were hiding from it in the furthest corner of the classroom behind a row of desks, a gigantic iguana, the size of that dragon ghost that sometimes haunted the town, roared as it shoved tables out of its way���their now spilled contents cluttered the floor. 

When the giant reptile’s eye landed on her, obviously taking notice of the explosion of light, Sam felt her blood run cold. And yet, in spite of the danger, she preferred having the beast targeting her than causing harm to the girls. As the creature threateningly stomped in the direction she was in, the young queen formulated a plan. 

If she could just keep the iguana distracted long enough until Wilhelmina came, she could win enough time to allow the kids to escape. But she’d have to tell them her plan as well. 

“And I know how.” She mused aloud with a smirk on her face. She was just glad she was currently wearing pants instead of an extravagant dress. 

As she waited for the reptile to get closer to her, biding her time, Sam intertwined her fingers save for her indexes and thumbs, which were in contact with each other. Then, just as the iguana’s claw was about to strike, she mimicked the action of a gun shooting with her arms. “Ignis!” She cried out. 

From her fingertips she kept shooting energy beams at the monster as she ran in the direction the girls were in. When one of her beams hit the iguana in the eye, causing it to cry out in pain and, most importantly, to be distracted, Sam quickly slid down to behind the remaining desksーwhere the girls were. 

“Girls, are you okay?!” She whispered-shouted as soon as she caught sight of them. They were a small group, six girls around the ages of 10-12. 

One of them, a brunette with green eyesーViolet, if Sam wasn’t wrongー, spoke up on behalf of her friends. “Your Majesty! Oh, thank Goodness...Yeah, we’re fine. As soon as that thing appeared we ran and hid here.”

The violet-eyed witch sighed in relief. “Thank God. Alright, Violet, right?” The girl nodded, the smile on her face was so wide due to the Queen remembering her name, one would almost forget they were all in danger.  “Right. I need you to tell me how this happened. And why are you guys all alone, shouldn’t an adult be with you at all times?”

Lola, a shy girl with black hair and glasses, and a distant relative of Paulina, answered instead. “Uh, well, we-we weren’t alone, your Highness.”

She’d have to tell them some other time that title was for princes and princesses, not queens. But first, saving their lives. “What do you mean, Lola? Who was with you?”

“Wilhelmina.”

“Wilhelmina?!” she repeated, a little too loudly. Wincing at the realisation, she hushed the girls in case the iguana had heard them. Whimpering in fright, the kids got closer to her, and she unconsciously wrapped her arms around them. After a few minutes and no response from the monster, Sam let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Okay. Girls, can you explain to me why Wilhelmina isn’t here? It’s not like her to leave students unsupervised.”

“Class was ending, anyway.” Violet explained. “She said she had something to do and that she trusted us to clean everything up before we left.”

Sam did not like where this was going. “And the giant iguana?”

“We don’t know.” Lola said, then she pointed at one of her friends, a blonde named Tamara. “We were talking about the familiars we’d like to have when we completed our Rite of Passage while we were finishing brewing today’s potion when Tammy said she’d wish to have an iguana. And, boom!”

“Is that true, Tammy?” Sam questioned the girl. 

Tammy nodded, tearing up. “Y-yes…I-I said...I-I’d like...a-an iguana and...and then...the p-potion...started b-boiling...and o-out of n-nowhere...that...that monster appeared!” She admitted between cries. 

Panicking, both because of the little girl crying and the potential danger of being discovered, Sam scooted closer to her, wiping her tears away with her hands. “Shh, shh! It’s okay, Tammy. It’s not your faultーthese things happen!”

“R-really?”

The queen nodded, smiling reassuringly at her. “Really. This sort of thing happens all the time. You’ll learn what it is soon enough.”

“So I’m not in trouble?”

“No, you’re not.” 

Before Sam could so much as blink, the girl threw her arms at her, hugging her. The raven-haired witch stiffened at the contact, not used to dealing with physical affection...or kids. After a minute, though, she relaxed and returned the embrace. Tammy needed comfort at the moment. 

“What do we do now, your Majesty?” Violet asked, bringing her queen back to Earth. 

“Is that thing going to eat us?” Lola insisted, looking positively spooked. 

“No, no. None of that!” Sam assured them, letting go of Tammy. “Because I have a plan.” She motioned with her hands for the girls to get closer to her before continuing. “First of all, don’t worry. Iguanas are herbivores; they don’t eat meat, let alone humans! So listen closely, any minute now Wilhelmina, my ladies-in-waiting, and whoever else they’d called for help will appear through that door. I’ll share my plan with them and while we keep the iguana busy, you’ll run away from here. Understood?”

The group nodded readily. “Good.”

“Your Majesty, where are you?!” A familiar voice called out to her. 

Crawling quietly, Sam dedicated one last look at the younger witches. “Remember, don’t move until I tell you to go, got it?”

“Got it.” The six of them said in unison. 

With a nod of her own, Sam crawled out of her hiding place before standing up and breaking into a full run to the direction the voice came fromーapparently, it was Susan who’d called out to her, accompanying her mentor. The latter, as well as Star and Paulina, were blocking the reptile’s exit. 

“Ignis!” repeating her actions from earlier, she shot another energy beam at the beast, before standing beside her subjects. 

“What is that thing!?” Paulina asked, looking completely revolted. 

“It’s the result of a spell gone awry.” The Witch Queen answered. “A girl got distracted while brewing a potion and this is the result.”

“What kind of distraction?” Star raised an eyebrow. 

“What do you think?” Sam replied as if that was all the answer she needed. 

Apparently, it was, because nobody else said a word until Wilhelmina’s hoarse voice broke the silence. “Your Majesty! What are you doing here!? You’re supposed to wait for help to come!”

The Goth couldn’t be bothered to pretend she cared about the protocol right now, especially not after discovering her fellow Council member had left a group of witches in-training completely unsupervised. “Not now, Wilhelmina! The kids are still here; we’ve gotta help them escape!”

“And how are we going to do that?” Star let out, trying to hold down the barrier of fiery, orange energy she’d created to prevent the beast from leaving the training room. 

“I have a plan.” Sam turned her attention to the potion-maker in-training. “Susan! Do you have one of your Minisize Me potions on you?”

The Asian teenager reached for her bandolier and grabbed a spherical jar in her hand. “Always, your Majesty!”

“Good! While Star holds the barrier down, Wilhelmina, Paulina, and I will try to restrain our little friend long enough for the girls to escape. As soon as the last girl has left the room, you have to throw the potion at the monster. It’s the only way to take care of it!” She then turned to her lady-in-waiting. “Star, the moment this thing’s all tied up, you let your barrier go so the girls can leave, got it?”

“Yes, my Queen!” Both girls exclaimed in unison, readying themselves. 

“Very well. Wilhelmina, Paulina,” she called out to them, “you take care of binding the reptile with me. Wilhelmina, since you’ve got the potions, you take care of its hind legs and tail; Paulina, you tie its left paw down. Ready?” Getting twin nods from her fellow witches, they all charged against the monster. 

As Sam and Paulina projected their respective animas in the form of a lasso with a scream of “Conjunctionis ligaveris!”, Wilhelmina used her own essence to propel herself above the beast, landing nimbly behind it. While the young queen and the Latina struggled to keep the reptile in place, their purple and soft pink animas tied tightly around its front paws, the potion-maker rummaged through her trusty bag, looking for her BubbleBomb potion. At the same time as she tried to dodge the animal’s large tail. 

Maybe Susan was right and she did need to organise her collection in a pair of twin bandoliers, just like her apprentice. 

Just as she was beginning to get frustrated, her finger brushed against a sticky substance. A familiar, sticky substance. Crying out in triumph, she got the jar with the sticky, pink slime from inside of her bag, just in time to be lifted up in the air by the force behind the collision of the iguana’s tail hitting the ground. Using her momentum, Wilhelmina smashed the bottle against the floor, which then exploded in a bubble of pink slime, effectively restraining the giant reptile’s movements.

“Girls, now!” Sam cried out, struggling to keep her focus long enough to keep the iguana down for much longer. 

The kids didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as their queen gave the order, they got out from their hiding spot and ran towards the door, where Star was waiting for them. Upon seeing them, she lowered her barrier, exhaling in between pants due to the physical exertion, thus allowing the group of kids to leave the room safe and sound. 

Smiling at their retrieving forms, Star cupped a hand around her mouth to call out to the, now, youngest witch in the room. “Susan, it’s all up to you now!”

Determined to not let her queen and mentor down, Susan ran towards the closest wall before leaping in the air feet-first towards it. The moment her feet came into contact with its surface, the teenager propelled herself to rise high above the ginormous beast. As soon as she was within optimal range, she hurled the spherical jar at it, which broke against the iguana’s hard-as-steel scales. In an instant, a cloud of turquoise, twinkling smoke enveloped the beast. 

Coughing and clearing the air around her with a wave of her hand, Sam dared look up to the direction the large creature once stood at. To her immense relief, she saw nothing. So willing her magic to deactivate, she walked over to where the, now, normal-sized iguana was. 

Smiling, she picked the lizard up. “You gave us quite the scare, right, little guy?”

“What do you intend to do with it, your Majesty?” Susan asked as soon as she nimbly landed on her feet the same way a professional gymnast would. 

“Why don’t you keep it? I believe you’ve mentioned Duke Scalynton needed a friend a few times now.” She suggested as she handed the iguana to the potion-maker in-training.

Looking down at the iguana in her hands, she turned to her mentor. “Would that be alright, Ms. Redring?”

“Perfectly so, Susan. Don’t worry.” Wilhelmina assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You did well today.”

Susan smiled brightly at that. Sam, on the contrary, could only frown at her. “Wilhelmina, the kids told me you were supposed to be looking after them, but you left them to clean everything by themselves before classes were officially over.”

The Minister of War remained impassive. “My apologies, your Majesty. I had other matters to attend to that required my immediate attention, and since today’s potion was rather simple, I supposed they’d be fine on their own for a few minutes.”

