#these are people willing to say so on a survey so is the actual number higher?

[voidingintotheshout]

Just so people know where I stand. I 100% know that the Holocaust happened and it was an evil thing done by horrible people to the Jews and there were a lot of non-Nazis in the allied governments that actively prevent the Jews from going to safety. What happened to the Jews during World War II was evil and monstrous. When I say, never again, I fucking mean it. No group should have to live through that. I can’t even conceive of the amount of collective PTSD you would have after your entire people had to go through something like that. For me, if someone denies the Holocaust, even as a joke, I’m not interested in talking to them any further. I just walk away. 

So, about 5 days back YouGov released poll results for a very comprehensive public opinion poll they did for the US, which you can see here: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_tT4jyzG.pdf The poll itself asks about a lot of different topics, but the section I wanna focus on here is the section between pages 96 to 112, which focuses on Antisemitism and Israel. Most polls with questions like these tended to only survey around 100~200 people, and had really depressing results, so I was really hoping going into this study that we'd see some more cheerful statistics. Maybe those small sample sizes caused some bias, I dunno. Maybe the numbers were off.

I kept being disappointed by how many people denied the holocaust in those studies. I didn't want to believe those numbers were real, quite frankly.

Well.

Of a poll of 1500 people, give or take, 7% say the holocaust is a myth, with another 16% saying they "don't know" whether it is or isn't, with people in the 18-29 age group having even more alarming numbers than that: 20% think the holocaust is a myth, and 30% that they don't know. Conversely, in the 65+ age group, not a single responder denies the holocaust.

If you take this poll as being representative, then out of 331.9 million people living in the US, that gives us about 23.2 million people (rounded down) in the US alone who think the holocaust did not happen.

For reference, there are only 16.2 million jews in the entire world, with 7.1~ million of them in Israel.

Turns out the numbers I saw previously were representative.

Fuck, dude.

[boreal-sea]

Firstly: get dunk'd, transphobe.

Secondly, nice source, dipshit:

I have to do everything, don't I?

Let's talk about this source before we even read this article, because it shows how poor your rhetorical analysis skills are - or how unwilling you are to practice those skills, or perhaps just how willing you are to ally yourself with racist, nationalist, far-right reactionaries if they also happen to be transphobic.

Wings Over Scotland is a far-right, nationalist, reactionary blog run by Scottish "video game journalist" Stuart Campbell. It is not an unbiased news website - it's some dude's personal blog, and he created it because he hated that mainstream news in Scotland wasn't spreading the far-right rhetoric he wished it would.

And this is what you used as a "source". Fucking laughable.

Now let's get into the actual blog post. I refuse to call it a "news article", because it's not. This one was written by a nobody named "Mar Vickers". At the bottom of the article, Stuart claims Mar has "extensive experience in equality law". I can't seem to find any indication Mar is some sort of lawyer or scholar; all I can find is a link to his twitter - sorry, I mean his "X":

https://twitter.com/mar2vickers

You can tell this is the same Mar based on the content of his tweets. He's also transphobic garbage, surprise surprise. He has a backup account on "gettr", because it seems like his twitter gets suspended frequently - which says a lot. Gettr is a clone of twitter that caters to right wingers who get suspended and banned on Twitter for constantly violating its hate speech policies. So. You know. Though these days, X is the safe-haven for far-right reactionaries, so honestly that's a red flag period.

As a summary: Mar doesn't understand surveys or their limits, he doesn't define what a "sex crime" is, he doesn't know what the Rorschach test is, and he's bad at math. He plays with numbers like he's some sort of population statistician, which he's not. He draws conclusions that are completely nonsense, because he's not asking the relevant questions.

Basically, he states that over the past few years, the ratio of trans women in jail for sex crimes to compared to the general population of trans woman is now higher than the ratio of cis men in jail for sex crimes compared to the general population of cis men. Ok, but why did these numbers change? He doesn't ask why. He just assumes these trends are natural and reflect the behavior of cis men and trans women, rather than the increased transphobia in England and Wales that he and his buddy Stuart have been fueling.

I absolutely don't doubt that trans women are incarcerated for "sex crimes" (which he never defines of course) at a higher rate per population than cis men. It's the same reason people of color are incarcerated more per population: bigotry. "Wow, this population of people who society hates sure gets sent to jail a lot. That's probably a reflection of their true nature, and not a reflection on society at large!"

[zmediaoutlet]

Survey results time.

At time of downloading the data we got just over 300 responses, which is not bad for a survey that was long and complicated to take! I'm sure my shamelessness helped. Being a survey for a specific crowd, we also didn't get anyone (as far as I could tell) taking the survey in bad faith, which is a legit surprise. Special shout-out to the several people who, when asked to write literally anything to say they understood what was going on, wrote "literally anything"; additional shout-out to the person who wrote "penus and hole" (sic). You get it, anonymous person.

I'm going to share the top results for the questions here, but I'll also include the raw data as a sheet at the end in case anyone wants to actually go through it with a fine-tooth comb. This is not a survey where cute pie charts or graphs would be useful or readable, so get ready for some sweet-ass numbers:

Story Genre

Unsurprisingly, our leaderboard for most favorite story genre in the 'Anytime!' category is as follows:

Hurt/comfort (153 votes)

Angst (142 votes)

PWP (139 votes)

We just like the guys to get the shit beaten out of them, angstily, and then they can feel better by jerking off about it. The ideal evening.

The big loser in genre, with 34 buds flat out saying "not for me", was Dark!fic. That said, Dark!fic also got 112 votes (third highest) for "has to be JUST right," so we can probably take from there that while as a group we don't hate dark content, we have pretty strict definitions for a) what counts as dark, and b) what kind of dark we're willing to take.

Gencest/gen was arguably the most 'eh, idk?' of the genres, with respectable showings in every category from Anytime to No; most people don't hate it, but people aren't really seeking it out either. It's definitely There.

Story Setting

The winner of most 'Anytime!' votes for story setting is close to my heart; the podium is:

Bunker era (142 votes)

Canon-close, codas, etc (129 votes)

Pre-series/weechesters (126 votes)

It feels good to know that canon is on our side. This may help explain why various alternate universe settings didn't do so hot with the respondents -- the least fave according to this survey is an age!swap AU, followed by a raised apart!AU. Writers who are making Sam the big brother who lives in Cleveland while baby Dean lives in Seattle, you keep living your truth, but readers are rearing back.

That being said, while Canon Divergence isn't an overall winner, it has a full 149 votes in the 'Dig it' category; so, while we may generally prefer canon, we're willing to be led on a garden path away from it. We just want canon to be within shouting distance, at least.

Canonical Character Variants

Here's where the survey gets more complex. I've always been interested in how and why people are fandoming about things, and simple 'yes/no' surveys rarely dig into that meat. The point of the superego/ego/id separation is to really interrogate -- hey, do you like to read about (for example) soulless!Sam because you find it interesting on a high-minded level, or because your heart-strings are getting tugged even if you think it's kinda dumb, or just because it makes you so hornt-up you can't think straight? All are valid, and all are possible simultaneously, but it's interesting to prod at to see how the interest is working. You might also just be like, eh, it's fine, or GOD, STOP, and that's fine too. So, with all that said:

Superego winners:

demon powers!Sam (202 votes)

soulless!Sam (177 votes)

blood addict!Sam (160 votes)

Y'all like to really brain about how Sam is fucked up. I get it.

Ego winners:

Trials of Hell!Sam (186 votes)

blood addict!Sam (180 votes)

demon powers!Sam (161 votes)

Still all Sam, and no surprise that his saintly pale sleeplessness is winning the heartstrings battle.

Id winners:

demon!Dean (205 votes)

demon powers!Sam (175 votes)

blood addict!Sam (165 votes)

Again, no surprise: fandom girlies (gn) love their bad boys, lol. Soulless snuck in at #4 here with 163, presumably because working out still wearing a belt was juuuust dorky enough to kick him off the podium; #5 was Smith & Wesson at 162, probably because if they'd been left in that AU for ten more minutes they would have been fucking over the top of Dean Smith's desk. Glad we're all on the same page, there.

The nopes here were an interesting mix. In the full-on No Thank You category we had Michael!Dean and Gadreel!Sam (with 52 and 53 votes respectively) -- it would be interesting to know if that was due to dread of the storyline specifically, or just how No Bad Wrong it felt to have it happening. These two also led the 'meh' category, although they were joined on the podium of bad by Endverse!Dean (128 Meh votes), which frankly shocked me. Y'all aren't into his thigh holster? C'mon now. Sure, he murders his friends without compunction, but -- thigh holster!

Story Tropes

These ones were fascinatingly all over the place, which is exactly why I wanted to do this. Going to just run down the S/E/I podiums real quick, then 'Hard sell', then No --

Superego winners:

Outsider!POV (211)

Someone Finds Out (191)

Mental health issues (190)

Ego winners:

Mutual pining (252)

First time (242) AND Sick/injured (242)

First time in a long time (235)

Id winners:

Jealousy/possessiveness (224)

First time (218)

First time in a long time (180)

Now, part of what's interesting about these is how they fall off in other categories. Outsider POV wins handily at Superego with 211, but then drops all the way down to 92 votes at Id -- which isn't nothing, but clearly it's preferred to have a heckin' think about how other people view the incest relationship, rather than thinking it's just So Hot that people might. Similarly, while people do think it's so so hot for one brother or the other (or both!) to be possessive at 224 votes, when it comes to the superego that drops right down to 134 votes, presumably as the brain wakes up and goes RED FLAG!

Entering the land of no thank you, we shall have two anti-podiums:

Real hard sell:

Infidelity (127)

magic/powers!Dean (125)

Unrequited/no relationship upgrade (110) AND "Carver Edlund" fandom

This is a much more mixed bag. Infidelity and Unrequited are no surprise here, because it Feels Bad, Man; magic!Dean also not really a surprise, given that most of our respondents prefer being closer to canon, and Dean is very much our mundane buddy in the show as presented. (A delightful buddy, but a distinctly nonmagical one.) Carver Edlund fandom makes me laugh mostly because it's such a bananas thing to exist in the show. Sam and Dean reading big bang fics about each other? Collectively we just... don't know what to do with that. Weird.

Squick/No/Maybe one exception:

Permanent character death (140)

Infidelity (108)

Eating disorders (102)

Again, no surprise in the anti-winners of 1 or 2 here, but number 3 surprised me, personally. ED fic used to be a pretty big wedge of common tropes that people would seek out. Perhaps it's gotten less popular over the years? Or perhaps just that the people who like it REALLY like it and so chat about it out loud, while those who don't quietly bury it in sand, lo as a cat does with their leavings.

Most extreme delta in 'general interest' (whether that be S,E, or I) to 'ehh' (whether that be Hard Sell or Squick) is first time. Y'all loooove your first time.

Sexy Tropes, Vol. 1

This is where I really wanted to know if people could pull apart their interests between brain and heart and guts. Hopefully people were honest, as requested. Some of them we know are slight liar answers, because the hits on AO3 tell a story that can't be refuted -- nevertheless, here's what people were willing to admit to.

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Bedsharing (158)

Incest kink (139)

Size kink (133)

your friendly neighborhood survey creator is jumping up and down going 'wooo' that size kink made the podium. also I hope everyone understood that incest kink meant, like, indulging in the incest of it all via 'oh you're so totes my brother and i want to suck your dingle for that reason specifically', but I realize that could've been clearer.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

shameless bottom!Dean stuff (151)

switching (147)

voyeurism (138)

the first one here genuinely surprises me considering what I see getting written most often; is this a case of just not being in the right venn diagrams, or the 'easy sell' just not matching up with what people are being sold? Curiouser and curiouser.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

bad/awkward sex (120)

phone sex (114)

in [drug/alcohol] veritas (110)

edging into awkward town in a few ways here: we don't love these, but we can see how it'd be fun. or not fun, in the case of bad sex.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

always-another-gender!AU (84)

multiple Sams or Deans (73)

genderswap (magic) (72)

so, in general, we prefer to keep the penises around and intact, but just one Sam penis and one Dean penis, please. Here, I'm interested that the volume is much lower than in the top category: maxing out at 84 hard sells compared to 158 bulletproof options means that we're willing to give more of these tropes a chance, even if they're not our faves. How accepting we are!

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

always-another-gender!AU (83)

A/B/O elements (65)

multiple Sams or Deans (51)

strong overlap with the hard sell; and, keeping in mind that people were able to choose multiple options, it's possible that some of those were identical votes. Again, please keep the penises straightforward and only two at a time. A/B/O is interesting here, especially given what we know of how well it does on AO3; while it's a big squick for a lot of people, it also has decently high votes in bulletproof/easy, averaging 82 votes. Mixed bag!

Sexy Tropes Vol. 2, Electric Boogaloo

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Possessive/claiming sex (129)

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (116)

Hair pulling (103)

Let's glance back up at the Id winners in the story tropes above, hmm quietly to ourselves, and move on.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (135)

Hair pulling (130)

Possessive/claiming sex (121)

Well, that's boring. So let's expand so as not to be repetitive:

4. Dub-con (116) 5. Dom/sub (113) AND Underage (113) 6. Knifeplay (107)

There we go. Pretty easy to put all of those into one fic, too.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

Blindfolds (128)

Painplay (116)

Shibari/rope play (112)

We're starting to lose interest as accessories come into play. Interesting to compare D/s and its relative success against painplay -- so, tell him what to do, but don't hit him while you're doing it. Fair enough.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

Fucking machines (94)

Vore (80)

Mommy!kink (77)

Entertaining mix here, haha. General feasibility may be rearing its head here. (Also, for my own entertainment: daddy!kink got 67 Hard Sell votes. People generally prefer to keep it as horizontal incest, not vertical incest.)

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

Feederism (164)

Vore (161)

Extreme underage (157)

No surprises here, although some fans of the nibbly variety of wincest may be disappointed by vore's poor placement. Note also that 'extreme' is in the eye of the beholder; we'll leave aside value judgments, as we have for the whole survey, and note that people are not indulging in a version of underage they find to be personally past the line, or at least are not admitting to that.

At a glance, the closest matchup between bulletproof for some and a squick to others is bloodplay, with just 1 vote separating the two categories: 44 bulletproof, 43 squick. Next time someone tries to tell you that 'everyone' likes or doesn't like something, please take it with an entire shaker full of salt.

Dynamic & Position Preferences

I tried to encourage people not to think too hard about this one and just answer on instinct. Who knows if that worked. But here are some overview takes:

Toppy/dominant: Sam takes the lead here, with 69% of respondents being in the 'Love it!' category. Nice. (217 votes)

Dom Dean earned a respectable 52% of 'Love it!' votes (163).

However, I was also interested to check out the inverse --

subby!Sam: 44 'Very no thank' votes (13%) subby!Dean: 27 'Very no thank' votes (8%)

It's interesting to leap way back up and compare that against 'shameless bottom!Dean stuff' doing so well in the rated E categories. Makes you ponder.

Actual sex position: Frequently switching takes the win here, with 61% of the vote (194 votes). Sam always topping edges out if people must choose, with 144 votes; Dean always topping is our lowest choice, with 112.

Service!topping: this is a fairly niche fic type, but it does still exist -- I guess in a world of bottoms someone's got to actually get up and do something, and it is hilariously an almost perfectly even split:

service!top Sam: 50.17% (151 votes) service!top Dean: 51.50% (155 votes)

A healthy percentage of people said they didn't care about these questions either way, and more power to them. However, they were wildly outvoted by those who did.

Multishipping Time

Our final categories are when other people get their grubby hands on Sam or Dean, either canonically(ish) or in our fandom activities.

Canonical relationships for Sam

Jess wins, quelle surprise. :) 161 people Dug It and who can blame them.

Amelia LOSES, shocking no one: 112 people said Fuck That.

Eileen was definitely a mixed bag; her results, in order, were: Meh: 92; Fuck that: 76; Worse than meh: 66; Dug it: 44.

Canonical(ish) relationships for Dean

Note here: it was too unbalanced if we only went with people Dean officially dated. However, the show leaned hard into a few unrequited male relationships for him, which we included here, and no one sent me hate about it so I guess that was fine.

Benny wins the Love It! category with 129 votes, barely edging out Cassie at 122. Benny is best boy, so that fits.

Cas loses with a full 99 Fuck That votes, which is probably what we'd expect from a wincest survey. That said, he also got 93 Dug It votes, so it's a pretty balanced showing.

Poor Lisa sits firmly at Meh with 148 votes. It's not that we hate you, Lisa; we just don't really know what to do with you. Which is pretty much how the relationship went in the show.

Shipping Sam like FedEx

We returned to the S/E/I model for shipping as we did for tropes, because it means something very different to go 'oh sure, I can see how that would be interesting' vs saying 'I want them to fuck rawnasty and I don't care why they're doing it.' Apologies if I left out your favorite side-ship but, shit, there's only so much time in the day.

So, we return to the podiums:

Superego:

Ruby (132)

Rowena (121)

Cas (102)

Ego:

Rowena (121)

Cas (106)

Ruby (90)

Id:

Ruby (125)

John (121)

Rowena (118)

So that was going on sedately until Dad came in like a hammer. Fascinating. On the other hand:

No:

Lisa (234)

Donna (222)

Claire (219)

Interesting to me that these three are ladies that Sam theoretically could have got up in but people are not into it, regardless. This is slightly different to Dean's 'no' category -- spoilers for three inches of screen space!

Dean, Shipped by UPS

Superego:

John (129)

Benny (115)

Lisa (99)

Ego:

Benny (134)

John (116)

Lisa (102)

Id:

John (147)

Benny (128)

Crowley (114)

Well. That tells a slightly different story, ahem. Enjoy the various tropes that will be applied, Dean! And then we get:

No:

Amelia (245)

Kevin (223)

Gabriel (217)

Comparing to the Sam 'no' above -- these three are slightly more 'traditional' Sam ships, though the wincest shippers are nevertheless not into them for Sam, either. Dean literally never spoke to or saw Amelia on screen, so it'd be a determined shipper who'd make that happen. Not undoable, though!

Conclusion

Syke: there isn't one to be made. This really shows how diverse the taste is in the wincest community, or at least in the wincest community that a) happened to see this survey over the last five days and b) bothered to take it. This particular group leans slightly toward e.g. toppy Sam, or slightly toward switching, but when you look at raw numbers what you see is that at least one person LOVES every single one of these things, and at least one person fucking HATES every single one of these things, and so -- so what? Write what you want. If you see a niche of something that you love where you feel like not enough people are writing or reading, try to fill it. If you're worried "no one" will like it, well -- you're wrong. Someone will. It just needs to get seen by the right people.

That's where fandom comes in, to spread the love even if something isn't bulletproof for us -- reblogging a post to say, 'hey, my mutual made this thing, look at it!' What a joy it'd be if someone saw it and loved it to absolute shattering bits, and then found their little bulletproof community, and happiness was made. What's the point, if we're not making each other happy.

Thanks for participating if you did, and reading all this if you did. Here's a link to a google sheet (read only) with all the tables of raw data if you're interested. I'll post some of the more entertaining fill-in answers later.

s&d shipping survey results: November 1, 2023 - Google Sheets

[20dollarlolita]

Did you hear about joannes going bankrupt? Do you have any thoughts on that?

(Quick note so no one um actually's me: I'm aware that not all bankruptcy is Chapter 11. Thank you)

As a crafter, I'll say: oh dear, that's going to make shopping harder.

As a person who was aware of the insides of how that company was running, I'm going to say, "about fucking time."

See, here's what was happening with Joann. Problem #1 was that they stopped taking the "you have to spend money to make money," mentality and applying it to labor. A store is not about the products or the customers. The life of a store, the thing that keeps it beating, is the employees who serve the customer and serve the corporate ownership.

When they first started notably cutting labor, the store did have a lot of driven, passionate people who were willing to pick up the slack. It's possible to cut the freight shift one night a week when you have daytime floor associates who can do the freight when there's no customers immediately needing help. You can expect store managers to clean and recover the store, because it's a task that keeps them free to disconnect from when a store needs a manager to be acting as a manager. You can expect any free employee to fill in at the register or cut counter to cover a break or a lunch or fill in during a high-customer time. The store had a lot of employees who didn't mind doing some multitasking, and didn't mind being completely busy from the start of the shift until the very end.

However, when these labor cuts proved to be an effective way to save the store money, the amount of multitasking, and the amount of expecting one shift to cover for cuts made to another shift, started going up. It was no longer cutting the freight shift one day a week. It was cutting the freight shift until it was ONLY one day a week.

And that's where they made the big mistake in labor load. Instead of, "serve the customers, and do these tasks when you have time," it became, "do the task, and serve the customers if they demand your attention." A store is not the customers; it's the people who work in the store. But one of the key players in a retail store's staffing is the employees for whom making the customers happy is their primary drive. The way that stores were staffed, people whose primary drive was to serve customers were not allowed to adequately do so to reach customer satisfaction.

We need to add to this that, in addition to demanding more from every employee, Joann corporate has several of their demands on employees to be automatically measured. Customer response surveys, ship-from-store fulfillment, buy online pickup in store response times, number of remnants that were rolled to be sold, all of that can be sent to corporate with a pass/fail number assigned to it. Other elements of the store, like how much freight from a box actually makes it onto the shelf on time, or if a wheelchair can navigate the store, are not measured. This means that the company prescribes which tasks will actually be done and which can be shoved in the back for later. With the work load that was being put on employees, corporate decided that the ONLY tasks that should get done are ones that have specific metrics tied to them.

Employees whose drive is to help customer, who are not permitted to help the customers asking for help, will quit and go to a place where customers actually come first. Employees who are okay with doing two people's jobs, but who are asked to do three jobs, will leave to a place where they only have to do one job. Employees who have worked for the company for 4 years and never received a raise despite being praised for excellent work will go to a job where they get paid more. And suddenly, the only people who are left are the people who aren't overworked, because they're the people who will only do one job no matter how much demanding corporate has for them.

The last two years that I was at Joann, there were tons of employees asking or begging for more hours. It was not that they couldn't hire people. It's that they wouldn't assign labor hours. Employees who would happily work 35-40 hours a week, but who are assigned three hours a week, will leave and find a job where they can get a consistent number of hours. When they made all floor managers part time, a lot of people who had been with the company for years left to get more hours or some health insurance.

But, despite all of this, corporate never said, "if we put more people on the floor, our customers will be happier, and will spend more money." They still continued to treat labor as an unnecessary expense that should be limited. Why put more people on the floor when you can just overwork the people who bothered to show up for work today?

So, weirdly enough, that business model was absolutely not working for them, and it's all come crashing down. Damn right, as it should be. Respect the people who work for you, and they'll work for you. Take away the things that they're there to do, and they'll go somewhere else. Simple math.

Also, in the last decade, the fact is that, "Joann has a lot of coupons, so I can save money!" changed in the eye of the public into, "Joann is overpriced unless you know how to play the coupon game."

So yeah. I'm not surprised, and I hope their restructuring does good things for the employees who work there. Hell knows they need it, because their current system just proved that it cannot survive in that state.

[patriottruth]

Earthquake: 06:41:39 PST Local Time Furnace Creek, California (6 minutes, 38 seconds (398 seconds) after the 2024 U.S. Elections "Take Care Clause" Legal Remedy post at 14:35:01) Some Important Facts and Figures About the Alleged Final Count That Was Completed in Less Than 24 Hours For The Entire USA?!?!?!?

It's crucial to remember that the last time a petty tyrant attempted to take the land now known as the United States for themselves, they failed. Kamala Harris conceding the election and promising a peaceful transfer of power, while also making a lot of "the fight's not over" and "it's going to be a long fight" references, keeps the door open for election litigation should there be any obvious irregularities and election fraud between now and December 17, 2024.

Again, to lower people's stress levels, donald j. trump WILL NOT and CAN NOT be the President Elect until December 17, 2024 and the resolved/uncontested meeting of the Electoral College. All 2024 election challenges, recounts, and litigation has to be wrapped up by December 17, 2024 in order to certify the uncontested results.

Once the uncontested results are certified, they must be received by the president of the Senate and the national archivist by Christmas Day/December 25, 2024. The president of the Senate this year happens to be Vice President Kamala Harris. There are soome interesting signs pointing to Christmas Day/December 25th, 2024, so we'll see what happens with all of this by then.

"On the campaign, I would often say, 'when we fight, we win.' But here's the thing. Sometimes the fight takes a while. That doesn't mean we won't win. The important thing is don't ever give up." - Kamala Harris (November 6, 2024)

2024 U.S. presidential election facts: During deposed fascist insurrectionist and wanna be dictator donald j. trump's Project 2025 presidential campaign, polls generally showed that a majority of Americans believe that 80-year-old donald j. trump is too old to serve as president. A July 2024 poll, taken shortly after the first presidential debate, found that 60% of voters saw Trump as too old for a second term. This represented a steady and constant increase in voters polled by this pollster sharing this concern, and paralleled the progression of the larger number of voters who had the same concern about Biden. An August 2024 Morning Consult poll found that the number of respondents who thought Trump was too old to run jumped by seven percent, to 51%, from their previous poll once Trump's opponent changed from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, and the number of respondents who thought Trump was in good health correspondingly fell by six percent. The poll further reported that nearly 80% of respondents "were unsure he'd be up for serving a full second term". A Marquette University poll released the same day reported that 57% of respondents felt that Trump was too old.