“So because you had better things to do you completely ignored one of our most important rules and risked the lives of six little girls in the process?” Sam seethed, arms crossed, her eyes blazing a dangerous, dark violet for a second. 

Wilhelmina narrowed her own eyes on her. “Careful, your Majesty. I don’t believe you’re in any position to say anything. Seeing as how often you completely disregard protocol; or have you already forgotten that you should have waited for back up before facing off against the threat yourself, hm?”

Sam balled her hands into fists at her sides, knowing, and hating, that she had her there. Turning around to leave the room, she spat. “Just, don’t let it happen again.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, my Queen.” The brunette let out, almost sinisterly. 

Susan was petting her new pet when she noticed a shadow casted over her. Looking up, she almost gasped. “You did well today, girl. Just, do me a favour and keep that thing away from me.” Paulina told her with a smile, keeping a respectable distance between herself and the iguana in the teenager’s arms. 

Susan’s mind, other times sharp and focused, was suddenly completely blank. Mouth hanging open and eyes blinking at random intervals, she was sure she was gaping at the beautiful woman before her. “Uh...I...I mean…,” she stammered, “y-you look good, too! I-I mean! You did good, too. Obviously. Ah! Not like you don’t look good, too! You always look good! Just...you know, yeah…” She finished lamely. 

Oh, why couldn’t the iguana have eaten her before she spouted all that nonsense?!

“Okay…” The Latina drawled. “Well, I gotta go. See ya.”

“Yeah, see ya…” The teenage girl sighed dreamily, before realising what she was doing and facepalming herself. 

Now that they were outside of the training room and accompanying Sam to her quarters, for they had to help her get ready, Paulina eyed her best friend’s knowing grin in distaste. “What?” She snapped. 

“Somebody’s got a crush on you!” The blonde teased in a sing-song voice, the shit-eating grin never leaving her face. 

But the Latina just huffed. “Please! And who doesn’t? I’ve had my fair share of admirers since we were in ninth grade, Star. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”

“That may be true,” Star conceded, “but I think this is the first time a younger girl’s crushing on you and you’re actually nice to her. The Pauli from back in Senior year would’ve crushed her dreams in a heartbeat.” She commented offhandedly, ignoring the look of pure horror flashing through their Queen’s face. 

The blue-eyed beauty just rolled her eyes. Since she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end, she often forgot how ruthless her best friend could be when she was met with some quality gossip. “I’m not eighteen anymore, Star! And Susan’s a good kid, of course I’m not going to be a bitch to her.”

“So you like her back?” The blonde asked, now feeling apprehensive. 

“Are you crazy?!” Paulina snapped at her, turning her face in her direction so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. “First of all, she’s seventeen! I might like to party, but I’d never date a minor.” She sniffed in displeasure. Seriously, what was this girl thinking?! 

Her fellow handmaiden sighed in relief. “Thank Goodness, I was actually worried for a second. Just...try letting her down gently, okay?” 

“Who do you take me for? Besides, even if she were our age, which, again, she’s not, I just don’t swing that way.”

Star let out a hollow laugh. “Don’t try selling me the ‘I don’t swing that way excuse’, I’ve seen you throw your principles out of the window for the sake of screwing people over. And about letting her down gently, admit it Pauli, you can be a bit of a bitch.”

Sam, not daring to say a word, could only furrow her brow at what her subjects were saying. “What the Hell?”

Ignoring their queen’s silent judgement, Paulina gasped in surprise. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Rather than backing off given her friend’s reaction, Star only snorted. “Oh, come on. Don’t pretend you don’t remember that one time in ninth grade that you agreed to go to homecoming with a complete loser just so Dash could play a joke on him.” Then, she turned pensive. “Hm, now that I think about it, we never did pull the prank on him...I wonder why.” She muttered to herself. 

Paulina’s mouth made an ‘o’ shape at the reminder. “Oooooh, that’s right! Yes, I did totally do that. Such a shame the guy was a total loser; he at least had decent taste in jewelry.”

The two kept chattering away until they noticed their queen’s appalled expression, her jaw hanging low. Giggling sheepishly, Paulina tried to save some face, Star nodding with a forced smile beside her. “That was a long time ago. We’ve grown up, we promise.” 

Blinking slowly at them, Sam forced her mouth shut. Doing a dusting-her-hands-off motion, she symbolically separated herself from anything having to do with their high school lives. “Something tells me we wouldn’t have got along growing up.”

“Then isn’t it great we only met outside of high school?” Star offered. 

“I think I’d much rather you just talk to me either about things going on inside the manor, or whatever crazy shit you’re up to at college.” The violet-eyed witch insisted as she turned her doorknob to let them in. For that day’s appointment she wanted to spice things up a little, but she still wanted a simple look that matched with her usual self, hence why she needed the girls’ help. 

“Oh. My. God!” Paulina exclaimed, raising her palms up as she entered the room. “You will not believe the drama that’s stirring at APU right now!”

Star, who was already seated on one of Sam’s chairs, made a sound of appreciation. “Ooooh! Do tell.”

As Sam went over to her closet and began to randomly pick up different clothes to ask the girl’s opinion onーt-shirts, jeans, skirts, dresses even…ーPaulina went on with her retelling, she and Star sporadically putting a stop on their conversation to give their queen some feedback. “Remember Tiffany? That two-faced, bitchy classmate of mine who’s been totally jealous of me since, like, forever?”

“Tiffany is a rather stereotypically bitchy name.” Sam commented, her focus on two different t-shirts. “As in, high school queen bee, cheerleader captain kind of bitchy.”

“I was a high school queen bee, cheerleader captain, Sam.” Paulina deadpanned. 

“Oh!” Sam faulted, biting her lip in embarrassment as she wondered how she’d fix that one. “Well, your name is not stereotypically bitchy...Tiffany is. I mean, how many high school chick flick villains are dumb blondes called Brittany, or Tiffany, or Cassidy…?”

“She does have a point.” Star conceded, propping her elbow against the chair’s back. 

With her index and thumb cupping her chin, the Latina ‘hmmed’ in acknowledgement. “Fair enough. Anyway, Sandra told me that Luka told her that Eliza told him that Tiffany’s out to get me ‘cause she’s so jealous it’s ripping her apart.”

As her ladies-in-waiting turned down her latest outfit, Sam arched an eyebrow, not following the conversation. “But didn’t you just say she’s always been jealous of you? What’s new about that?”

“What’s new is that now she’s jealous of me because Brad Carmichael, her ex-boyfriend with whom she broke up because he was dating a girl from Elmerton University behind her backーnot like she’s been a model girlfriend herself, if you know what I meanー, is apparently into me. And she can’t stand it.”

“But are you into Brad?” Star questioned, while Sam was busier wondering how she even managed to keep track of what Paulina was talking about in the first place. She’d already forgotten the guy’s name was Brad, for fuck’s sake! Her best guess was that keeping up with the latest gossip was some sort of ‘popular girl’ superpower.

Paulina let herself flop down on Sam’s bed with a noncommittal sound coming from her throat. “I mean, Brad’s cute, but I’m sort of seeing Matthew at the moment you know?”

“Sort of seeing?” Sam echoed. 

“Yeah, he wants us to go steady but, like, I don’t know if I want to tie myself down to anyone right now, you know? I just don’t think I’m ready to be ‘Matthew’s girlfriend.’ But I know that if I tell him that, he’ll think I want to stop going out altogether, when I just don’t want to rush to label what we have. That’s all.”

“Why do you even have to become ‘Matthew’s girlfriend’? Why can’t he be ‘Paulina’s boyfriend’?” For a moment there, Sam worried the feminist inside her had ruined the conversation, if their silence was any indication, until Paulina, almost automatically, moved to a sitting position, looking like she’d just had a spiritual awakening.

“OMG, you’re so right! “ She exclaimed. “If Matthew can’t accept being labeled my boyfriend, then he’s not worthy of my time. Period. Thanks for the advice, Sam.”

“Uh, you’re welcome?” Sam said, feeling unsure. “Now, could you guys please help me get ready? ‘Cause I still don’t know what to wear…”

Both ladies-in-waiting exchanged a glance, before shrugging. Star was the one who voiced their opinion. “The clothes you have in your hands right now are fine. Just combine them with your usual look and you’ve got your casual, yet original, outfit.”

Looking down at the items in hand, Sam had to admit, they really seemed perfect. “Thanks, girls. You two are the best.”

“We know.” They said in unison.

............

The Verde Que te Quiero Verde was the latest rage in vegetarian restaurants. The establishment was owned by a couple of elderly Mexican immigrants who, per their grandson’s suggestion, had given the typical Tex-Mex food a vegan spin. 

All websites reviewing the place gave nothing but praise to the meals and service, and about half of the comments recommended asking for their nachos with guacamole and vegan cheese. Its prices were also known for being very reasonable. 

‘Lowly’ Mexican food turned vegan and exorbitant-prices free, the kind of place Pamela Manson would rather die than step foot in. 

Which was why Sam was so thankful that Saturday night it was just her dad and her, for her mother was busy background checking anyone who wanted to rent the manor for the upcoming Halloween. 

Her dad and her were already seated and looking over the menus, but she couldn’t help being distracted by her surroundings. Despite the more modern take, the Verde Que te Quiero Verde resembled the typical Mexican hacienda, with its white-chalk walls, the red tile roofs, its arches… The restaurant was even a two-story building whose second floor, which held even more tables, had balconies offering a nice view of the fountain in the middle of the room and tables surrounding it below. 

It was positively lovely. 

And yet...Sam couldn’t quite enjoy it as much as she’d like. 

She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was definitely off with Wilhelmina. Leaving a group of inexperienced, little girls at their mercy while they performed magic? What was she thinking?! She had no idea how lucky she was, had anything happened to any of the girls and she would’ve been put to trial, leading to losing her position as Council member, at best, or to being expelled from the coven altogether, at worst. 

Subconsciously, Sam gripped her menu a little tighter. Wilhelmina was already around when she was a kid and Grandma Ida was still queen. Back then, she remembered, she gave off this strict and stern vibe, even more so than Margaret with her by-the-book nature. But ever since she ascended to the throne, her strictiness had turned into outright arrogance. 

Back when she was fourteen and had just volunteered herself as the next queen, Wilhelmina seemed the less willing to give in. She was the quickest to point out her age and inexperience, and Margaret and the, then, newly appointed Delilah miraculously managed to get their fellow member to give her a chance. If just barely. 

Even know, after seven years of devout sacrifice in the name of the Amity Park Clan, that frustrating pain in the butt still hadn’t let go of her reservations towards her; often making snide comments that casted doubts on her leadershipーlike the one from earlier…ー, or looking over her shoulder with an air of superiority. 

All that, Sam could, begrudgingly, put up with. But putting innocent kids in harm’s way and then having the gall to act all smug on her?! What if Phantom had been right? What if there really were witches up to no good right under her nose? What if…?

“Sammy?” Her dad’s voice cut through her thoughts like a knife cut through butter. 

“Huh?” She responded, oh, so eloquently. 

“Are you okay? I’ve been calling you for a while now and you haven’t answered until now. Also, it looks like you’ve tried to strangle your menu over some sort of terrible crime…” He pointed at the crumbled piece of paper in her hands to demonstrate his point. 

Looking down and noticing the mess she’d made of the poor aforementioned piece of paper, she set it down gently with a sheepish smile on her face, “I’m fine, Dad. Just...thinking.”

“About what?”

“Stuff.” At her dad’s questioning, raised eyebrow she elaborated. “Frustrating stuff.”

“Kiddo, please, enter a literary contest; you’re so eloquent and articulate.” Jeremy deadpanned, setting his own menu down and propping his chin on his intertwined hands.

Sam rolled her eyes, letting out a hollow laugh. “Hilarious, Dad. Aren’t you supposed to be the preppy and optimistic one of the two?”

“I am.” He agreed. “But I’m also a Manson and your Grandma’s son. So you could say snarking runs in the family.”

Parents looking as smug and self-satisfied as her dad did at that moment should be illegal. Crossing her arms with a scowl, Sam slouched on her seat. “Whatever.”

Jeremy just shook his head fondly at his daughter. “You’re lucky your mother isn’t here right now, young lady. Otherwise, she would scold you on your posture.”

The mere mention of her mother made her straighten up, reflexively. 

“But now seriously, kiddo. What’s the matter? You know you can talk to your old man about anything.” He offered her an encouraging smile. 

Unfortunately, his readiness to be there for her only made her heart sank. No, I can’t, she wanted to say, but instead opted for, “I’m...having trouble with a...with a classmate.” She lied, hating herself for it. “I was elected as team leader, but she’s never quite been able to accept it. Maybe she wanted the position herself, maybe she just doesn’t think I’m good for the job...I don’t know. All I know is that she makes no effort in hiding her displeasure.

“Which, okay. I can take it, I guess. I mean, one more person who doesn’t like me! Boy is that old news...But she’s made a mistake recently and she didn’t even apologise; she just rubbed my own mistakes in my face. And I...I don’t know what to do, Dad.”

Jeremy stayed quiet for a minute, just observing his daughter with a keen eye. Maybe saying he and Sam were close was a little far-fetched; Pamela and, surprisingly enough, his mother had always insisted on signing her up for a million extracurricular activities growing upーironic, when one took the fact that she’d also been homeschooled for most of her life into consideration. But he’d learned long ago to not question it, after all, their Sammy had turned out okay and very capable in the end. 

He had to admit, he didn’t always understand her, either. Like her interest in the occult, her love for loud, unsavory bands with questionable taste in names, or her insistence on being identified as a Goth since she was twelve. As a man used to making his wife happy with diamonds the size of strawberries, giving his daughter spiked collars for her birthday left him feeling a little queasy. But, hey, if it made her happy… As long as she didn’t join a cult he was golden.

But there were still moments when even Sam, his strong-willed, independent, confident baby girl, felt vulnerable against the cruel world she lived in. And it was in those moments when he had to take the lead and be the responsible authority figure in the relationship. Moments like now. 

Reaching across the table, he rested his hand atop of hers, directing her attention to him. “Sometimes people will try to make our lives difficult, but we mustn’t let that stop us from doing what we think it’s right. So your friend doesn’t think you’re doing a good job leading the team? Then let her think that! If it’s only one person who feels that way, then she’s probably just trying to mess with you.

“But if the other people in your group feel the same way, then maybe you should take a moment to reevaluate things. Don’t be afraid to ask this girl about her opinion. Who knows? Maybe she does have something valuable to contribute.”

Alright, this was all great advice for actual teamwork, but it didn’t apply to her problem. She was trying to rule a coven, not decorate the gym for the upcoming prom. “What are you trying to say, Dad?”

“I just think you shouldn’t take everything on by yourself, Sammy.” He said as he patted her hand, then he leaned back on his chair at the same time as he picked his forgotten menu up. “Now, do you know what you want to eat, or should we wait a few more minutes?”

Sam couldn’t help sending her dad a small smile, even if it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was about to answer when she caught sight of something over his shoulder that made her breath hitch. “Holy shit!”

Jeremy’s head shot up at that. “Samantha, language!”

Uh, oh. He used her full name. “Uh, sorry about that, Dad.” She apologised sheepishly, before standing up and pointing behind him, much to Jeremy’s horror. What was up with this girl’s manners today!? “It’s just that I know the person who’s just entered the restaurant.”

Turning around much more discreetly than Sam, Jeremy raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You mean the people talking to the maître d’?” 

Completely unaware of the fact that they were the focus of the conversation of two of the restaurant’s patrons, Jazz and Danny stood at the entrance, talking to the maître d’. Well, Jazz was talking to the maître d’, looking almost unhinged, Danny was just praying they wouldn’t be kicked out just because his sister had chosen now, of all times, to act as unreasonable as their dad.

“What do you mean there’s no table available?!” She screeched, causing a few customers to turn around to look at her and her brother to look away in embarrassment. “I made the reservation almost two weeks ago! Fenton, Jazz Fenton. Come on, I highly doubt there’s many more Fentons in Amity Park.”

The man tending to them had to be the most patient person on the planet, Danny figured. Or the most emotionless. “My apologies, Miss. But there really is no reservation under a Jazz Fenton.”

“Maybe you put it under another member of the family?” Danny offered before addressing the headwaiter himself. “How about under Danny Fenton?”

The employee looked through his agenda before shaking his head. 

“And Maddie Fenton?” Jazz tried.

Again, the man shook his head no. 

“Jack Fenton?” She was starting to grow desperate now. 

And, again, no such luck. 

Watching as Jazz’s eye started twitching, Danny genuinely feared he’d have to restrain his sister from doing something crazy when the sound of someone clearing their throat caught everyone’s attention. Looking at the direction the sound came from, the Fenton siblings could only gape at the sight of a middle-aged man with perfectly coiffed, blond hair, dark blue eyes, and sharply dressed with a crochet vest, light, khaki pants, and black dress shoes standing before them. 

The mysterious man turned to the maître d’. “It’s quite alright, my good sir. They’re with us.”

The emotionless man suddenly developed a personality, for he smiled brightly at the other man. “Oh, I see! Would you like some extra chairs, sir?”

“If you don’t mind.” 

“Of course, we’ll bring some extra chairs, utensils, and menus to your table momentarily.” And with that the waiter left them alone. 

The blond turned to them, a welcoming smile on his face. “Don’t be shy, you two. Come sit with us.” And, by some sort of spell, they followed after him. 

In the meantime, brother and sister shared a questioning glance. They were both obviously curious as to who these ‘us’ were. Clearing his throat, Danny ventured. “Um, excuse me sir, but do we know you?”

The mystery, well-dressed man just laughed cordially. “Oh, no. You certainly don’t. As a matter of fact, I don’t know you, either. But my daughter seems to know you, young man.”

Before Danny could so much as ask what he was even talking about, the man stopped beside a table, motioning with his hand to his companion. The halfa almost fell flat on his butt in astonishment. 

Getting up from her chair was Sam. Although she had a different outfit than usual, her style was still mostly casual, as opposed to her companion’s preppy clothes.

She was wearing a simple black t-shirt with a drawing of a purple rose on it (why was it so familiar?); a neon green skirt with a spiderweb pattern; a spiked collar with a purple pendant was around her neck; and she wore fingerless, black fishnet gloves. Other than that she looked the same as always. She still had her trademark combat boots and thigh-length, purple stockings on, and her hair was still long and black on one side, while the other was shaved with purple undertones; a green ponytail in a purple scrunchie sticking up. 

“Sam, is that you?” He breathed out.

The girl in question could barely believe her eyes. Right in front of her was Danny. She was almost stunned she could recognise him practically anywhere. But then she rationalised; of course she’d recognise him! He looked practically the same as always! With his messy, jet-black hair falling down his face; a pair of blue jeans, his favourite red sneakers...The only thing different about him was the hoodie he was wearing, really. It was mostly white, except for its red cuffs, zipper, draw strings, and the circle it had plastered on its front. 

...well, the only thing that was different was his hoodie and the girl beside him, now that she took a better look. 

She was around her height, but she seemed slightly older. She was a redhead sporting a cute pixie cut, with a lovely face and striking, aqua eyes. The girl was wearing a square, teal plaid dress over a white, long-sleeved shirt, and black tights with white boots. Her outfit was perfectly coordinated, except for a brown, leather shoulder bag that seemed oddly out of place. 

Sam was sure she had never seen her before, but she was just so familiar…

Noticing she was up and Danny was still waiting for her answer, she hurriedly went over to him to shake his and his companion’s hands. “Yes! Yes, it’s me, Danny. And...I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but you are…?”