60% of American voters agreed that donald j. trump is too old to be president; that leaves a maximum of 40% of Americans who might still be willing to vote for nasty old man, donald j. trump; but mindnumbingly boring screamin'-at-clouds grandpa ended up with 50.9% of American votes? And that's just further highlighted by his extreme cognitive decline over the months leading up to the election, so there's no way he changed anyone's minds about his physical, mental, and emotional incompetence. His half-sized rallies were only half-full the last weeks of the campaign cycle, and his mindnumbingly boring screaming-at-clouds retarded grandpa routine was emptying every rally venue early like a flushed toilet.

Haley Voters for Harris said that a recent Blueprint survey indicated that 33% (1,445,994 votes), and up to 55% (2,409,990 votes), of Nikki Haley's 4,381,799 2024 Republican Primary voters have either already decided to vote for Kamala Harris, or they're considering doing so. Those numbers are only based on the 2024 Republican Primary and are only a mere percentage of the actual likely Haley voters for Harris who simply didn't vote in the 2024 Republican primary.

On top of that, there were an additional 867,320 Never trump Republicans who voted in the 2024 Republican Primary who might also be open to voting for Kamala Harris. If the approximate percentages of Haley voters for Harris were applied to this group of Never trump Republican voters, that 33%=286,216 and that 55%=477,026. That increases the possible Never trump Republican voters for Harris to between 1,732,210 votes (33%) and 2,887,016 votes (55%) based only on the 2024 Republican Primary turnout.

Although the trend has been that Republican presidential candidates max out at around 300% election day turnout, it's possible that trump and Never trump voters could increase the historical norm to around 400% of the Republican Primary voters. If that happens, that increases the 33% of Never trump voters for Harris up to 6,928,840 votes, and the 55% of Never trump voters for Harris up to 11,548,064. Anti-American fascist German immigrant and wanna be dictator, donald j. trump, lost the 2020 election by a historic 7,000,000 vote landslide defeat and American mandate for the Biden/Harris "Build Back Better" agenda, and American prosperity has been steadily improving ever since. And that 7,000,000 to 11,500,000 Never trump Republican vote doesn't even include the millions of Independent voters who'll be voting against donald j. trump this year. As long as every patriotic American puts country over party and votes against donald j. trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, it's possible that American patriots could deliver another historic landslide defeat to donald j. trump in the range of 12,200,000 to 35,400,000 votes for an undeniable Harris/Walz "New Way Forward" American mandate.

2024 U.S. Registered Voter Stats (Pew Research): Republicans: 36 million voters

-7 million (33%) Never trump voters = 29 million likely trump voters

-11.5 million (55%) Never trump voters = 24.5 million likely trump voters

Democrats: 45.1 million voters

Independents: 32.1 million voters

-10.6 million Never trump voters (33%) = 21.5 million possible trump voters

-17.7 million Never trump voters (55%) = 14.4 million possible trump voters

If 100% of all registered voters actually turned out and voted in the 2024 U.S. presidential election:

trump (with a loss of 33% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 50.5 million votes Harris (with a gain of 33% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 62.7 million votes

trump (with a loss of 55% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 38.9 million votes Harris (with a gain of 55% of Never trump voters and no Democrat defections): 74.3 million votes

All of that polling was valid in May of 2024 and was confirmed again in September, October, and then again days before the November election.

Signs and proof that the polling was and still is 100% accurate was donald j. trump's campaign rallies being half the size of his 2016 and 2020 rallies, only being half-full at that, and people leaving early during every rally.

And yet, with all of that truth, and the Madison Square Garden fresh batch of insults aimed at Puerto Ricans, Latinos, Blacks, and Jews, and with donald trump and his acolytes and allies screaming election fraud due to the turnout against them on election day, AND with millions more 18-29 voters voting for Harris/Walz in 2024 than voted in 2020, AND with the majority of American women, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and sometimes granddaughters voting against donald j. trump WITH all of the Republicans, Independents, and former trump voters who refused to make that mistake again, Americans are expected to believe there's nothing suspicious going on with these election results when all of Kamala Harris' full-sized rallies were packed full from the start of her campaign until November 4th, 2024?

As of 3:00 pm EST, November 6, 2024: trump: 71,958,119 votes (323.19% turnout from primary elections - his best case scenario was 50.5 million votes)

Harris: 67,133,693 votes (464.09% turnout from Biden's primary elections - her worst case scenario was 62.7 million votes)

Why is it that there were approximately 36 million registered Republican voters this election, and donald trump somehow received almost exactly 2 votes for every one registered Republican voter; as if a hacked computer program was automating it?

donald j. trump experienced 141.7% less voter enthusiasm and turnout than Kamala Harris, and yet he somehow received 4 million more votes than Kamala Harris (but 2 million less than in 2020) and Kamala Harris received 15 million less votes than in 2020?

Democrats outnumber Republicans by 9 million registered voters, and yet Kamala Harris allegedly lost by 4 million votes, with 465% voter turnout to donald trump's 323% turnout, when Republican presidential candidates usually max out at around 300% election day turnout?

How did trump end up with 2 votes for every registered Republican with half-empty rallies and 323% turnout, and Harris ended up with only 1.48 votes per registered Democrat with packed rallies, cross-party voting, and 465% turnout?

There are approximately 41 million age 18-29 voters who usually vote Democrat, and up to 20 million of those females were expected to vote heavily for Harris/Walz in 2024, so where are all of those votes?

Why is it that hundreds of thousands of Americans are documented as voting FOR PRO-CHOICE on their state ballots, but then they allegedly voted for ANTI-CHOICE donald trump instead of Kamala Harris based on HIS punitive non-Pro-Choice stance and destroying Roe vs. Wade legal protections?

Why is it that hundreds of thousands of Americans are documented as voting for down-ballot Democrat candidates, but then they they allegedly voted for donald trump instead of Kamala Harris?

Why is it that donald trump told reporters he wasn't expecting any final results for at least 3 days immediately after he voted, but then somehow all of the election results were returned in less than 12 hours (which has NEVER happened in the United States)?

Kamala Harris is a prosecutor. donald j. trump is a career criminal and convicted felon who's been found guilty of rape, massive frauds in numerous court cases, and is being prosecuted for insurrection, election tampering, election fraud, racketeering, election interference, espionage against the United States, and theft of government documents and property. There's pretty much a 0% chance that there's no election fraud and tampering going on with these 2024 election results. donald j. trump and all of his other alleged newly-elected allies have to be able to maintain those lies and not have them overturned during the canvas, confirmation, curing, certification, recount, and litigation process between November 6 and December 17, 2024. This extremely suspicious 2024 elections craziness is about to become an Edgar Allen Poe story for all of the liars and dirty cheats of the world; and at least some of that wierdness will be captured in video clips when they go boasting on all the news networks for 16 to 20 hours per day, for the next 40 days…

“If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.' They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” - donald j. trump (November 9, 2023)

"I will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” - donald j. trump (November 12, 2023)

“This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.” - Liz Cheney

“Labeling a political opponent as a ‘fascist,’ risks inviting a would-be assassin.” - Hypocrites, Irony Assassins, and MAGA Nazi Cult Member Republicans Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell (Finally coondemning donald j. trump and the entire treasonous, bigoted, and misogynist anti-American MAGA Nazi cult for calling all Americans who don't support or vote for donald j. trumpor MAGA Nazi Cult Republicans "traitors, anti-American, enemies from within, very bad people, very dangerous people, racists, radicals, extremists, communists, Marxists, fascists, thugs, liars, sick, ugly, stupid, mindless, thoughtless, brainless, disabled, deranged, criminals, rapists, cheaters, sleazebags, low-lifes, scum, trash, genetically inferior, weak, poison, insects, animals, rats, snakes, and vermin" during the majority of his interviews, speeches, and rallies for years on end since 2011 - October 25, 2024)

"As President, I was never an 'officer of the United States' and I did not take an oath 'to support the Constitution of the United States'. Therefore, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to me, can't be applied to me, and can't prevent me from running for or holding office for my actions on January 6, 2021."- donald j. trump (November 27, 2023)

"Get out and vote, just this time. "You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore.You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote," - donald j. trump to his MAGA cult supporters (July 26, 2024)

“We gotta stop the cheating. If we stop that cheating, if we don’t let them cheat, I don’t even have to campaign anymore. We’re going to win by so much. The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.” - donald j. trump on "truth" social (September 7, 2024)

When he was asked about "outside agitators" affecting a peaceful 2024 election, certification, and transfer of power: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. We have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all those countries. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” - donald j. trump (October 13, 2024)

Historical Republican Presidential Election Turnout Patterns: 1996 Republican Primary Voters: 14,583,573 Dole 1996 election votes: 39,197,469 (268.78% 1996 national election turnout)

2000 Republican Primary Voters: 19,253,687 Bush 2000 election votes: 50,456,002 (262% 2000 national election turnout)

2004 Republican Primary Voters: 7,956,726 Bush 2004 election votes: 62,040,610 (779.73% 2004 national election turnout)

2008 Republican Primary Voters: 20,039,034 McCain 2008 election votes: 59,948,323 (299.16% 2008 national election turnout)

2012 Republican Primary Voters: 18,682,820 Romney 2012 election votes: 60,933,504 (326.15% 2012 national election turnout)

Clinton total fundraising 2016 election cycle: $769,879,088 Clinton total spending 2016 election cycle: $768,577,907 Clinton 2016 election votes: 65,853,514 Average Clinton voter 2016 presidential campaign donation: $11.69

trump total fundraising 2016 election cycle: $433,392,727 trump total spending 2016 election cycle: $422,620,473 2016 Republican Primary Voters: 31,047,313 trump 2016 election votes: 62,984,828 (202.89% 2016 national election turnout) Average trump voter 2016 presidential campaign donation: $6.88

Hillary Clinton's 2016 fundraising was 156% higher than donald trump's and she won the election by roughly 3,000,000 American votes.

Biden total fundraising 2020 election cycle: $1,624,301,628 Biden total spending 2020 election cycle: $1,614,843,740 Biden 2020 election votes: 81,283,501 Average Biden voter 2020 presidential campaign donation: $19.98

trump total fundraising 2020 election cycle: $1,087,909,269 trump total spending 2020 election cycle: $1,090,633,916 2020 Republican Primary Voters: 18,900,288 trump 2020 election votes: 74,223,975 (392.71% 2020 national election turnout) Average trump voter 2020 presidential campaign donation: $14.69

Joe Biden's 2020 fundraising was 167% higher than donald trump's and he won the election by an easy landslide victory and American patriots mandate of roughly 7,000,000 American votes.

Harris total fundraising 2024 election cycle: $1,048,224,950 9/22/2024 Harris total spending 2024 election cycle: $728,659,506 9/22/2024 Harris cash on hand 2024 election cycle: $364,537,369 9/22/2024

trump total fundraising 2024 election cycle: $802,832,560 9/22/2024 trump total spending 2024 election cycle: $603,161,559 9/22/2024 trump cash on hand 2024 election cycle: $264,091,834 9/22/2024 2024 Republican Primary Voters: 22,264,875

Kamala Harris's 2024 fundraising is 177% higher than donald trump's, her rallies are far larger and more energized, and her Fox News ratings are 2.5 times better than donald trump's. It's definitely time to turn the page on donald trump and his anti-American MAGA Nazi cult, and for American patriots to put country over party and elect the first woman American President of the United States of America; because All Lives Matter, and it's time to finally prove it once and for all by including and uniting all American women and girls at the great American "We The People" table so that President Kamala Harris will be the first woman American President, but certainly not the last.

“If Jesus Christ came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?” - donald j. trump

2020 California Presidential Election Results: Joe Biden: 11,110,639 votes donald j. trump: 6,006,518 votes

Luke 16:10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. Luke 16:11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? Luke 16:12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? Luke 16:13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

“I’m not 80 and I’m not that close to 80.”- 78.5-year-old donald j. trump

"I'm not an old person. I'm very young and I'm in such perfect shape. I'm in such great shape." - 78.5-year-old donald j. trump

*** During and after his term as President of the United States, the lyin', cryin'. draft-dodging cowardly cheater and proud fascist German immigrant, the Bone Spurs Bumbling Babbling Bozo Baby of Bedminster, donald j. trump, made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims. The Washington Post's fact-checkers documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidential term, an average of about 21 per day. ***

New York magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in August, just weeks after the assassination attempt in a deep red area of Pennsylvania by one of his own registered radical right Republican voters with an AR-15 assault rifle. She wrote that during their interview, Trump “raised his right hand and grabbed hold of [his ear]. He bent it backward and forward.” “They didn’t need a stitch,” Trump said at the time. “Usually, something like that would be considered a surreal experience, where you sort of don’t realize it, and yet there was no surrealism in this case,” he added. “I felt immediately that I got hit by a bullet. I also knew it was my ear.” But Nuzzi wrote in the lengthy piece that “an ear had never appeared to have gone through less.” She added: “Except there, on the tiniest patch of this tiny sculpture of skin, a minor distortion that resembled not a crucifixion wound, but the distant aftermath of a sunburn.”