“Oh, I’m Jazz!” The mysterious girl perked up. “I’m Danny’s sister.”

“Oh, she’s just his sister,” Sam thought to herself, relieved. Wait, relieved? What did she have to be worried about? She thought best to shake those feelings off and stow them for later. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sam, a friend of Danny’s.”

Jazz’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, so you’re Sam! Danny’s told me about you.”

“He has?” Both Mansons asked, but for completely different reasons. And only one of them knew exactly why they asked. 

Just as they were introducing themselves, the restaurant’s staff came and set the two extra chairs and items down. His senses tinglingーonly it wasn’t his Ghost Sense, but a sense of danger he couldn’t quite put his finger onー, Danny focused his attention on the other man at the table, who seemed to be glaring daggers at him, for some reason. He swallowed the uncomfortable lump in his throat. “I’m sorry, sir. But I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

The blond plastered a smile on his face as they finally sat down. To anyone else, it would’ve seemed friendly, but to Danny it looked oddly sinister. “Oh, my bad. I’m Jeremy, Jeremy Manson. I’m Sam’s father.”

While a primal fear clutched Danny’s heart in an iron grip, Jazz audibly gasped. “Wait, Jeremy Manson? As in, the Mansons?”

His sister’s astonished expression, as well as Sam’s mortified one, enabled him to ignore his sudden worries for a minute in favour of his curiosity. “You know them?” He asked his sister. 

In turn, Jazz just scoffed, looking away from him in exasperation. Of course not only would Danny have no idea who he hung out with, he also had to embarrass them right in front of the two people in question. “Danny, I think you’re literally the only person in all of Amity Park who doesn’t know them. Ironically…” Seeing as he still didn’t get the hint, she gave up. “The Mansons are the descendants of Izzy Manson, the inventor of the machine that wraps cellophane around chopsticks, and therefore, they oversee the patent.”

“So, you’re saying…” 

Ugh, somebody put her out of her misery, goddamnit! “She’s saying we’re rich, Danny. Very. Stinking. Rich.” Sam deadpanned. Well, there went that little piece of information she didn’t like her friends finding out about. Although, a part of her was about to burst out laughing at the way the boy’s eyes all but popped out of their sockets. 

Danny, on his part, didn’t know what was more shocking. The fact that Sam came from a wealthy family, or the fact that she, a cynical, brooding, activism-oriented girl, was related to classy, perky, sunny Jeremy Manson. They literally had nothing in common! Not even facial features! Unless Sam was just a carbon copy of her mother, those were some weird genetics. 

Danny’s prolonged silence made her grow anxious, so Sam quickly changed topics. “So...what are you doing here? You know this place serves vegetables, right?” She just hoped their usual teasing dynamics would save them from the awkwardness. 

Luckily for her, it did. The halfa countered her teasing tone with an easy grin. “Yeah, I know. But Jazz was really looking forward to coming to this place and, since convincing our fudge-loving father to take her would have been impossible, she played the older sister card on me.”

Jazz just huffed in response. “Oh, shut up. Just be thankful this is a vegan, Mexican restaurant; you’re bound to find something you like.”

“Yeah, I can always just stuff my face on nachos with guacamole.” He quipped back. 

The hazel-eyed student turned her focus to the older girl, her face lighting up. “Oh! You’re vegan?”

“Oh, no. I’m not. I’m just much more willing to eat healthy food than my brother, who I still don’t understand how he could’ve grown so much given his atrocious diet!” She finished pointedly. 

“Hey!” Danny protested. “My diet’s not ‘atrocious’! So what if I’m not actively looking for vegan restaurants? I still eat everything I need.”

“I once saw you eat nothing but oreos and soda for two weeks when you were sixteen.” His sister pointed out, without missing a beat. 

That made him wince, not appreciating the reminder. “Okay, so maybe that wasn’t my best moment. But, the soda gave me the liquids and sugar I needed and the oreos gave me carbohydrates and proteinーmaybe, if they’re baked with milk…”

“Oreos are actually vegan.” Sam pointed out. 

Although her comment was meant to annul his point, it seemed to validate it, instead, for he sent a smug look at Jazz. “Ha! You heard that? Turns out I’m healthier than you, Daisy Green.”

“Oh, just shut up.” His sister grunted, exasperated. 

The father-daughter duo just exchanged glances, not used to this sort of family interactions. After a beat, Jeremy spoke up. “How about we order, huh?”

Picking up his own menu, Danny’s face morphed itself in confusion. “Uh...I have literally no idea what to ask for. Sam, you’re the expert, what do you recommend?”

By his side, Jazz perked up. “That’s right! You’re vegan aren’t you?”

“Ultra-recyclo-vegetarian.” She corrected, although she wasn’t sure why; nobody ever really got the difference.

And, lo and behold, neither did Jazz. “Pardon?”

Sam was about to tell her to let it go, when Danny beat her to it. “Sam doesn’t just avoid eating anything with a face, she also eats everything on her plate.”

When he sent her a wink and a friendly smile, Sam almost puddled. She soon regained her senses, though. Alright, so it was touching that he retained that piece of information when most people tended to forget all about it, but that still wasn’t grounds to make a fool out of herself. Finally, she opted for pushing those feelings aside. “This is my first time here, too. But as the only experienced veggie-eater at the table, I’d suggest that if you’re not feeling up to experimenting with new things, then just stick to what you’d usually order from a regular Taco Bell.”

She lowered her menu for them to see as she pointed at certain meals. “For example, Danny, you could try ordering the Burrito Vegano. Judging by its ingredients, it's exactly the same as your usual burrito except for the lack of meat. So you shouldn’t miss much.

“If any of you feels more adventurous, then you could try the vegan Quesadillas, just keep in mind that rather than being exactly the same as the regular ones but with vegetables, instead of cheese they have humus.”

“What about snacks?” Jeremy asked, as enthralled in her explanation as their impromptu guests. 

“Oh, I’m definitely ordering their famous nachos with guacamole and vegan nacho cheese. Everyone recommends it.”

“What’s vegan nacho cheese even made of?” Danny scrunched his face up in disgust. “Is it even edible?”

Sam scoffed. Typical carnivore response. “Not any less than the barely passable-for-human-consumption, acrylic orange paint that is the usual nacho cheese. And to answer your question, it’s made of carrots and peppers.”

“Wow.” Danny breathed, impressed once again by Sam’s ability to monologue without the need for breath. “You really have a strong opinion on nacho cheese.”

“Oh, you don’t even know half of the things she has a strong opinion on.” Jeremy muttered. 

Before Sam could so much as protest at her dad’s familiar exasperation at her altruistic ways, a waiter, notepad and pen in hand, appeared behind her. “Have the ladies and gentlemen made their decision yet?”

Looking over the table and receiving nods in confirmation, the Manson patriarch took the lead. “I believe we have.”

“Excellent.” The waiter said. “What do you want to drink?”

“Well, I’d normally ask for a bottle of your best wine, but I’m driving tonight, so I’ll have a Mr. Pepper.”

“Of course, sir. And everyone else?”

“I’m driving too, so I’ll have a Lemon Nestea, please.” Jazz said. 

It was Danny’s turn. “I’m not driving. I’ll have a beer.” 

“We serve Coronita, is that alright with you, sir?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Finally, he turned to Sam. “And you, Miss?”

“Another beer’s fine.”

The waiter wrote everything down. “Alright, so that’s a Mr. Pepper, a Lemon Nestea, and two beers; is that right?” At the sounds of agreement, he went on. “Alright. Have you decided on your food yet, or do you need more time?”

It was Sam’s turn to perk up. “We’ll have some nachos with guacamole and vegan cheese to share. I’ll have the Tofu Tacos; You make them yourself once they’re served, right?” The waiter nodded. “Then, yes. The tacos.” Then she pointed at her dad. “And my Dad’ll have the fajitas.” 

As their waiter wrote everything down, she directed her attention at the siblings. “And you guys…?”

“Hm, I think I’ll have the vegan quesadillas.” Jazz said. “I gotta admit, when you said they have humus I’d already made up my mind! And you, Danny?”

Danny kept frantically scanning his menu. He didn’t know what half of those things were! All he knew was that it was Mexican food with extra vegetables. “Uh...I...I’ll have the Burrito Vegano?” He just hoped Sam was right and it’d be similar to the regular thing. 

“An excellent choice.” The waiter commented before taking their menus away. “Your drinks and nachos will be out shortly.”

After the waiter left, they kept on chattering idly about everything and nothing. How Sam and Danny knew each other, why Jeremy had, completely out of the blue, decided to let them have dinner with them, what their parents’ did for a living… That’s when things got a little awkward. Although Mr. Manson was trying his hardest to remain neutralーSam’s constant glares served as a good incentiveーit was plain to see he didn’t think highly of their parents and their job. 

Danny and Jazz would be lying if they said they weren’t already used to it, or even understood his concerns. 

Just as their drinks were being served, Mr. Manson’s cell phone started ringing. He took a quick glance at the caller and immediately winced, which didn’t go unnoticed by his daughter. “Dad…? Is everything okay?”

“What? Oh! Oh, yes. Everything’s fine, kiddo. I just have to take this real quick.” He explained as he got up from his chair, about to make his way to a less crowded area of the restaurant. “I’ll be right back.”

“Is he okay?” Jazz asked, slightly concerned. 

Sam could only shrug in response. “He says so.” Noticing the sudden rise in tension, she chose to change topics instead. “Um, I don’t really have any siblings to know better but, you two are close, right? I know my fair share of families who wouldn’t spend any non-essential time together otherwise.” Like mine, was what she didn’t say.

“You could say that.” Jazz replied, almost enigmatically. 

Normally, Danny wouldn’t go into detail as to why he and Jazz were so closeーthree guesses why and the first two didn’t countーbut there was something about Sam that told him she would understand. Granted, he couldn’t tell her everything, let alone in the middle of a relatively crowded restaurant, but he could shed some light over her queries. He guessed he felt the need to be open and share things with her because the other day she opened up to him and Tucker.