“Lyin' and cryin' comrade. trump has never won a championship at a course he doesn’t own and operate, always gets a turbo-charged golf cart that goes three times as fast as yours, so he’s always 200 yards ahead, and that gives him time to cheat. One time in L.A., he was playing $50 a hole with these three guys, he hits it in the pond. They see the splash. By the time they get there, it’s in the middle of the fairway, and they’re like, ‘What the F, Donald?’ And he goes, ‘It must’ve been the tide.’ He’s played in Pebble Beach, he’s played in the Tahoe one, where there are rules and judges and cameras. And in those, he’s never finished in the top half.So he wins when anybody who disagrees that he won is out of the club. That’s how he gets it.” - Rick Reilly

John 8:44 For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. Luke 22:32 But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Matthew 12:25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. Matthew 12:26 And if Satan is casting out Satan, he is divided and fighting against himself. His own kingdom will not survive.

John 8:31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

Strong's Concordance #398 akal: to eat, burn up, consume, devour(-er), dine, feed, food, plenty, meat. Original Word: אָכַל

Mark 6:38 “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” Mark 6:39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. Mark 6:40 So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Mark 6:41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. Mark 6:42 They all ate and were satisfied, Mark 6:43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.

This is the last chance to fight for American democracy and the U.S. Constitution. If Americans don't fight donald trump and his allies before he takes office, there won't be another midterm or presidential election in the United States.

Luke 14:34 “Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? Luke 14:35 Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 1451 Psalm 35:1 Of David. O Lord, strive with my adversaries, give battle to my foes, Psalm 35:2 take up shield and buckler, and come to my defense; Psalm 35:3 ready the spear and javelin against my pursuers; tell me, "I am your deliverance." Psalm 35:4 Let those who seek my life be frustrated and put to shame; let those who plan to harm me fall back in disgrace. Psalm 35:5 Let them be as chaff in the wind, the Lord's angel driving them on. Psalm 35:6 Let their path be dark and slippery, with the Lord's angel in pursuit.

Emeli Sandé - Highs & Lows Duration: 4:12 (252 seconds) Published: January 31, 2017 (31st day) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_OlhrBEISw p_OlhrBEISw behiloprsw 2+5+8+9+20+50+60+80+90+900=1224. 1224+31=1255. 1255+252=1507.

Strong's Concordance #1507 Gezer: From gazar; something cut off; a portion, part, piece; a Levitical city on the border of Ephraim; carrot Original Word: גֶּזֶר

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 446 Deuteronomy 32:7 Remember the days of old, Consider the years of ages past; Ask your father, he will inform you, Your elders, they will tell you: Deuteronomy 32:8 When the Most High gave nations their homes And set the divisons of man, He fixed the boundaries of peoples In relation to Israel's numbers. Deuteronomy 32:9 For the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob His own allotment. Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert region, In an empty howling waste. He engirded him, watched over him, Guarded him as the pupil of His eye. Deuteronomy 32:11 Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings, Gliding down to his young, So did He spread His wings and take him, Bear him along on His pinions; Deuteronomy 32:12 The Lord alone did guide him, No alien god at His side. Deuteronomy 32:13 He set him atop the highlands, To feast on the yield of the earth; He fed him honey from the crag, And oil from the flinty rock, Deuteronomy 32:14 Curd of kine and milk of flocks; With the best of lambs, And rams of Bashan, and he-goats; With the very finest wheat--And foaming grape-blood was your drink.

Christina Aguilera - Make The World Move featuring Cee Lo Green Duration: 3:00 (180 seconds) Published: November 9, 2012 (314th day) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMh2v8p9rA ITMh2v8p9rA (2, 8, 9) ITMhvprA ahimprtv 1+8+9+30+60+80+100+700=988. 988+2+8+9=1007. 1007+314=1321. 1321+180=1501.

Strong's Concordance #1501 gazam: locusts; cutting, trimming Original Word: גָּזָם

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 1315 and 1316 Amos 4:9 I scourged you with blight and mildew; Repeatedly your gardens and vineyards, Your fig trees and olive trees Were devoured by locusts. Yet you did not turn back to Me--declares the Lord.

Mark 1:6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. Mark 1:7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Mark 1:8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Mark 1:10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Mark 1:11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Jade Novah - Show Out Duration: 3:55 (235 seconds) Published: August 5, 2013 (217th day) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4O0QdhTNM -h4O0QdhTNM (4, 0) -hOQdhTNM dhhmnoqt 4+8+8+30+40+50+70+100=310. 310+4+0=314. 314+217=531. 531+235=766.

Strong's Concordance #766 oren: From the same as 'Aran (in the sense of strength); the ash tree (from its toughness), fir, cedar Original Word: אֹרֶן

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 939 and 940 Isaiah 41:17 The poor and the needy Seek water, and there is none; Their tongue is parched with thirst. I the Lord will respond to them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. Isaiah 41:18 I will open up streams on the bare hills And fountains amid the valleys; I will turn the desert into ponds, The arid land into springs of water. Isaiah 41:19 I will plant cedars in the wilderness, Acacias and myrtles and oleasters; I will set cypresses in the desert, Box trees and elms as well-- Isaiah 41:20 That men may see and know, Consider and comprehend That the Lord's hand has done this, That the Holy One of Israel has wrought it.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 915 and 916 Isaiah 31:1 Ha! Those who go down to Egypt for help And rely upon horses! They have put their trust in abundance of chariots, In vast numbers of riders, And they have not turned to the Holy One of Israel, They have not sought the Lord. Isaiah 31:2 But He too is wise! He has brought on misfortune, And has not canceled His word. So He shall rise against the house of evildoers, And the allies of the workers of iniquity. Isaiah 31:3 For the egyptians are man, not God, And their horses are flesh, not spirit; And when the Lord stretches out His arm, The helper shall trip And the helped on shall fall, And both shall perish together. Isaiah 31:4 For thus the Lord has said to me: As a lion--a great beast--Growls over its prey And, when the shepherds gather In force against him, Is not dismayed by their cries Nor cowed by their noise--So the Lord of Hosts will descend to make war Against the mount and the hill of Zion. Isaiah 31:5 Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting and rescuing. Isaiah 31:6 Return, O children of Israel, to Him to whom they have been so shamefully false; Isaiah 31:7 for in that day everyone will reject his idols of silver and idols of gold, which your hands have made for your guilt.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 1445 Psalm 31:1 For the leader. A psalm of David. Psalm 31:2 I seek reuge in You, O Lord; may I never be disappointed; as You are righteous, resuce me. Psalm 31:3 Incline Your ear to me; be quick to save me; be a rock, a stronghold for me, a citadel, for my deliverance. Psalm 31:4 For You are my rock and my fortress; You lead me and guide me as befits Your name. Psalm 31:5 You free me from the net laid for me, for You are my stronghold. Psalm 31:6 Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You redeem me, O Lord, faithful God. Psalm 31:7 I detest those who rely on empty folly, but I trust in the Lord. Psalm 31:8 Let me exult and rejoice in Your faithfulness when You notice my affliction, are mindful of my deep distress, Psalm 31:9 and do not hand me over to my enemy, but grant me relief.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 1983 and 1984 2 Chronicles 19:4 Jehosaphat remained in Jerusalem a while and then went out among the people from Beer-sheba to the hill country of Ephraim; he brought them back to the Lord God of their fathers. 2 Chronicles 19:5 He appointed judges in the land in all the fortified towns of Judah, in each and every town. 2 Chronicles 19:6 He charged the judges: "Consider what you are doing, for you judge not on behalf of man, but on behalf of the Lord, and He is with you when you pass judgment. 2 Chronicles 19:7 Now let the dread of the Lord be upon you; act with care, for there is no injustice or favoritism or bribetaking with the Lord oour God."

Mark 14:41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Mark 14:42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

"As President, I was never an 'officer of the United States' and I did not take an oath 'to support the Constitution of the United States'. Therefore, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to me, can't be applied to me, and can't prevent me from running for or holding office for my actions on January 6, 2021." - donald j. trump (November 27, 2023)

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 88 Genesis 41:38 And Pharaoh said to his courtiers, "Could we find another like him, a man in whom is the spirit of God?" Genesis 41:39 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has made all this known to you, there is none so discerning and wise as you.

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 116 and 117 Exodus 3:3 Moses said, "I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn't the bush burn up?" Exodus 3:4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: "Moses! Moses!" He answered, "Here I am." Exodus 3:5 And He said, "Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Exodus 3:6 I am," He said, "the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:7 And the Lord continued, "I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their sufferings. Exodus 3:8 I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the region of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Earthquake: M 1.6 - 31.3 km (19.5 mi) WNW of Furnace Creek, California

2024-11-06 14:41:39 (UTC) 36.594°N 117.153°W 3.3 km depth

In Death Valley at the base of Tucki Mountain near Route 190/Death Valley Scenic Byway, Salt Creek, and Stovepipe Wells Road.

Tucki ciktu 3+9+10+100+200=322.

Strong's Concordance #322 achorannith: from 'achowr; backwards -- back (-ward, again). Original Word: אֲחֹרַנִּית

Strong's Concordance #190 oyah: woe! alas! Original Word: אוֹיָה

Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.

Mandisa Ft. TobyMac & Kirk Franklin - Bleed The Same (There's no definition of "United" other than standing and coexisting together as one "We The People" of the United States of America.) Duration: 4:56 (296 seconds) Published: January 14, 2018 (14th day) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVKuA1s5I3o HVKuA1s5I3o (1, 5, 3) HVKuAsIo ahikosuv 1+8+9+10+50+90+200+700=1068. 1068+1+5+3=1077. 1077+14=1091. 1091+296=1387.

Strong's Concordance #1387 Geba: a Levitical city of Benjamin; a hill Original Word: גֶּבַע

Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:17 “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. Matthew 5:18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Matthew 5:19 So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Anti-American MAGA Nazi Cult School Book Bans:

"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the People.' 'We the People' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the People' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast.

Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the People' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the People' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past 8 years.

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-60s.

So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, 'we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.' Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still." - Ronald Reagan (1989 Farewell Speech)

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Pages 987, 988, and 989 Isaiah 61:1 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble. To bind up the wounded of heart, To proclaim release to the captives, Liberation to the imprisoned; Isaiah 61:2 To proclaim a year of the Lord's favor And a day of vindication by our God; To comfort all who mourn-- Isaiah 61:3 To provide for the mourners in Zion--To give them a turban instead of ashes,The festive ointment instead of mourning, A garment of splendor instead of a drooping spirit. They shall be called terebinths of victory, Planted by the Lord for His glory. Isaiah 61:4 And they shall build the ancient ruins, Raise up the desolations of old, And renew the ruined cities, The desolations of many ages. Isaiah 61:5 Strangers shall stand and pasture your flocks, Aliens shall be your plowmen and vinetrimmers; Isaiah 61:6 While you shall be called "Priests of the Lord," And termed "Servants of our God." You shall enjoy the wealth of nations And revel in their riches. Isaiah 61:7 Because your shame was double--Me cried, "Disgrace is their portion"--Assuredly, They shall have a double share in their land, Joy shall be theirs for all time. Isaiah 61:8 For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery with a burnt offering. I will pay them their wages faithfully, And make a covenant with them for all time. Isaiah 61:9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations, Their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them shall recognize That they are a stock the Lord has blessed. Isaiah 61:10 I greatly rejoice in the Lord, My whole being exults in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of triumph, Wrapped me in a robe of victory, Like a bridegroom adorned with a turban, Like a bride bedecked with her finery. Isaiah 61:11 For as the earth brings forth her growth And a garden makes the seed shoot up, So the Lord God will make Victory and renown shoot up In the presence of all the nations.

Those who love, fear, seek out, and turn to the almighty G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and who study the Living Word of the Abrahamic G-d know and understand that wisdom is female…

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 1603 Proverbs 3:13 Happy is the man who finds wisdom, The man who attains understanding. Proverbs 3:14 Her value in trade is better than silver, Her yield, greater than gold. Proverbs 3:15 She is more precious than rubies; All of your goods cannot equal her. Proverbs 3:16 In her right hand is length of days, In her left, riches and honor. Proverbs 3:17 Her ways are pleasant ways, And all her paths, peaceful. Proverbs 3:18 She is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy. Proverbs 3:19 The Lord founded the earth by wisdom; He established the heavens by understanding;

Kamala Harris Presidential Campaign Announcement - We Choose Freedom July 25, 2024 (207th day) Duration: 1:20 (80 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHky_Xopyrw sHky_Xopyrw hkoprswxyy 8+10+50+60+80+90+900+300+400+400=2298. 2298+80=2378. 2378+207=2585.

Strong's Concordance #2585 Chanok: From chanak; initiated; Chanok, an antediluvian patriach -- Enoch; four Israelites, sons of Cain, Jered, Midian and Reuben Original Word: חֲנוֹךְ

Strong's Concordance #2596 chanak: to initiate, train up, dedicate, an apprentice Original Word: חָנַךְ

TANAKH (Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English) Page 1636 Proverbs 22:6 Train a lad in the way he ought to go; He will not swerve from it even in old age.