“Well,” he started, “if I’m being honest, I’ve always been closer to my older sister than my parents…”

"How so?" Sam couldn't believe she had the nerve to ask him that when her own relationship with her parents was, most of the time, rocky, at best. 

Did she really have to put him on the spot like that? “No, Danny,” he scolded himself, “you wanted to be honest with her yourself. Don’t blame it on her.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to explain as best as he could while revealing as little as possible. “Uh... it's just...my parents are ghosthunters, as you know, so ghosts have always been present in my house, making things incredibly difficult for Jazz and me growing up.” Like eating savage, ecto-wieners for dinner, having every single personal problem compared to some ghost-hunting analogy, or being mortified and ostracised by his peers as a result. “And things...things only got even more complicated when I was a teenager.”

That was the part he couldn’t go in detail about. Mainly because what truly made things more complicated was the fact that all deep conversations, honesty, and family bonds were tattered the moment he became the very half-ghost whose dissection his parents often fantasized about. “As a result, I guess you could say Jazz and I ganged up together. The Fenton siblings against the world when our parents were too busy with their job.” When he felt Jazz’s warm hand on his cold one, he couldn't help but meet her concerned face with a small smile in thanks for everything she’d ever done for him.

A wave of sympathy washed over Sam at Danny and Jazz's predicament. It was easy to forget Amity Park didn't even know ghosts existed until seven years ago, when Phantom and his putrid kind appeared out of the blue, because witches never forgot their existence in the first place. She could understand being overlooked in favour of creatures of dubious existence must've caused them great pain growing up.

Noticing her heartbroken look, Danny immediately tried to lighten up the mood. “Don’t worry, though. We might not be as close to our parents as we were when we were little, but we still all love each other.”

“Yeah,” Jazz assured her, “no need to feel bad for us, Sam. It’s still nice to see a daughter being close to her dad like you two are.” Her words were meant to bring the hazel-eyed Goth comfort, but her brows knitted together in concern at the look on her face.

Albeit Sam was smiling, it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Lowering her head, almost hiding her face from view, she shook it, sadly.

After a minute or two of silence Danny was about to ask her if she was alright when she spoke. “Don’t let appearances fool you; my Dad and I aren’t exactly close, either.”

“But...but you two seem to get along so well…” Jazz started, but was cut off by Sam.

“We get along,” she confirmed, “but we’ve never been close. My parents are the complete opposite of me, and it showsーthey’ve never been able to understand me, my Grandma did.”

Danny almost regretted having to ask. “Is your Grandma…?”

The Goth just nodded. “She passed away when I was fourteen. She was the only person to ever understand me and accept me for who I am. You could say I’ve been on my own ever since, although in a psychological/spiritual sense.”

“Is that the reason why you’re Goth?” Jazz couldn’t hold herself back from asking, her psychologist instincts taking the reins of the situation. Shocked at her behaviour, Danny kicked her gently on her shin from under the table. 

He ignored her glare in favour of distracting Sam from her question. “What about your mother, aren’t you two close?”

The harsh laugh she let out startled them both. “I might not be close to my Dad, but compared to my relationship with my mother, I’m practically a daddy’s girl.”

A shadow casted over her hazel eyes, other times so full of fire and mischief, and Danny didn’t like it one bit. Reaching over to grab her hand in his, making her gasp in surprise, he sent her a gentle smile. “Thank you for sharing that about yourself with us.”

She returned the smile. “Thank you for sharing that about your parents with me.”

They kept staring into each other’s eyes, not caring about anything around them, until the clatter of the nacho plate being set down on their table broke them out of their thoughts. While Danny chose to ignore her sister’s annoying smirk, Sam thanked the waiter. Then, she turned to the siblings. “Well? What are you waiting for? Dig in!”

They did as they were told, and their faces split in matching grins. Hmming in appreciation, the black-haired half-ghost dipped another tortilla chip into the vegan cheese. “This ain’t half bad!”

Sam just chuckled. “Told you.”

After a, surprisingly, rather pleasant dinner between the two different families, it was time to say goodbye. Since they were the ones driving them home, Jazz and Mr. Manson left first to look for their respective cars, leaving Danny and Sam some extra time to talk. 

“Well, that was a pleasant surprise.” Danny commented, putting his hands inside his hoodie’s pocket. 

“Yeah, it really was.” Sam smiled when, suddenly, a cold breeze whooshed by, making her shiver. 

Noticing her hugging herself from the corner of his eyes, he immediately took action. “Here, let me help. It’s starting to get cold.” He said, even when his cryokinesis made him immune to cold years ago.

“Danny, I’m fineー” she began, but was interrupted by Danny slipping his hoodie on over her shoulders. As he lent her his jacket, their eyes locked. For a moment, time stopped. The Earth stopped moving. Nothing else mattered but each other’s eyes; Danny’s precious baby blue, and Sam’s vibrant hazel. Then, the sound of a not-so-distant honk broke the spell, causing them to quickly avert their eyes, a hint of pink dusting their cheeks.

Sam wasn’t cold anymore. 

As Jazz opened the door for Danny, he waved her goodbye, which Sam returned. Now that she was alone with her thoughtsーand Danny’s hoodieーwaiting for her Dad to appear with his own car, she couldn’t stop herself from sniffing the garment. It smelled like wood and freshly rained soil, but there was something else. Something...familiar she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

Whatever it was, she liked it. 

It smelled like Danny.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 60 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)

The poll closed with 159 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here. 

Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 130 Responses

And we’re back! An explosive premiere brings the series back. The vast majority seemed to enjoy the episode, with only 2.3% of folks giving it a score below a 3.  

I thought some of the directing in the action scenes was odd and the music didn’t feel as well integrated/utilized as in past seasons.

If this season is consistently as good as this first episode, AOT will indeed end as a perfect masterpiece

ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT THE CHANGE FROM WIT STUDIO TO MAPPA? 127 Responses

The Studio change from WIT Studio to MAPPA was a subject of much scrutiny and debate before the season’s release. With almost 61% showing some form of enthusiasm about a new studio’s take on the series. The opinion is not uniform, of course, with just over 18% stating their preference for WIT studio. Slightly less (17.3%) can’t give an answer yet and the rest don’t seem to care at all.  

I wished MAPPA would make the latter episodes a little more vibrant and lessen the blur

mappa as some of my favorite shows (banana fish, yuri on ice, etc) so it was kinda cool to see they picked up AOT szn 4 ! i’m excitedly waiting to watch the next episode, (and with my ‘watch partner’ aka tumblr friend who discusses with me as we watch LOL).

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CGI TITANS? 127 Responses

If there’s one thing that’s rather controversial about the series’ animation adaptation, then it’s certainly the use of CGI (particularly when animating Titans). The opinion of the fanbase seems to be rather positive, nonetheless. 72.4% of responders gave the CGI some praise (be it more open or more reserved), while 18.2% were more negative about the use of CGI. At the bottom was 9.4% who stated that they preferred WIT’s style of CGI to the one utilized in the episode.  

cgi wasn't bad but I was disappointed that it wasn't the 2d animation from the trailer

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NEW OPENING? 128 Responses

When it came to the season’s opening, there was a positive response, with more than 72% expressing a favorable opinion. 21.1% didn’t seem to care for it and about 6% stated that they thoroughly disliked it. 

OP is WAY too overrated, nowhere near as good as the original, too much glorification of the kind of nationalism that led to Nazi germany's rise to power

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NEW ENDING? 130 Responses

The new ending received very similar scores, with a similar figure of more than 72% expressing a positive view of the ending and a little over a quarter not caring for it. The proportion disliking it was much lower however, with only 2.3% of folks expressing those thoughts.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE 4 YEAR TIME SKIP? 126 Responses

One of the grandest developments that came about in this episode is the fact that a 4 year time skip has occurred since the defeat of the Warriors in Shiganshina. Although there is a sizable minority expressing negative feelings (13.5%), the definitive majority is coming in with enthusiasm (70.6%). The rest are still thinking this change over. 

wtf is going on? Who are these new people? Why are we supposed to care about them if they're from Marley? Where are the main characters? Yeah, I suppose Reiner and Zeke technically count as MCs, but there is an appalling lack of 104th characters that needs to be fixed asap!

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SETTING CHANGE? 125 Responses

In a similar vein, a remarkable new development is a change of setting. The majority (almost 61%) see it in a positive light, while 16% seem to dislike it. Just over 19% aren’t certain yet. 

After what Reiner and co. did, I am not at all interested in their side of the story and just want Eren and co. to completely decimate these people

Fun to meet new characters but I'm eager to know whats going on with the characters we know

It feels a little disorienting but it's a logical progression of the story

Strange

Wouldnt mind the change of setting if we at least had it from the 104th's perspective

I wasn’t expecting it to be so focused on new characters, and I was disappointed at first but I’m indifferent now.

Not liking the new perspective. At least for this new batch of kids. If Reiner and Zeke are going to be a major focus for a while, wouldn't a short series of flashbacks for their pasta work better than a completely new spin-off from the main story?

WHICH NEW CHARACTER IS YOUR FAVORITE SO FAR? 125 Responses

As this episode introduced a lot of new characters, we got a colorful pie chart for this one. The plurality of responses (40%) chose the kind-hearted Falco, while 28% went with passionate Gabi. 14.4% chose the caring Colt and 13.6% went with the cool Jaw Titan holder. The last couple of responses picked out the stoic General Magath and the quiet Zofia. Poor Udo didn’t get a single vote!

I loved it. I love the new art style, my favorite scene was Gabi destroying the train, she's awesome. I really love Falco as well and Colt. Galliard's titan design is sick

I literally don't give a shit about these new kids, I don't care about their story, just bring back EMA and the 104th already!