[nuri148]

Distances in AoT

Or: Yams has no idea of geography and the relationship between distance and travel times in AOT makes no sense.

PART TWO: GEOMETRY AND PONIES

In the first part, we’ve seen how freaking huge the distances between the main districts of the Walls are. Here is a summary:

Center-Sina: 250 km

Sina-Rose: 130 km (Center-Rose: 380 km)

Rose-Maria: 100 km (Sina-Maria: 230 km; Center-Maria: 480 km)

To go from a District to the next on the same wall:

Along wall Sina: 393 km (352 if cutting in a straight line between the two)

Along wall Rose: 597 km (537 in a straight line)

Along wall Maria: 754 km (~720 in a light curve, as straight line not possible)

Here’s a summary of the shortest distances (combining radius and chords) between districts:

(I’ve only put the most frequently mentioned in canon)

Throughout canon, we see the characters moving between a handful of Districts. To the iniciated it may look like said travels are a tad too fast considering the means of transport that they use. It’s okay. The insta-travel effect has been seen in every other epic fictional world, be it the Middle Earth, Westeros or Narnia. And we’re willing to suspend our disbelief. But AoT has a crucial difference in that sense.

We’ve been told the exact distance between the walls. In kilometres, not some fictional or obscure, ancient measure unit. Suspending disbelief does not come easy when the numbers are exact.

It’s like when you’re watching a movie, and the hero has only 10 minutes to get to the bomb before it detonates, so he races through the streets of, say, Paris, and they go from the Louvre, to the Arc de Triomph, wreck havoc on a market along the Seine, rush through Montmartre, around the Eiffel Tower and skid to a halt when the car crashes in front of the Opera. And most people will be ok with that, but the few millions who live in or know Paris are like... Nope. That’s not possible. Not even with 007’s Aston Martin or the Batmobile. That makes absolutely no sense. It’s ten times worse if the hero is running.

Well, guess what, the Survey Corps do not travel in the Batmobile.

The Survey Corps travel by horse. On longer expeditions, they also have horse-drawn carts.

Now, if you fill up the tank of your BMW and pad your butt, you can drive the 480 km (road distance) from Berlin to Ansbach in about 4:40 hours without traffic. That’s not stopping for anything other than traffic lights, and using some of the best highways in the world. That’s an average of 102 km/h. With normal traffic, you could do that in 5:30 hours, averaging 87 km/h. That’s how long a badass modern car would take to go from Mitras to Shiganshina.

But, and this may come as a shock, a horse is not a car.

First and foremost, a horse cannot ride as fast as a car. As per the Publicly Available Information from canon, “The stable horses used by the Survey Corps are selectively bred (...) and travel for many hours without complaining. (...) Their top speed is between 75–80 km/h, and they can maintain a swift 35 km/h gallop. The horses are tenacious, able to maintain a fine speed of 20 km/h even when pulling a carriage.”

For one good thing in all this mess, numbers are in accordance with real horses. And I have no problem accepting that the SC horses are the cream of the crop when it comes to speed and resistance, like our fastest horses and most resistant horses combined. But horses, I repeat, are not cars.

Cars are machines. Horses are living, sentient beings. They cannot fill their stomach like a car a gas tank and run at top speed until it empties, rinse and repeat. They need food and water. They need shoes. They need bathroom stops (they can shit while walking, but they need to stop for pee). But mostly, they need rest. Horses can and do die of exhaustion. (And given that SC horses are super expensive, you don’t want to work them to death.)

A horse can maintain its maximum speed for only 3 km—4 for a race champion. That’s the maximum length of horse track races, actually. After such a sprint, they need to rest for a while. So even when dodging titans, you won’t do so at top speed – you just need to be faster than the enemy. Obviously, the slower the gallop, the longer the time it can be maintained, so sprinting at less-than-top-speed will allow to dodge more titans.

When you’re just travelling from point A to point B, then, you won’t waste the precious energy of the horse in a sprint. Those journeys would be made at a lower speed, for the faster you make the horse go, the more, longer stops it will need to rest, catch its breath, eat and drink. Likewise, if the horse is carrying weight, it will go slower and need more rest. Long distance horses can only cover 50–60 km per day—And before someone says endurance competition horses can run over 100–160 km in a day... that is not the same as 100 km per day, in the same way marathon runners don’t do 42 km per day; they do them in a day. The day of the race. After training specifically for that race. Then they rest for a few days. Horses are the same. Moreover, long distance endurance races have mandatory vet checks along the way to see that the horse is able to keep going. And if you have an expensive horse and no vet every 20 km to check it, you will take care not to push it, lest it collapses midway and the titans eat you.

So, considering SC horses are specially bred for endurance, we can safely equate them to long-distance working horses of our world; I’ll assume they’re the GOAT and can cover 60 km per day.

But wait! I hear some of you say. If they can go at 35 km/h, they can cover much more than 60 km a day! Er... no. Because they need to rest. They cannot trot at 35 km/h for 8 hours straight. They can’t even walk for that long without stopping to rest. Same as like Marathon runners never reach the same speeds as sprinters and middle-distance runners. 

Please note that this numbers refer to a single horse. You can cover longer distances, or cover a given distance faster, if you change your horse for a freshly rested one at given points. This is not an instant process: the new horse will have to be tacked and you’ll have to transfer the cargo, if any, from horse A to horse B (in AoT world, they cannot text the next station to have the horse tacked when they arrive). A convoy of several horses will be slightly slower and, I repeat, if there are carts, the whole convoy will be conditioned to the slowest cart (the horse/s will be slowed by the cart in the same way a car is slowed if you attach a trailer to it). In every rest station, the horse needs to be untacked and then re-tacked before continuing, same as hikers will put down their backpacks when taking a break.

For reference, The Pony Express, the fastest horse dispatch system ever, could cover 300 km per 24-hour day (they rode day and night). They managed to cover that much that by having a huge infrastracture that allowed the rider to change horses every 16-24 km, and pass the dispatch to another rider every 75 km or so. That’s 4-7 horses every 100 km.

So either AoT horses are more magical than My Little Pony ones or Yams cannot distinguish between a horse and a Ferrari.

Guess which one I’m betting on.

Side Comment: The Ferry

Talking about this with one of my fandom friends, she mentioned her bafflement that they didn’t use the ferries that we see in the first chapters evacuating people from Shiganshina to transport  themselves quickly from place to place. I thought she had a good point, so I looked into it. Thankfully for Yams though, I looked into this and it’s not really an option.

The steam engine is unknown in Paradis, so the ferries would have to be operated manually. (The publicly available info panel on the subject comes from the Lost girls OVA, so its canonicity is questionable, and it has contradictory info saying they are moved via wires along the river (as manual ferries do) but also that they are powered by the same gas as the VMG – which make little sense bc then you don’t need the wire and why not have a railway as well?). And the maximum speed a manually hauled barge can attain is not better than that of a horse. For a RL example, the fastest that horse-drawn barges travelling the Canal du Midi in the 19th century could reach was 32 hours for the 240 km ride... changing horses every 10km. Before that, it took four days. That’s 13 hours for 100 km – basically the same time it took the SC to go from Trost to Wall Maria in RtS, but without the possibility to change course if the road’s blocked or to dodge titans if they attack (and provided they had the fresh horses every 10 km, which they wouldn’t in RtS).

That said, I do think Yams totally forgot about the ferries.

Part 3

[cosmicjoke]

Eren Yeager: A tragic Villain:

I really do feel bad for Eren. Being faced with what you are, and discovering it to be what Eren did, a person capable of and, worse still, willing to murder untold numbers of people for nothing more than a selfish desire, would break anyone's mind.

Eren hates himself. I think he's always hated himself, to some extent. We see bouts of his self-loathing throughout the story, moments of guilt and shame in him when, again and again, he manages to get people killed who are trying to keep him alive, guilt when he realizes those people died trying to rescue him because he ran ahead and acted out and did what he wanted without thought to the consequences for others. It was a point of amusement for a long time, how Eren constantly ended up getting kidnapped. But he gets kidnapped again and again because he isn't thinking about how his choices impact others, he's only thinking about what he wants to do. Like when he turns back during the female titan arc and needs to be rescued by Levi and Mikasa, instead of giving meaning to the deaths of Levi's squad by using their sacrifice to flee, or when he's fighting Reiner and gets kidnapped, resulting in numerous deaths. He becomes so overtaken by his desire to destroy, whether it's his perceived enemies or the titans or whatever, that he becomes blind to everything and everyone else around him. We see from the earliest moments of Eren's introduction that he's being faced with the truth about himself, but in small enough doses that he's able to pretend he's something else. He's able to pretend he's a hero for a time, even, fighting as a member of the Survey Corps against the evil of the titans, for the cause of humanity. But there's these periodic episodes when he comes up against the truth, and those episodes leave him feeling what will later become full blown self-loathing. He has moments of self-doubt, thinking himself unworthy of the role he' s been given as humanities savior, a feeling which is worsened when he realizes, after finding out the truth about what his father did in stealing the Founder, that he isn't special, or specially chosen. These bouts of self-hatred only last a short time though before he's able, again, to dismiss them and convince himself he's still fighting for what's right and good. He decides, even if he isn't special, he and his friends can still work together and achieve victory over the titans. All of that is shot to shit when he touches Historia's hand and sees the future, though. He can no longer pretend he's anything but what, deep down, he's suspected about himself all along. A person selfish enough to destroy everything to get what he wants.

And though he tries lying half-heartedly to Armin about the reason he enacted the Rumbling before confessing the truth, he's always known the real reason, and knowing that is what drove him farther and father away from the people who cared about him. He must have been crushed by an unimaginable sense of shame. And that's part of why I sympathize with Eren while feeling no real sympathy for Zeke. Both of them were monsters, but Eren was a monster who knew he was a monster, and who actually felt genuine remorse for it.

He confesses the truth to Ramzi in Marley. It wasn't an epiphany he had while talking to Armin. He knew from the moment he saw the future that what he was going to do wasn't for altruistic reasons. He knew he wasn't going to do it to save Paradis, or to give his friends long, happy lives, or to save the Eldian's. He knew it was wrong, what he was doing. He knew it was beyond redemption. He knew it was evil. It's why he calls himself a half-hearted piece of shit when he rescues Ramzi from those men beating him up. Because he knows he's going to murder this kid, and him rescuing him in that moment is nothing but pure hypocrisy, a facade to hide behind to make him feel better about himself in the moment. It's why he says what he does to Reiner, about them being the same, why he accuses Reiner of also being a half-hearted piece of shit. Because Reiner went ahead and launched a second attack on Paradis, after getting to know and becoming friends with the Eldian's on the island, after realizing they weren't devils, but human, the same as anyone else, but going through with another attack anyway because he, like Eren, prioritized his own, selfish dream to be a "hero" over the lives of people he cared about. It's not a coincidence that both Eren and Reiner begin to spiral mentally, and become so much more subdued and withdrawn later on. They're both suffering deep depression, rooted in horrific guilt over the realization of what they are. It's why Eren starts to laugh hysterically when Sasha is killed, because once again, he's faced with the brutal truth about himself, that he's going through with his plan for nothing more than his own, selfish need to see a world wiped free of people, the consequences be damned, including getting his friends killed. His laughter is driven by self-disgust.

Eren genuinely cared for and loved his friends. But when he saw the future, he realized he was willing to sacrifice them and everyone else for his own, personal freedom, an idea of freedom he couldn't separate from what he'd seen in Armin's book, a world "unspoiled" by humanity. Eren realized he was a truly bad person, and he wasn't made that way by anything or anyone, he wasn't shaped into a bad person by his experiences or his circumstances. He was born that way, and that realization destroyed him. He still had enough goodness in him to feel genuine, devastating guilt over what he was, over what he'd been born as, over what he wanted to do, but it wasn't enough to overcome his horrific nature. He couldn't change the future because that future only existed in the first place because it was what he wanted to happen. He tells Armin he tested it again and again, and the outcome was the same each time. That's Eren realizing that it isn't changing because he never wanted it to change. He wanted it to happen, and the guilt he felt, and the love he had for his friends, wasn't enough to stop him from wanting it, wasn't enough to stop him from doing all he could to make it happen, and that was the truth Eren had to face and accept about himself. He really is a tragic character, in that sense. Because he's a bad person. A very bad person. But he's got just enough goodness inside him to hate himself for it.

[fatliberation]

would you be willing to share some of the survey results on this blog? not necessarily people's personal experiences, but just overall findings/conclusions/trends?

Yes - I received over 200 responses, so here are some of the (unfortunately) common experiences I found:

(Big TW for medical abuse here.)

Of course "LOSE WEIGHT!" was by far the most common one, in other countries too - even for things like sinus issues and migraines. in one instance a doctor even suggested weight loss to cure anxiety and depression... without any prescribing medication.