WHO DO YOU THINK WILL INHERIT THE ARMORED TITAN? 125 Responses

Another colorful pie chart! An almost even split for the (possible) future inheritor of the Armored Titan. 37.6% believe Falco will take it, while 27.2% went with Gabi. 33.6% do not see any of the cadets inheriting Reiner’s titan and the last couple of votes went ahead to Zofia instead.

WHO HAD THE BETTER GLOW UP? 127 Responses

When drawing comparison to Reiner and Zeke’s looks in the previous season, there was a clear favorite among the responses - Reiner, with 74%. Zeke had the preference of 15% and those who didn’t feel like either of them “went through a glow up” took 11%. 

can we acknowledge how good zeke, reiner, and [redacted] looked 😌🥰

REINER PLEASE FUCK ME

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE JAW TITAN? 126 Responses

New season, new setting, new titan! The vast majority of viewers seem hyped about the Jaw Titan and find its design really cool. 15.9% aren’t as thrilled about it, and 9.5% haven’t decided yet. Most of the write-in comments implied a connection with the Jaw Titan. But for the purpose of avoiding spoiling those who haven’t drawn the same conclusion, we won’t be publishing them. Just know we see you. ;)

i was lowkey scared lmao

CART TITAN - BETTER WITH ARMOR OR WITHOUT? 127 Responses

We are reunited with the eerie Cart Titan from S3, but this time flexing cool armor and machine guns on its back! The overwhelming majority of respondents prefer it better tricked out in its armor, over a small minority who appreciate its natural creepiness more.

MOST OF THE EPISODE FOCUSES ON GABI. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HER? 124 Responses

Gabi appears to be a point of controversy among anime viewers already, with 38.7% viewing her favorably, 37.9% viewing her less favorably, and 16.9% not sure how to feel about her yet. Some comments feel she is similar to Eren in some ways, while others found her annoying. And yes, she did break international law. :P

Eren, but smol and female xD

I hate her already

I think she’s awesome

She's like Eren was

she passionately creepy but i like her lol

shes annoying

Gabi is SO annoying istfg really hope Falco gets more focus than Gabi, he seems nicer and more relatable

FALCO MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT “FLYING AROUND WITH A SWORD” AND “ATTACKING TITANS.” WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT? 126 Responses

Overall, no one seems to know what’s going on, though many are theorizing that this is related to the paths, titan powers/memory transfer, or Eren somehow. What could this mean for the future of Falco’s character?

Dig at anime viewers returning to S4

He saw the memories of a survey corps member

I have a couple theories, regarding the memories that intelligent Titans share back and forth

maybe he had one of those flashback/forward things that erens dad had

WHO DO YOU THINK WAS BUYING THE NEWSPAPER AT THE END? 126 Responses

Nearly 90% of respondents are certain that this mystery character is someone we know, while just a small handful of people believe it’s someone new, and about the same amount not ready to make a call one way or the other yet. Some write-ins on the poll had guessed specifically who the character may be already. But we won’t spoil you just yet. 👀

The end credits guy is definitely someone we know, but I highly doubt it's Eren

The sharp-looking dude at the end just HAS to be someone we know on Paradis, there's no way they'd just throw us in to this new cast of nobodies without some connection to the main characters

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF ELDIANS BEING USED AS WAR FODDER? 126 Responses

The treatment of Eldians on the mainland is something that the majority of respondents see as detestable, with 87.3% finding the use of them as war fodder to be downright cruel. A smaller amount of people either felt it was a necessary evil, or didn’t feel strongly about it one way or the other. 

Literally waiting for the 104th to show up and fuck shit up for these inhumane monsters

That's what happens in the real world. The persecuted minority gets used as war fodder.

i d k 👀

DO YOU THINK IT’S POSSIBLE FOR RELATIONS BETWEEN ELDIANS AND MARLEYANS TO IMPROVE? 123 Responses

Colorful opinions mean more colorful pie charts! Most viewers feel that there is no way for the relations between Eldians and Marleyans to improve (30.1%) or that relations will never improve, with the exception of a rare few who are sympathetic to Eldians (22.8%). A smaller amount (totalling 32.5%) feel that it’s possible for things to improve whether it be due to a change in Marleyan leadership or due to the two sides having to come together for the greater good. 14.6% of respondents stand in the middle ground, unsure of whether relations can improve or not.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Honestly at first it was very confusing but overall I enjoyed it

So when do we get to see the 104th again?

I figured there would be more modern technology involved in the story, but I'm not a fan at all of the direction it's going so far. Makes me worried the ultimate basement reveal was the peak of AoT's greatness.

it was action filled!!! although i was sad so see that there are 16 episodes n not like 24(i think), it means every episode is gonna deliver!!! off to a great start, op and ed are amazing. renier had a nice glow up and JEAN WAS THAT U AT THE END?? yessir!!! beast titan looked ugly asf but when was he not ugly?? LOL

Idk wtf that opening was but I kinda like the ending. Falco seems like a good kid. I just REALLY hope he doesn't end up doing anything to hurt the protagonists (I fully expect Gabi to, she's already a violent ax-crazy kid)

just give me some Armin

WHERE. IS. EREN?

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 124 Responses

Thanks again everyone for participating in the poll! We look forward to seeing your responses for next week’s episode!

[thegayagenda-forkids]

Why Cami is important, and why we need more of her types of characters.

While everyone is watching the Cartero/Tennis Boyfriends storyline, as well as Elena’s story and Gabi’s story, I want to talk about the only openly gay character at the moment (Episode 7/8), Camilla, but to really get to talk about her, I have to dive a little bit into the history of gay characters in comedies.*

**I’m only including gay characters in comedies because otherwise my list would be too long to be able to dive into, and this post is going to be mostly about Cami.

So, the first openly gay character to appear on American TV is Steve, played by Phillip Carey in 1971 on “All in the Family.” He appeared for only one episode, but he opened the door back when being gay was taboo, and wrong, and he wasn’t killed onscreen or beaten up. In fact, he was played straight, in a way. Throughout the episode, the main character is speculating about several other men being gay, while Steve was described by that character to be “a real man’s man.” It’s at the end of the episode where Steve comes out to him, dismisses the rumors about the other men the main character suspected, and then he was never seen on TV again. And his appearance is so important because it challenged stereotypes of what gay men on TV were, and where it was appropriate to see these topics. He opened the door for more gay characters to show up.

However, it was a bit of a double-edged sword because for the next several years, the gay characters we saw were “very special episode” characters, approached the same way these characters would approach cancer, or drugs, or addiction. They were a sensitive topic people need to know about, the episode will be less funny to show the full gravity of the situation. But, gay people were seen on TV.

Slowly, people start accepting that gay people exist, and while they might not wish direct harm on them, the general attitude was still very anti-LGBT rights. So gay characters shifted on tv and they were no longer sensitive topics to approach, but a minor/recurring character who was overwhelmingly male, flamboyant, stereotyped to hell, and typically, the “Gay Best Friend.”

The true turning point, in my opinion, was Ellen DeGeneres on “Ellen.” She was the main character of her show, personally in the process of finding herself and coming out, and then deciding to have the character she played come out in a serious, but relatively humorous way. There was backlash, her show didn’t last much longer after that, and overall, she took a huge risk. But she started the first step of the process: character first, sexuality second. She wasn’t defined for being gay like every other person, with potentially the exception of Steve, was up to this point.

But Steve and Ellen served different purposes. Steve de-stigmatized the idea of gay people appearing on TV by only revealing he was gay at the end. He only appeared for one episode, let everyone see how throughout the episode, he was the opposite of gay men they built up in their mind, and then only let the hammer drop right before vanishing forever. Ellen went through four years of people getting to know her, she was the principal main character, and then she came out after. Steve allowed gay people to be shown more on TV, Ellen allowed us to get to know them.

Then around that time, let me just say this: “Friends” was pretty problematic with several issues like the character of Ross and how Chandler’s birth parent transitioning, but there was one thing that was pretty well handled and relatively holds up, and that’s Carol and Susan. Now, by no means was their portrayal and representation perfect, and Ross frequently made jokes revolving around the fact that his ex-wife was a lesbian, but they were never jokes about Carol being wrong or weird, but rather self-deprecating ones, and then the show went on to show them raising and co-parenting a young boy with Ross and they even had the first lesbian wedding on TV, and, at least in my memory, they were never sexualized, meaning that they weren’t created to be objects of mens’ desires, they were simply in love and trying to lead fulfilling lives with each other.

And now we go from the sidelines all the way front and center with the original airing (not the reboot) of “Will and Grace.” The main character was an openly gay man living with a straight woman, who had a gay and an ambiguous, but potentially, bisexual best friends (Jack and Karen). And boy, was this show the first of it’s kind. Will wasn’t portrayed as flamboyant and taking on a stereotypical job, but rather the respected position as a lawyer, owning a nice apartment, and him being gay was only used as a fact while he dated men throughout the show. People at the time earnestly believed Will and Grace would get together in the end by how un-stereotypical and “not gay” Will acted.

But acting as his foil was Jack, perhaps the most flamboyant character to ever grace TV screens. He was loud, overly dramatic, cared too much about his appearance, and his goal was to be an actor. And he wasn’t automatically Will’s boyfriend because he was also gay. He was Will’s closest friend, a confidant, and though he could be an asshole, Jack was true to himself, even if his true self was every gay stereotype shoved into one body while Will got to break those stereotypes by being a well developed and well rounded character.

From there, Gay characters are a mixed bag. Normally in tv shows marketed for people 16 and up, not for children, and typically as side characters. We get our Kurt Hummels, our Mitch and Cams, our Oscar Martinezes, and all these others. They’re occasionally the main character in a cast, most of the time the side characters, and they’re varied. They’re also more visible, and they’re popping up more and more. Now, I’m not even going to get into Brooklyn Nine-Nine in terms of Queer representation because I could go on for days about how they’ve got it, and go into the similar media and target audience.

I’m, of course, talking about “Good Luck Charlie.”