There were multiple reports of outright verbal abuse and public humiliation towards fat patients, including refusal to help a patient get up from falling

Misogyny, misogyny, misogyny. Women and AFAB individuals reported their symptoms being downplayed and receiving incredibly sexist and false information from male doctors

An AFAB person's fertility is valued more than their quality of life

There was a trend of doctors/psychiatrists claiming they can “cure” autism by selling vitamins

"You're too young to have pain / X problem" was VERY common

A lot of pain / breathing problems were blamed on anxiety, even when patients did not have an anxiety diagnosis

Doctors dismissing symptoms as the patient being drug seeking because of assumptions based on race

Quite a few participants shared with me that they were taken seriously ONLY after posing a threat to themselves

Gaslighting, saying that someone's past trauma never actually happened to them

And the number one thing I saw the most of - participants expressed that they no longer wish to seek medical care (to the point where their symptoms progress) because they are afraid of experiencing more trauma.

To the 200+ people who filled out the survey and shared their experiences with me: THANK YOU. I read every single entry. Some of them kept me up at night. You all deserve justice. I believe you. Keep fighting.

[lemonthepotato]

Generic Gatekeeping Rant About The Enneagram Community

I really wanted that to alliterate. Anyway, this is a rant about the overtyping of 6 and 9 in the community. Yes, overtyping. I’ll present some arguments on why I believe 6 and 9 are overtyped. Whether you agree or not is a different story. I think civil discourse is more important than ‘winning’ an argument, so to speak. So, I’ll hear anyone out who disagrees with any of my points. But, yes, I do believe that 6 and 9 are overtyped.

First of all, how did this 6/9 dilemma begin? Well, a lot of people mistype as 4/5/8 due to shallow descriptions. People read that 4’s are the artistic, deep, emotional type, and settle on that. People read that 5’s are knowledgable, isolated and logical, and settle on that. People read that 8’s are confident, assertive and strong-willed, and settle on that. These, of course, are shallow understandings of the types. However, an issue I’ve noticed in this community is overcompensating for one extreme with another. What do I believe this overcompensating to be? I believe that people are trying to ‘balance out’ the overtyping of 4/5/8 by typing people as 6 or 9, when they clearly are not, to maintain the rarity status of those. But where did this idea that 6 and 9 are ‘the most common type’ begin?

Apparently this idea began from a survey from the website enneagram-personality. Here is the description of the survey. “Here is our first table representing the distribution of the enneagram types from 189957 results, which displays an idea of the distribution within the population. Note that type 4 is potentially the type that tends to be most naturally interested in introspection. 4s would therefore be more likely to take this kind of test. So, their population might be slightly fewer in terms of percentage on a real scale.”

The first thing that popped out to me was the specific wording, that these are TEST results. So, I took the test myself to check its accuracy. They made me put my email in (thanks :) oh, that was sarcasm.)

I’m actually really shocked. I got 86% for 4w5 and 14% for enneagram 8, along with a small amount for 6/5/7. “Results analysis : The test seems to have correctly found your type.” For the record, I didn’t go out of my way to skew the questions that way. If anything, I thought it would be balanced for 4 and 6. I didn’t expect EIGHT to be that high up. Plus, while I don’t believe in wings, I would’ve expected the wing to be 3 over 4. Oh, and I got 1% for enneagram 2. Something about that result feels wrong. Not the fact I scored 4, but the fact that I scored 14% on 8. Methinks this test may be a bit shallow, considering I’ve been torn between 4 and 6. I’ve never considered 8. The only type I relate to less than 8 is 5. I think aside from 4 and 6 (the types I have been torn between historically) my ‘relation’ order would be: 9317285. Am I taking this test as confirmation that I’m a 4? Absolutely not.

I don’t believe a test can type people completely accurately, including me. Even if the stat that 9 and 6 are the most common types, the fact it’s followed by 4 is strange, because people claim 4 is one of the rarer types. If 3rd place is rare, then sure. 5 was also the lowest scored, which confirms my theory that this is the study people reference, as people also make that claim a lot. And, of course, 8 is right above 5 in rarity.

The test also claims “Note that type 4 is potentially the type that tends to be most naturally interested in introspection. 4s would therefore be more likely to take this kind of test. So, their population might be slightly fewer in terms of percentage on a real scale” which actually makes sense. Still, the way people treat 4 would make you think they’re the rarest thing ever.

So, let’s say that the 4 scores are off by 2%. That would make four just as common as 7’s are. I do find these test results interesting. But still, 4 was only 2000 results lower than 6 or 9. Again, even if that number was closer to 4000, that would make 4 as common as 7 is. I don’t see a lot of people gatekeeping 7, though.

I don’t trust statistics. There are too many variables that can skew it, and this one feels like selection bias. (People predisposed to liking the enneagram so not represent the general population) A test cannot accurately type everyone. I do not find it impossible that 9 and 6 are very common types. However, the enneagram community isn’t the world. The general population might not be interested in the enneagram, and certain types might be more interested than others. I’m just saying, a so4 or sp5 has a higher chance of being interested in the enneagram than a so6 or sp9. And I’m not saying that 6’s or 9’s are shallow, I’m just saying that being self-introspective is heavily tied to 4/5, just for different reasons.

So, this study isn’t proof of anything. How is a test with like, 30 questions, more reliable than reading shallow RHETI descriptions? It won’t be more or less reliable. Self-introspection should be more important. Actually studying how the types work. But I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the enneagram community… changing how types operate to gatekeep them more.

Let’s go a specific claim. “4’s know who they are strongly. If you don’t know who you are, you’re a 9.” (False) (Commonly said)

Let’s look at what Naranjo actually wrote about 4’s.

Naranjo describes the E4 as someone who takes on the identity of a chronic sufferer, with a bad self-image who obtain love through suffering. “also, they convey the attempt on the part of the person to be something different from what he or she is, perhaps connected to class envy. The lack of originality entailed by such imitativeness in turn; perpetuates an envy of originality—just as the attempt to imitate original individuals and the wish to emulate spontaneity are doomed to fail.” Wow, what a strong self-identity we have there!

The E4 is described as someone who was only validated through their suffering in childhood. Being happy wasn’t allowed, crying, attention-seeking and pain got them love and affection.

The E4 is described as someone who uses their suffering to get love, who has a negative self image and identifies as a victim/sufferer. No where does that description mention strong sense of self. Read it for yourself; here. https://www.personalitycafe.com/threads/naranjos-character-and-neurosis-ennea-type-4.148114/

It’s directly from character and neurosis. I also noticed a staunch lack of the word “individuality.” It’s not about presenting authenticity or individually, but presenting the image of brokenness, mystique and uniqueness for the sake of attracting others. So, I find the idea that 4’s can’t struggle to know who they are very strange. Heart types are about presenting a certain image, after all. 2’s present the image of being helpful and selfless (except sp2’s. I love sp2’s they’re so based and kinda relatable. Just a little.) 3’s present the image of success and 4’s present the image of unique suffering.

Why would a heart type struggling to know who they are be such an unusual thing? Yes, 4’s overidentify with their negative traits, but that actually indicates a skewing of the true self.

What about type 9? Naranjo describes the type 9 as grounded, empathetic, and self-numbing. They numb themselves to avoid chaos. They identify with others to avoid exploring uncomfortable inner turmoil. They over-simplify, follow routines and immerse themselves in physical activities to remain in a comfortable state of mind. The 9 lives vicariously through things or people instead of through themselves.

So, here’s my hypothesis. Wouldn’t a type 9 be less interested in delving deep into typology, because they might have to deal with uncomfortable levels of self-reflection? I’m not saying 9’s are stupid NPC’s incapable of self-reflection, I’m saying that 9’s coping mechanism is literally avoiding themselves. For the record, I could be misinterpreting things. I have a hard time understanding complex words and shit, so this is just my interpretation.

This actually sounds like the polar opposite of a 4, so saying a lot of 4’s are mistyped 9’s is… strange. Don’t get me wrong, going by shallow descriptions, it’s possible. But now I’m wondering how many 6’s and 9’s actually ARE 4’s or another type.

Another thing about 4’s is that people will type obvious sx4’s as sx6’s or even sx8’s. I don’t even understand why people mistake sx6 for sx8. They’re not even remotely similar types. Yes, 8’s are described as cynical and distrusting, but they’re also reckless. Sx6’s LARP as reckless, bur fear consequences. Sx6’s go against fear by confronting it. 8’s tend to do what they want with little regard for consequences. And if you think THAT’S mean, write what Naranjo actually wrote about 8’s. The dude really didn’t like certain types lol. Though it’s more understandable why sx4 and sx8 would be mixed up.

Anyway, I know I’ve been focusing on 4 gatekeeping a lot. That’s because it’s the type I see gatekept the most. And to rip the band aid off, I am biased, because I’m 80% sure I’m a core 4, but I’ve only been typed as a four (sx4) by one person on the internet. 50% said sx6, the other 50% said sx9, and someone said 1. Now, here’s the funny part, the strange part, the weird part… how the fuck do you get sx6 and sx9 typings in the same post? Unless… mayhaps… people are predisposed to slap the label onto people who show any level of nuance beyond an easily identifiable type. Then we’re suddenly 6’s or 9’s, and ‘unhealthy’ at that.

Granted, the post I made was a mess, because I wrote it while extremely anxious and caffeinated. I’ll probably write a new one soon. Then we can judge if I’m a “real 4.” As if I have any fucking emotional attachment to a number in a system. Who WANTS to be a 4? I was in denial in 2019 because I was repulsed by the idea of being a 4. I’m not repulsed by the idea of being a sx6. Sx6’s seem cool. I’m not repulsed by the idea of being a 9. I just don’t feel like either. Also, my other typology? EII INFP ELVF RLUEN NPBV SEFA. Yeah, that really screams 9.

You know, another reason I didn’t want to identify as 4 was because of how overtyped it was and still is. Not only that, but the amount of gatekeeping makes it exhausting. Sure, if saying I’m a sx9 will make you happy, biggest nine ever. Y’all get way too defensive over a set of numbers. I’m actually tempted to make my own website with enneagram descriptions that don’t suck. Don’t test me. I might do it, because I no longer trust anyone in this community to have accurate information.

Another problem I have with this community is watering down what 6 and 9 means. “9’s can look like any type.” That is ridiculous, I’m sorry, but that kind of logic leads to the Barnum Effect. Sure, 9’s can technically look like “any” type, maybe on the surface, but if you dig even slightly into the structure of a 9, there are specific patterns of behaviour that make a 9 a 9. I’m just saying that if the 9 in question is a person who represses their anger, has strong moral values that they are forceful about, is perfectionistic, has an inner critic, constantly self denying… maybe that’s not a 9, maybe that’s a 1. If the 6 in question struggles with envy, is concerned with the self and withdraw from others on a frequent basis, maybe that’s not a 6, maybe that’s a four. Get it? This logic of over complicating and adding specific barriers of entry for hexad types while downplaying what it means to be a 6 or 9 only serves to validate the elitist gatekeeping of certain types and is barely based on logic. Sorry if that’s mean, but it’s what I believe to be correct here, so.

Also, I think there’s a lot of a domino effect of one person making a claim about a type, another person thinking “that’s believable,” and parroting it, and then it just becomes seen as fact; mob mentality, kind of.

[tumblhurgoyf]

Feeling super negative for a multitude of reasons, some not Magic related at all, but the recent talk on Blogatog about “microset” products just feels so out of touch. I don’t want to bring that negativity on one of Mark’s posts as I’m not sure I could be polite about it and I’ve mostly just dismissed the product as not for me already anyway. But I do want to vent.

First it’s like $1 a card for random cards? That’s nuts. Boosters are already overpriced with all the commons included. They worked some really good PR speak by explaining away cutting the commons to give you more rares and uncommons, but the reality is you’re just paying more for less. It’s not like those rare slots are actually going to ever reach an EV that makes it a good gamble.

Second let’s talk about product fatigue. Like not only is this an additional release (or four) a year, but you’re doing normal and collector’s boosters for this as well? Holy fuck.

The fact that Mark’s openly work shopping what variation of this product players might actually shell out money for tells me it’s not received well. I haven’t seen a positive video about it at all.

It’s a shame though that they can’t give their golden goose a bit of breathing room though. I shared that post the other day about... let me find it for the term... trust thermocline. The basic idea is that people who like your product will stick with you through some missteps and bad ideas. And you won’t even notice how bad all of them are because sales keep increasing and people keep paying higher prices and buying new stuff and all that.

But at some point you hit that trust thermocline. Something pushes a lot of people over the edge. You walk it back but it’s too late. Because the thing is that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. They didn’t leave because of one bad story, or because $5 a pack was too much but $4.50 wasn’t, or because two dozen products a year was ok but thirty went to far.

They left because of all of it. The last thing is just what made them finally say “enough.” And once they say enough and leave, you don’t get them back. It’s hard to see because things keep chugging along and all your numbers and metrics look fine. But I feel like Wizards has to be approaching this. I wonder about why they stopped including space at the end of surveys for additional comments. Too much negativity they don’t want to put any effort into handling?

On a different front, I’m also not enjoying the lore changes they’ve dropped with this same product. I am willing to admit that I’m somehow still too close to the story to really take a step back and appreciate this; that could change with time. But my reaction right now is that desparking a lot of planeswalkers while opening rifts so anyone and anything can now travel the multiverse is just stupid. You’ve just eviscerated the story conceit that made planeswalkers special.

idk, I wasn’t thrilled with how they handled the team up cards anyway, and to me this feels like the next step of that. We got to see unlikely allies on cards, now what if we got stories where Thalia was on Ravnica fighting the Obzedat? It feels (I keep intentionally using the word feels to describe this--it’s my emotional reaction detached from the idea that they’re going to be able to tell cool stories they couldn’t otherwise tell), anyway, it feels like they just tossed out a core story concept and don’t even realize it.

Like as much shit they get for the world of hats approach, I think that really works for what they do and is part of what I enjoy. I’m honestly in part concerned that the recent big events that effect the entire multiverse and set up this situation where planes can blend a lot more freely could impact the distinct feel of different worlds. And while I’m sure that’s something that’s on creative’s radar, they’ve also burned enough trust in recent years that I’m doubtful they will handle it well.

Though at the same time this feels kind of par for the course. There have been so many let downs in Magic story over the years that the amazing part is that I’m still invested at all. But the story’s a slave to corporate needs and is undoubtedly more story-by-committee than ever. A left-right punch to KO any creative work for sure.

But I shouldn’t be surprised. They are not and have never really tried to say they’re anything else. They make blockbuster sets and want blockbuster stories to go along with it. Anyone who wants a fantasy card game with DC/Marvel story sensibilities to produce artistic short fiction is a damned fool.

Anyway this is just me venting. Could all be wrong. Time will tell. If you want to vent here feel free.

[mlmxreader]

A Long While | Bob Saginowski x gn!reader

anonymous asked: Bob Saginowski Hiya! Hope all is good 🖤. May I please request something using the following prompts for Bob Saginowski X non-binary, male, or gn!Reader: "Y'know what? Nevermind" + "You said you'd always be there for me!" Thank you 🖤🖤! 🐍anon

summary: it's not Bob's thing, and it's not his scene, but he's willing to try for you.

tws: swearing, smoking, alcohol consumption, mentions of drugs/drug taking

support your fanfic writers by reblogging what you read & enjoy

Bob was visibly on edge as he clung onto your arm, squeezing your hand gently as he kept in step with you, weaving through the crowd. There was a large house party going on at your friend's house, and although he wasn't exactly keen on that sort of thing, you asked him to accompany you, and… and Bob could never say no to you.

He left Rocco with his neighbour, as she was more than happy to look after the young dog, and he trusted her to keep him safe until he got back. But as he surveyed the crowd, Bob could only feel on edge.

Disco music was blaring loudly through the house, not exactly his type of thing; he liked heavy metal, and disco was far from that.

People were kissing on the stairs, strangers who could not have known each other for more than two minutes. People were drinking heavily, necking cans and nursing bottles. People were smoking weed out on the patio, the stench drifting in through the open back doors.

Everywhere he looked, people were dancing and singing. Exchanging phone numbers and flirting. Greeting friends with long and warm hugs and gentle kisses. He clenched his jaw. If there was anything that could set Bob's teeth on edge, it was a large crowd where anything could go wrong at any point in time.

He sighed as he shook his head, clenching his jaw. You seemed so eager though, and Bob felt bad for not enjoying the party when you pressed a bottle of beer into his hand and grinned at him.

"C'mon, you said you'd always be there for me!" You shouted over the music, leaning in close to make sure that he could hear you properly. Only teasing, only being playful as you laughed loudly.

Bob shrugged, taking a swig from his beer as he kept you close to his body; the relationship was relatively new, only about a year along, but Bob saw himself as a sort of protector when it came to you.

You didn't see the side of things that he did, you didn't see how violent and abhorrent people could be, not in the way that he did. He stayed put when you got called over by a friend.

Keenly, Bob watched the interaction; your friend was friendly, handsy more than anything, but you didn't seem to mind. But he still slowly approached until he was close enough to put an arm around you and pull you into his side.

"Benny Boy!" You jeered, gleeful and enthusiastic. "This is Bob! My boyfriend!"

Benny extended his hand for Bob to shake. "He's got a good handshake at least!"

"Trust me!" You beamed. "He's great with his hands!"

Bob glared at you, blush on his features as he took another swig from his beer and cleared his throat.

"Sorry if it's a bit hectic!" Benny nearly screamed as he laughed. "I did only intend for it to be just a few of us! Y'know, just us lot!"

You nodded. "I'm guessing things got out of hand!"

"Just a bit!" He laughed so loudly, the sound grating against Bob's ears. "I'm glad you came, though! At least I can see everyone before I leave!"

Bob huffed, swigging his beer as he idly listened to the conversation as it dragged on; any other time and place, he would have been more keen on getting to know a few of your friends. But parties really weren't his thing in the slightest.

But he still followed you around, keeping his fingertips against you as he did so, refusing to budge from your side; he didn't trust the people at the party to not do something stupid. It wasn't until you stepped outside for a quick cigarette that Bob actually let you go.

He sat on a black wicker chair as he sighed and tilted his head back, enjoying the slightly more quiet ambiance of the bottom of the garden where no one dared to go; he closed his eyes, feeling himself relax a little as he grumbled and swiped a hand down his face.

"You alright?" You asked, genuinely concerned. "You've been on edge all night."

Bob shrugged as he dared to look at you. "Parties ain't my thing."

"Well, then," you hummed. "How about we stay for just another ten minutes, just one more drink, and then we get Rocco, go home, snuggle up and watch Downton Abbey?"

It was all too tempting, but he knew how much seeing your friends meant to you, so he shook his head. "Y'know what? Nevermind. I can cope."

"Bob," you huffed, sitting on his lap as you tutted and shook your head. "I've seen my mates. I've seen our Benny off. That's all I wanted anyway."

Bob frowned. "You're having fun, I don't wanna ruin it."

You scoffed as you gently traced his jaw with a deft finger. "You're not ruining anything. I promise. We'll have one more drink, and then fuck off home. Yeah?"

Slowly, he nodded as he quietly agreed; of course he still felt bad for ruining your night and ending it early, but even on the walk home you were more than happy. Holding his hand and swinging it slightly. A skip in your step and a smile on your face.

You were happy, and at the end of the day, that's all that Bob wanted; he wanted to see you happy and safe.

But he knew that you would have been happier if you had stayed at the party, even if you kept telling him otherwise and even if you did seem genuinely excited to go and watch the television with him. But things like that never changed his guilt, he knew, he tried. But he tried to act happy as he walked with you, he really did.

"Y'know," you mused as you dared to swing his hand a little. "I'm glad we're together, Saginowski… I hope we're together for a long while."

[destinyc1020]

The survey is asking people who they are willing to go to the theatre for so it seems like people are willing to go to the theatre to Chris.

Ohhhh...

I see. Okay so it's about who people are SAYING they'll go to the theaters for, not based on actual box office numbers.

Got it.

Okay, well then I'll take back what I said then. Looks like Chris has some very avid fans!! 🤣 😄

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #148

Have you ever seen an alligator? Yes, both in the zoo and wild.

When you first wake up do you check your cellular device? Yes, because I'll wanna know what time it is.

How well do you think you’d... work out, in a Christian school? Well this depends; my last college was actually a Christian college, but they didn't push any sort of doctrine onto students; I loved the school, even, they were great people. HOWEVER, if I was pressured into a religion by a school (isn't that illegal, anyway?), I'd get kicked out real fuckin fast.

Do you like Kanye West? Nope, not as a musician and DEFINITELY not as a person.

Do you have any lockets? No, I've always kinda wanted one though, haha.

Do you make kissy faces in pictures? ugh no I'd rather you just shoot me

Do you know your social security number (or equivalent) off by heart? At this moment, I do, but I very often forget the first three numbers.

Do you know a Stephen? I don't.

Green or purple? Purple.

Have you ever watched a meteor shower? No, I wish!!!

Has religion ever come between you and somebody? Yes. It's especially the reason I'm not friends with Mini anymore, because due to her faith, she was trans/homophobic and also extremely pro-life. Her selling pro-life stickers and stuff following the overturning of Roe v. Wade was the final fucking straw, like congrats for benefiting from women having their fucking lives ruined.

Ever have an ultra-sound performed on you? What was it for? Yes, something about my liver as a teenager, I don't remember the details. Everything was fine.

How long has your favorite animal been your favorite animal? Since 2005 when Meerkat Manor came out; I was nine.

When was the last time you spoke to your mom? Lil while ago in the kitchen.

Do you have an Instagram? I have three, one being a personal one and the other two for different types of photography.

If so how many posts do you have? None have a whole lot, but I don't care at all to count.

Can you juggle? Absolutely not, never been able to.

What’s your favorite color combination? Probably black and gold.

Have you ever seen your favorite animal in real life? Only once at the zoo in 5th grade. :( They moved them somewhere else afterwards.

Does your cat purr really loud? (if you have a cat) Haha yes, Girt refers to his louder purring as "lawnmowering" and it's so accurate.

What’s your mom’s name? Donna.

Do you have multiple friends with the same name? Not really "multiple," no. The only case where name confusion happens sometimes is when me or mom and Girt's family say "Ashley," because both myself and Girt have an older sister named Ashley. We kinda just have to use context clues to know which one, but even then there have been instances of not realizing the other Ashley was the subject.

Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night just to talk to someone? No, but someone has done this for me, and I'm going to be pained for my entire life that I never got to hug and thank her.

Do you watch The Simpsons or any other cartoons? No.

What's your favorite kind of jam/jelly? Grape.

What have you last been diagnosed with? Hypothyroidism, officially, following some blood tests after being taken off my old thyroid med to get a baseline; it's apparently majorly severe, which explains a WHOLE fuckin lot. I'm on a different (and supposedly more effective) med now and will get more tests later to hopefully see it stabilize.

What was the last restaurant you ate at? Red Robin, for Mother's Day.

Do you believe in psychic ability? Absolutely not and it's infuriating that people are willing to scam generally vulnerable people like that. So-called "mediums" are even worse.

When did you last have pizza delivered? It's been a good while. I've been craving pizza actually, but I'm avoiding even suggesting it as best I can, especially after meeting my nutritionist and having fresh motivation to eat better.

What's your favorite decoration in your place of residence? I'm not sure, we have quite a lot of stuff up, especially in the living room.

Have you ever held a chicken? I know I've held a chick, but never an adult.

Are you hard to please? No.

What’s your least favorite genre of TV show? I hate those shows like Maury or Jerry Springer shit, stuff that puts people's private lives on display for ridicule and likewise purposes.

What’s your least favorite genre of music? Probably country. I'm not into rap either, but at least sometimes the non-vocals are fun or interesting.

What physical traits have you inherited from your father? Idk, nothing that is extremely obvious, at least to me. I'm pretty sure Dad was born dirty blonde though, and I was too, but his hair turned black and mine brown.

How about your mother? Height and general weight, but she's still smaller than me, especially post-chemo. Our skin is also similar, both in paleness and also freckling, at least on my arms. She has it more widespread and obvious than I do.

Which friend of yours has the prettiest, most unique name? I have always thought Alon was a beautiful name. I've never met or known another person with it.

When it comes to nose piercings, do you prefer a ring or stud? Studs.

Does your job have any restrictions on piercings and tattoos? What are they? I'm unemployed, and while I know there's plenty of people who would call it petty, I wouldn't take a job that perpetuated the "tattoos and piercings are unprofessional" shit.

Do you want or have your belly button pierced? It's not and never has been; if I had a certain kind of body, I'd absolutely get it done, but for some reason I'm really weird about me personally getting one at my size, despite the fact I'd cheer seeing another woman my size getting it done. I'm just very uncomfortable drawing attention to my abdomen.

Ever been in a physical fight? How did it go? Nope.

Do you like swimming? Do you have a pool? I like swimming a lot actually, I love being in water and even more I love the sound of it, I like watching light on it... but I don't swim a lot, partially because I hate getting changed out of wet bathing suits (and I actually wear swimming pants too because I don't want to show my legs, and THEY'RE the worst getting off), but also we don't have a pool. Growing up we did, but at this house and the last one, we didn't.

Is anyone you know racist or sexist? How do you feel about it? Oh certainly, especially here in the south; you see racism more, but both are fucking awful and I openly think you're fucking garbage if you hold prejudices like these.

Do you like mint-flavored gum? Yep.

If you house with your parents, do you pay rent to live at home? Why or why not? Do you know if your parents will ever make you pay rent? If so, when? I'm unemployed, so no. Even whenever I do get a job, I'm doubtful Mom would ask me to, but I'm immediately contributing whether she likes it or not.

Ever have sex outside of a relationship? No, that's not for me.