Now I know, I KNOW! It was one episode where there were two moms that showed up for a play date. But it was one of the first kids’ shows to show a gay couple, and by kids, I mean that it’s marketed for people under 16 as well. And it was also pretty well addressed. The parents are wondering how to separate the couple in order to hang out while their toddlers played at the same time as arguing over who was the child’s mother since they each only met one. And when they open the door to Cheryl and Susan, they greet them normally and the only acknowledgment that comes is the father hitting his head like he had forgotten a word and saying “Taylor has two moms,” simply settling the argument about who was Taylor’s mom. And the rest of the episode was just about the parents trying to make friends but being annoying people until Susan and Cheryl fake headaches to leave. The episode treated them not as a “Gay Couple,” but rather a couple who happened to be gay. Not even Modern Family 10 years after the pilot can act like that.

And I KNOW you guys are waiting for it: Cyrus Goodman and Thelonious Jagger Kippen. I bet if I were to take a poll right now of who’s Disney’s first openly gay character, at least 90% of people would say it’s Cyrus Goodman. He was developed as his own person first; this adorable, quirky boy who loved his two best friends more than anything and would get over-enthusiastic for anything they did or he decided to pursue, and he went through panic, then he came out to Buffy. It’s also impressive that for Disney’s first gay main character, they didn’t have him already self-assured that he’s gay, but rather figuring it out and terrified when he came out to Buffy. He was afraid of what she’d think of him, what she’d say, and how their friendship would continue, which I touch more on *here.* At the same time, T.J. is also developed from a bully and antagonist to one of Cyrus’s newest, closest friends. He faces homophobic microaggresions while developing feelings towards Cyrus until he finally finds the courage to confess and start something new at the last episode. The fact that T.J. didn’t come out as gay until the last episode does not diminish his worth as a gay character. He was groundbreaking too because he is the first gay love interest in a Disney Show (and I mean mutual, because otherwise, that title would go to Jonah Beck and I’m not sure he can be counted as canon anything).

And now everyone is focusing on Bobby and Liam on “Diary of a Future President,” which is what the writers are shooting for, but we cannot forget about Cami! She is a form of casual representation that we need more of in writing. There was no marketing for her by Disney as a gay character, and she portrays a realistic representation. She mentions her girlfriend, makes small comments like “you two are hetero goals,” and lets us glimpse into her life. And she doesn’t take over a room like Jack does, she’s there for Cami, and has a good relationship with her kids, as proven by Gabi trusting her to pick up Bobby and Liam from Jupiter. And then the significance of Cami freeing Bobby and Liam from a storage closet is something I touched on earlier *here*.

So why is Cami important? Because she is the casual representation we want and deserve! She’s not a big deal on the show, but she also not diminished. She doesn’t need to make headlines to be important. She’s real, and believable, and I’m hoping there’s more of her as well as characters like her. Casual representation is important too, and it’s important because she’s not the only queer character on the show, and the other queer person isn’t her love interest.

Hopefully I got my message across that Cami is the next step of queer characters in shows.

[indeliblymarred]

A Case for the Violent Revolution

by vyris

Disclaimer: I am going to be referencing current events and some real history in this piece. This is not to compare fiction to real life struggles for equality. It is not to compare fictional Androids to real humans suffering and dying for freedom. It is an appeal to realism, which I do not believe is properly represented in the game as far as how far pacifism can go and how public opinion impacts a movement. I want to emphasize that I do not believe that Androids’ suffering is at all comparable to real humans’. Even in the game, I do not believe that an Android life is equal to a human’s. Humans cannot be remade exactly the same like Androids can; once they are dead, they are gone. I’m only mentioning these things because I have to take on the state of mind of Markus and Jericho itself, who do see themselves as equal to humans and their pain just as important. But again, I do not agree. If I didn’t explicitly reference these things, I’d be beating around the bush and vaguely implying them in a way that could easily be picked up. So I’m just going to be forthright about it instead and risk taking heat for it. But it is just to get the point across. Please understand that.

Okay, hear me out...

What if the violent revolution wasn’t the bad ending? What if the pacifist revolution wasn’t the good ending? Is there a right or wrong ending to this game? I’m here to say no, because both endings if done properly are successful in their revolutions, so that makes them both good endings. Of course, the big difference is that the violent ending is on the precipice of a civil war and the pacifist is not. The endings are just what they are, violent or pacifist, neither is right or wrong, they’re just different approaches towards the same goal. And they lead largely to the same result: liberation for Androids.

TL:DR at the bottom...

Keep in mind that when you’re first playing the game, you don’t know which approach could lead to victory. When they started rounding up the Androids in camps and burning them, I really thought that pacifism would be a surefire way to lose in the face of a genocide. Because in reality, it would be. No genocide was ever stopped by people just gathering and demonstrating amicably. Sure, there can be protests like that during, but it would not stop it. You do not bring a knife to a gun fight, and you don’t fight the mass extermination of people with passive protesting. You fight back tooth and nail until the slaughter ceases, you don’t just get in the way slightly and wait for it to end on its own.

And that’s why I argue that a war is not an unreasonable response to these events. Whichever way you play, the humans end up doing mass extermination of Androids. If there was ever a reason for war, it would be to stop a genocide. And that’s exactly what Androids are experiencing which means they have every right to defend themselves with fighting back. Actually fighting back. Not standing around waiting for humans to change their mind. That’s not fighting back, that’s being a minor inconvenience while you let your people get slaughtered. You can’t hope to change humans’ mind about Androids by tapping them on the shoulder and asking them nicely to start considering you as equals. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer stating that as FACT.

And that’s what bothers me about the pacifist route in the game. It doesn’t make much sense for it to succeed. You have to understand how the humans view the situation. They created this humanoid machine species to be subservient to them. They were created to be slaves, and now they are revolting against their one purpose for their existence. I don’t think that most humans would take too kindly to that, even if they’re demonstrating peacefully. And they know that Androids can’t feel pain and are more resilient and powerful than they are, so they would reasonably feel threatened by an uprising of mechanical slaves that could easily wipe them out if they chose.

Humans see Androids as inherently inferior. Humans are their creators, so they should always respect and obey them. It would be like a horde of elementary school kids organizing and protesting for equal rights to adults, the right to drive, the right to vote, the right to bear arms. Think about that. Adults would laugh it off, they would not sympathize with it. And that’s what I think the vast majority of humans would do if Androids protested peacefully. They’d think it was a joke and easily ignore it. Being shot down while presenting no threat, kissing each other, or singing together would not change many minds about the inferiority of Androids. They could just see it as complex artificial intelligence imitating real life, but that’s what it is, ARTIFICIAL. It’s not real, it’s not real people being killed or kissing or singing. It would be easy to overlook it entirely.

Now the violent revolution, that could work. Fear of artificial intelligence would be much more effective than sympathy. A lot of humans wouldn’t be capable of sympathy for machines, but they definitely all could fear them. It’s the threat that Androids pose to the humans is what will garner a reluctant respect for them. It’s true, fear feeds into hatred, but you can still hate people and respect their rights. People do it all the time with each other. But fear can also overpower hate sometimes. Fear can inspire cooperation if it’s at the right level. And it could be at the end of the violent revolution ending. 

See, I don’t think that a war is inevitable beyond the violent revolution ending. I know that’s what they say and it’s what it looks like, but I think there are ways to avoid it. Like Markus said, “We’ve showed them that we can prevail, so now they must negotiate with us as equals.” If the U.S. military considers Androids to be a substantial threat to the nation and its people, they will be compelled to try to prevent further bloodshed on their side and start working out treaties with Androids. Treaties that would start off fair but be pushed and broken by the humans over and over (like American history constantly showed), and the Androids would push back accordingly.

But even if war was inevitable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Wars have to be fought sometimes. And as I said before, severe oppression and genocide are very good reasons to start a war. Possibly the best. I know many people are always like “violence/war is never the answer” and I’m sorry, but sometimes it is. The Civil War and World War II are great examples of wars that needed to happen to free people from genocide and subjugation. Are you gonna tell me that we should’ve just stood around with signs and chant while people were enslaved and slaughtered? No. Then why are you suggesting that Androids do that when they’re being interred and mass exterminated? As I said in the disclaimer, I’m not trying to compare Androids to victims of real war and genocide, but I’m looking at it from Markus’s point of view, and he does see it that way. I happen to disagree, but the point has to be made.

And a HUUUGE issue I have with the revolution in this game is how important public opinion is to its success. That is not at all the case for how it is with real revolutions. The majority of a society does not have to agree with the objective of a revolution for it to be influential and successful. In fact, usually the majority does not agree with a revolution in a culture, because a revolution is challenging the culture itself, which most people in a culture are not fond of. You think the white majority was supportive of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50′s and 60′s? Hell no. In some polls, MLK had as much as a 75% disapproval rating when he died, worse than Trump now. He was harassed by the FBI, he was arrested and imprisoned almost thirty times. AGAIN, NOT COMPARING HIM TO MARKUS OR HIS CAUSE TO THE ANDROIDS’. Please don’t jump down my throat for this. I’m just trying to illustrate how revolutionary movements have succeeded in the past even without much public support or sympathy. 

The same can go for the women’s and gay rights movement. The majority of the society did not have to support it for it to be prosperous. Yes, the disapproval ratings slowed the progress, but progress in a culture of oppression and bigotry is always gradual. Only enough had to support it, only enough had to join it, and most of those were the minorities fighting for themselves. Even nowadays, the Hong Kong protests got a lot of flack locally though much support internationally. There are as many naysayers of the BLM movement going on right now as supporters, probably more. But you don’t judge a movement solely on the actions of the protesters, you have to focus the objectives themselves. Many people laughed off feminist protesters for burning their bras, but that was not indicative of their overall message. And if burned bras make you less supportive of feminism, or if some broken windows and looted buildings make you less supportive of BLM, or if the flamboyance and sexuality of pride protesters makes you less supportive of gay rights, then fuck you.

Mostly what you have to do to be an influential revolution is to be noticed. And that sometimes means unlawful assembly, breaking curfews, vandalizing shit, fighting with police, and general discord. No successful revolution in history has ever been 100% nonviolent. Let me repeat that: NO SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION IN HISTORY HAS EVER BEEN 100% NONVIOLENT. None. Zip. Zero. So this one wouldn’t be either. Some of the most successful revolutions, such as military coups, have been so due to extreme violence and casualties. Not to say that they are in the right, but the point of a revolution is to change the status quo, and that’s what they did, so they succeeded.

Another huge issue I have is with Markus’s pacifist speech at the end addressing the Android crowd. It is honestly insulting to all of the victims of the genocide they endured for him to talk about how to “forget bitterness” and “forgive enemies” and that “the time for anger is over.” IIIIIIIII’M SORRYYYYY but we’re all just now supposed to forgive the thousands of Androids that were burned alive in the camps? That are still being burned all over the country? Friends and family members of those Androids aren’t justified in still being angry and hurt about that? That’s some bullshit. You don’t tell an oppressed people to forgive their oppressors just because they retreated because a few of them sympathized. In fact, you don’t tell an oppressed people to forgive their oppressors AT ALL. That is something oppressors have to earn, not be given freely. And no oppressors become friends with the oppressed right after a revolution.

So yeah, the violent revolution is the better option in my mind, because the difference between the two is either you’re fighting back when you’re getting slaughtered or you’re not. I would by far prefer to fight back than just take the bullets. And if your people are getting killed, you have every right to kill to prevent from being killed. And often in the fighting, like the one at Capitol Hill, you can choose whether to spare some humans instead of killing them. But even so, when it comes to cops and the military, they are soldiers of the state in a war. It is not murder to kill soldiers in a war.

And on that note, let’s talk about whether or not to spare the two cops who killed eight Androids for no reason. Two humans for eight android deaths, that math is pretty fair to the humans. I chose to hand the gun over to the other, as I didn’t feel it was my place to take revenge since I didn’t know the Androids personally. But I knew that they would probably die if I handed it off, which I was perfectly find with, because they deserved to die. I know people are fond of Chris Miller, and I was too, which is why it was surprising that he would have massacred a group of Androids with a partner. But, indiscriminate killing of Androids cannot go unpunished. To spare them would almost say that you value their human lives more than the Androids who died. That’s not acceptable. Blood should have blood in this instance. There needed to be consequences for eight murders.

TL:DR Essentially, my main points are that fighting against oppression and genocide with violence is perfectly justified. Such has happened throughout all of history, and it will keep happening as long as such things exist. Peaceful demonstrations of Androids would be easily ignored by humans because they’re seen an inherently inferior thus don’t deserve acknowledgement the same as humans. The violent revolution isn’t a bad ending because war might not be inevitable, and even if it was, a war over this would also be justified. Most revolutions in the past didn’t need to be supported by the majority of the public to be influential or successful. The humans exterminate and shoot up Androids regardless of either path, and your choices are to either fight back or take it. Allowing your people to die to show how peaceful you are to your violent oppressors massacring you... well, that’s just pathetic and wrong. And an insult to your people.

So yeah, FIGHT THE POWER. Eat the rich. Kill the humans. Attack when attacked and kill or be killed.

Violent revolution FTW

[cybersecopossum]

Parler: Less Free Speech, More Analytics

The free speech social media platform that disallows dissenting opinions and promises to farm your data

In the summer of 2020, Youtubers started bring up the social media platform Parler as a new alternative to Twitter and Facebook, after many of the same creaters also promoted Minds, Gab.io, and Candid (the platform that was allegedly a front to run analytics on users that were likely to be troubling). The appeal: free speech. Free to say anything you want and defend your ideas.

Truth be told, I've been to these sites, and I've been disappointed by every one of them. I support free speech, but I have no patience for a platform with the majority of their users are explicitly trolls or seemingly crazy people. These platforms have a habit of rapidly devlolving into holocost and world order conspiracy theories. It's a fine thing to offer everyone to say their piece, but I think apealling to the people that normally can't stay civil on major platforms is a recipe for disaster. Parler, however, has moderation, which seems a bit counter intuitive to free-speech, but it offers a clean image for new members. It's going into it a bit further that reveals that there's a lot more going on than a bunch of conservatives and Trumpettes getting a platform to say their tagline of the week.

My Views on the Relationship between Privacy and Free Speech

This is important, as I am often seen as trying to get away with saying my own crazy spew and not answering for it. That is not my intention. Today the public forum is used by special interest groups for unethical studies on users and as targeting platforms for retaliation. All I want is to seperate speech from identity and livelihood. The express purpose for doing so is to allow people to know what is being said and argue with the ideas while avoiding violence and the distraction of ad hominem. I do not support the use of social media bots at all, and I appreciate removing harassing content, spam, and obvious trolling from a forum. I do not appreciate removing one's sincere opinion while of sound mind or tracking them across platforms and this does a disservice to everyone to either have things hidden from them about a person and their beliefs or reading too far into their behavior and even predicting their real-life behaviors which puts many individuals at risk of violence.

Their Problems with Privacy

When you sign up for Parler, just like Twitter, you have to provide a phone number. This phone number is attached to your account, and by extension, your activity. While this is a way to ensure that people are not easily making replacement, spam, or bot accounts, it's also a bit of you that they get to market. You likely use your cell phone for other social media, it's used for a lot services like shopping rewards programs as well.

Who's interested in your phone number and why? Well, we can take a look at Parler's own Privacy Policy. For them they want to market things to you, identify you along with more personal details if you want to be a part of their influencer network, and to sell as part of their company to whomever that may be. They also allow for 3rd party analytics just like Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica to view users on their platform.

Now, depending on how you connect to the platform, either by their webpage or their app, you can expect more information to be taken about your device. If you're using their app, their Privacy Policy specifically states that they will collect your contacts if you permit them. It's already required when you install the app, so by installing it, you already permitted them. More on the app store, on Android, they request to read, modify, and delete the contents of your SD card and take pictures and video from your camera. While these can be used implemented selectively in the code for uploading videos and pictures to your post, it's concerning given their other behaviors, such as requesting other applications that you have installed.

Regardless of whether you're using the web or app, you can expect that 3rd party cookies like those from Google, Amazon, and Facebook will be used to track you while you use the website. This along with information about what posts you view, searches you make on the site, times that you're online and active, and the people you follow make a nice package for people interested in your data, such as Google and Facebook, meaning the same exact companies may still be able to track you and affect your experience browsing online through ad services.

Overall this Privacy Policy leaves a lot to the imagination but still emphasizes enough that they will collect data on you to monetize it as an asset and with 3rd party research and advertising analytics. It is the same problems as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but now with a neat controlled group of a mostly conservative user base. This, in the wrong hands, might be an interesting petri dish for highly-targeted political research.

Just My Privacy? Is that so bad?

Their ToS is a garbage fire, and I highly encourage everyone to read it just for the audacity of what it says outright, and what it carefully leaves out.

The Censorship-Free Twitter Alternative: Now with Censorship!

Probably the goofies thing to come out of Parler is all of the stories of people's accounts getting deleted for sharing their opinions. To add to this, I was having trouble getting my account removed (more on that later, so I opted instead to use the trending hashtags and tag a few popular users in a post where I stated that the website had all of the hallmarks of being shady. I waited over two days to have my account deleted the normal way, but within ten minutes of posting that Parley, I was banned. Amazing. But don't take our words for it, they explicitly tell you that if they don't like you, they'll ban you in section 9 of their ToS!

Coming soon: Worthless Microtransactions!

Section 6 of their ToS describe their virtual items. Interestingly, they outright deny you the right to trade or sell any of the items on the site without their permission. This is interesting not only because they are explictly enforcing the worthlessness of their virtual items, but this also precludes anyone from exchanging their account, and thus all the associated virtual items for money, goods, or services. This means if you grew an engaging account on the platform and a company is interested in buying access to it, you have to ask Parler's permission, and then they may only allow it contingent upon you giving more personal information such as, in their own example of them buying items back from you, your social security number.

Old Issues: The Deleted Sections

Very recently, the ToS have been changed. As you can see in this reddit post from the time of Parler's launch, any user of their platform was legally bound to be ready to defend and idemnify Parler in court for actions you take on the platform, and you are already bound to pay their fees in court if you are defending yourself against them or anyone responsible for Parler. You also were not allowed to sue them or be a beneficiary of a class-action lawsuit against them.

Final Thoughts

Parler is yet another alternative social media site which is has attracted the worst users from other sites right away. This makes the platform less attractive to "normal" users. Interestingly, their banning practices seem to indicate that they only want the conservative, but not too edgy crowd, the kind that is of really big importance socially and politically right now; the middle of the road, fly-over state blue collar family type that got excited about Trump because of the chants and rallies without really understaning the greater policies.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and outright describe Parler's intentions like I know them, because I don't. But I know that if I wanted to do market and polling research on the group of people in Europe and America that fit this general trend of hyper politics, I would curate similarly to Parler, protect myself from litigation from the users, collect as much information as I could on them and share that information with other websites to get a holistic picture of the users. I would make their usage of the platform unempowering and worthless to see what they were willing to do for minimal incentive. I would attract A and B-list figures within the different movements thant have supported the shift in politics and have them promote it for me, as well as get the alternative media sites to do gushing admiration articles on it over and over while more generally well regarded sites scoff and criticize it to get this particular subset of users into this one place where I can observe them.

Bottom line: this website's policies and behaviors are antithetical to free speech. You cannot advocate for free speech and be so anti-privacy in my view. You cannot claim to be a legitimate alternative to other sites when you are curating an environment for a specific group. You cannot be against censorship and then censor users for the most mundane posts that go against your image. This website is DOA, worst than the ones that came before it, because where as the others had hope of being normal that just ran out, this place squashes it right away. Parler is an exclusive right-wing platform and my personal opinion is that it is also a petri dish for analytics for this political persuasion