If a taken person pursued you and you were interested, would you do anything with them? No, I'm not going to be someone's second choice.

If you had a hot cousin, would you have sexual relations with them? Jesus Christ, no. Incest is majorly fucking gross to me.

Have your exes gotten better looking since you dated them? I don't know; I haven't seen most since we dated. I've seen a single picture of Jason in more recent times, in which he had full facial hair, but it was a candid photo at an angle so I couldn't really digest how different he really looked.

How often do you expect your SO to talk to you (either through texting, phone calls, etc)? I would be concerned if he didn't message me for an entire day, because we generally talk quite a bit throughout every day. I'd worry something was wrong.

How tall do you stand? Haha I found out the other day at the doctor I'm exactly 5'4.6'', so that's why I hear 5'4'' from some people and 5'5'' from others.

How many people are in your family? I consider my immediate/most base "family" to be my parents, two full-blooded sisters (I just don't see/interact with the halves enough... though I wish I did), my older sister's three children, and Girt, his sister, her son, and Girt's mom. Oh, and I guess Kim too, Dad's wife, but she will NEVER be what my biological mom is to me; I don't even call her "Mom" or anything of the sort, she's just Kim. AND THE PETS!!! Roman, Venus, and Cookie are all absolutely family in my eyes, and even Girt's dog Charlie that I haven't seen THAT many times is family to me.

What color is your keyboard? Black, but the keys light up red.

Do you have a laptop or a desktop? Laptop, it's a lot more convenient imo.

What were you doing at midnight last night? I'm pretty sure Girt left right around that time, but I was nearly asleep so am not totally sure.

What woke you up this morning? At some point my body did naturally, and I just barely dragged myself out of bed to go take my thyroid med (I have to take it at least 30 minutes before eating and my other meds), and then I didn't wake back up until Mom got me up for my psychiatry appointment.

Are you picky about who you give your number to? Oh for sure, I barely have any contacts in my phone.

Are you afraid of roller coasters? Yes, very.

Do you know anyone who suffers from depression? Yes, myself among MANY other people.

[TW: DRUG USE] Have you ever injected a drug? No, not into that whatsoever.

Have you ever fallen asleep on someone? Definitely as a kid, as well as on Jason and Girt.

Of all your exes, which one is your least favorite? Sara.

Do you prefer to be cuddled or kissed? Depends on the mood; I'd always be up for cuddling Girt though, while I don't always want to kiss, but on the other hand there are cases where I don't just want to cuddle, either.

Your most recent ex says they still love you. You say… lol no she doesn't, this isn't a situation I can even picture.

Who was your first boy/girlfriend? Aaron was the first guy with the title, but Jason was definitely my first real significant other.

How did your first kiss happen? We were playfighting on his bed, he pinned me, so I kissed him.

Where did you meet the last person you were in a car with? She gave birth to me.

When was the last time you had a box of chocolates? What kind were they? Valentine's Day, from Girt. They were different flavors and fillings.

Of all your relatives & close friends, whose birthday is closest to yours? My youngest niece's, I think.

Did you have a cake on your last birthday? What kind? No actually, I wanted donuts instead.

Where do you think your best friend(s) is right now? He should be at home, unless he had to go out for something today.

What is your central philosophy in life? To act with love and that love is something worth fighting for, and that is in all forms, not just romantic.

What moral code do you follow and why? Treat others how I'd want them to treat me, and to never, ever hurt/kill someone unless in very literal self-defense.

What is the person you are most dependent on (your dad, the welfare office, your personal maid, your seeing-eye-dog, your mailman)? My mom. I feel like her kid that never truly grew up, and I mean that negatively. She never asked for a child that would always be a parasite on her.

What expletives do you use in surprise or irritation (swears, gasps, yowza, etc)? "Jesus Christ" and "fuck" happen the most I think, but sometimes "shit" or "god(fucking)damn" happen.

What are the five worst things possible to happen to you? Depression and mental illness as a whole + the suicidal ideation that comes with it, a traumatic breakup, way too many hospitalizations that didn't benefit me, my parents' divorce (in terms of how I handled it, it NEEEEEEEDED to happen), and honestly I think the muscle atrophy in my legs.

What is the worst you’ve ever been injured or sick (broken arm, cancer, hang nail)? A wicked stomach virus that had me puking relentlessly, I'm talkin' to where you're barely getting bile out and your abs are in agony.

What object(s) do you like to keep near you? My phone, more than anything else. I tend to like to have a drink of some sort too, I drink (not alcohol, just in general) A LOT.

Which one of your relatives is most likely to embarrass you? My dad.

[fingertipsmp3]

Just thought of the most morally questionable way to kill two birds with one stone

[sennakoshiba]

Thanks for the links, replying in numbered bullet-points, one for each link:

1) Yeah, that sucks and is indicative of her being a bog-standard politician. But, again, it's not worse than the other option.

2) I'm gonna be saying, "this sucks" a lot, because it does. However, her goal isn't to throw asylum seekers in cages (even if Obama and Biden did that, it isn't their stated goal, like Trump's). Immigration is a topic that she's losing on, based on a pool of voters that actually intend to vote. If we showed the dems what we want via these surveys, that we're the majority, we can get the slimy fuckers to pander to us. There's voting with your dollars and then there's just regular voting.

3) I just read this one this morning! As was said earlier; she still supports trans people, but is pandering to those that are actually willing to vote, leaving us with lukewarm words. Again, that's better than a nigh inhuman bastard that wnats trans people legislated out of existence.

4) The article cites an interview with her talking about her, "denying care to trans inmates" when in reality it was people under her/ her responsibilities as a lawyer. She says that she had to take part the case even though the stance she was arguing went against her beliefs. I don't care for lawyers and I could never personally relate, but that was what that was. But WOW who the fuck are, "America's trans bourgeoisie"?? Maybe back in the 1980's like the article suggests, but I do not know a single trans person that makes bourgeoisie money.

Additionally, the article you gave me also argues plenty for voting for Kamala:

While the article slaps in other ways (talking about the fucked up state of affairs with US officials having meetings at Israel's torture prisons), it fails to completely address the fact that; Trump will be worse for the US.

They also make a bunch of claims about trans bourgeoisie and liberals trying to shrink the trans population without a single source, so 🤷‍♀️

5) Like I've said, she's reaching across the aisle to get more moderate or right-leaning people, because they'll actually vote. Why pander to the kids that won't vote that're too left leaning? Then you lose the right-of-center, the centrists, and left-of center voters. It's a sick, awful numbers game that we need to change, as the two-party system is a fucking joke.

We don't win by letting Trump (who is OBJECTIVELY WORSE than Kamala) be president again. I'll protest as much as it takes, but I think we'll get further under her than the guy that unleashed unmarked secret police forces on protestors, essentially kidnapping them.

Lovely how libs has spent a year going "yeah well Harris is gonna back and fund a genocide but at least she will stand by trans people in the US" just for her to come out as not giving a shit about trans rights lol

[marukrawler]

Mira is worst girl and here’s why ✨

Yeah, if you’re a fan of Mira then this post might not be for you.

Mira Fermin is typically characterized as someone who rebelled against her own kind for colonizing New Vestroia and enslaving its inhabitants, someone who fought for Bakugan to be free and left behind everything she knew in order to accomplish that mission.

That’s Mira Fermin in concept but unfortunately, that’s not how she was actually written to be.

Mira’s narrative as a strong leader of a rebellious faction that fought against the oppression of the Bakugan was largely ruined by her obsession with finding and being near her brother, which destroyed any potential and nuance her character could’ve had this season.

Derailing her mission numerous times because of Keith:

Mira states in episode 4 that they have no time to waste on searching for missing people because they have to destroy the dimension controller in Alpha City.

And yet in episode 6, she insists they search for her missing brother that she might’ve seen and fights Ace over this. She was willing to waste time on searching for someone she thought was her brother because, “who else could it have been?”

So, we can establish that Mira is a hypocrite.

Not only that, but she was also fully committed to abandoning her team in order to look for her brother (or Shun, as we find out.)

We’re only six episodes into season 2 and Mira has already shown how she’s ready to put the greater mission, which is supposed to define her entire character, on the back burner for even the slightest clue of her brother’s whereabouts. Which wouldn’t be quite as baffling if she wasn’t the fucking leader who’s supposed to be spearheading the liberation of all the enslaved Bakugan on New Vestroia. Sorry Bakugan, you’re gonna have to be content with being freed on Mira’s schedule!

The team reaches Alpha City in episode 7 and not only is she sulking about her brother the entire time, she also decides to take a detour to her house to look for clues about what happened to him instead of surveying the arena in Alpha City like the rest of the group.

Let me reiterate. They’re in Alpha City. They have a dimension controller to destroy so the captured Bakugan in that city can be freed. Mira decided instead to go home and see if she could learn more about where Keith went.

Seven episodes in, and we can conclude that Mira’s a fucking terrible leader.

Ending this segment with how Mira yeeted herself into a portal to an unknown planet all because she wanted to be close to her brother, and not because Runo was in danger or because leaving three Vexos on Earth with only one Resistance member would be bad.

It’s glaringly obvious what her number one priority is and it’s not whatever the fuck NV1 is about, I can tell you that much.

Accepting deals that don’t benefit her simply because Keith is involved:

In episode 12 Mira challenges Spectra to a battle and if she wins, she sees the face underneath his mask. He counters that proposal by saying that she’ll join the Vexos if she loses.

She easily accepts the deal as if the conditions are equal, as if she couldn’t have changed the terms so the deal wasn’t so ridiculously skewed in Spectra’s favor.

She could’ve had Spectra become a spy for the Resistance. She could’ve had him promise to help destroy the dimension controllers. Something that could actually benefit the Resistance long-term, and not just her, but as we’ll rediscover in the later paragraphs, Mira doesn’t even stop to think about what could benefit the Resistance. She had everything to lose and nothing of value to gain from the deal, but she took it anyway because Keith is all that occupies her head.  

So, this marks the second time she was ready to abandon her team and her cause. Superb.

Episode 19 comes around and Mira actually follows through with leaving the Resistance to be with her brother, which not only screws over her entire team but also the Brawlers who were denied the opportunity to help out from the very beginning. As much as I’m aware of the writers wanting to keep the girls away from the action, this is also entirely in character for Mira so I’m not even gonna say it’s the writers’ fault for making her do this. She was literally gonna abandon the team to go look for Shun in episode 6, so her fucking over her comrades like this is not ooc at all.

Mira has now jeopardized the mission to save the Bakugan how many times?

Ohhh my Goddd shut up shut up shut the fuck uppppp

Similarly to the stupid deal she took in episode 12, she makes another with Spectra in episode 21, this time stating that he goes back to being her brother if she wins. She accepts the condition that she’ll do whatever Spectra wants if she loses which, again, is stupid as fuck.

���Going back to being her brother” is so damn vague that it technically still leaves room for Spectra to do whatever the hell he wants or at the very least, it doesn’t guarantee Mira that he’ll offer her his help in the fight against Prince Hydron. Spectra has up till this point been treating Mira and Clay as if they weren’t related to him, so he could still uphold his end of the deal by simply referring to Mira as his sister and then go back to being an evil asshole.

Mira just simply doesn’t think any of these things through. Seeing her brother’s face and asking him be her brother again are, to her, somehow equal to her being asked to leave behind the group she founded and carry out the terrible whims of the Vexos. Make it make sense.

Can’t keep her promises to anyone

This one isn’t the biggest offender with regards to how Mira’s character sucks ass but I’d still like to call attention to how you can’t trust her to do anything. Which, considering her promise to free the Bakugan and how they’re getting liberated on Mira’s time, shouldn’t be much of a surprise. She turned on the Resistance, thereby breaking her promise to them.

She had no intention of working as a spy inside the Vexos in order to gain intel or sabotage them because her flashback in episode 19 shows that she just wanted to be with Keith, call him big brother and get to know more about him and his goal. Once again, she acted on her own personal wants and had no intention of destroying the Vexos from the inside.

She also broke her promise to Spectra when she deliberately lost to Dan and Ace in episode 23. She promised she would be at his command if she lost her battle with him and yet she returned to the Resistance by the end of the episode.

Can she please stop being so uwu sad about her fucking family

If Mira’s endless wailing about Keith wasn’t annoying enough, the show gives you just enough time to recover from the whiplash of seeing Keith turn good before Mira starts the sulking process all over again, only this time with her father.

She stated in episode 7 that she didn’t come home for his sake and that she never intended to return, which implies she cut ties with her father. That makes sense considering he not only knew about Vestal’s invasion of New Vestroia, he was also the one who tortured Hydranoid. But once it’s no longer about Keith, Mira begins to beg and cry for her dad to stop making weapons of mass destruction and for them to start being a family again.

I might be mistaken but I could’ve sworn there was supposed to be some sort of compelling story regarding Mira this season? A story of privileged girl discovering the horrific truths about what her people, and her own family specifically, is subjecting a sentient species to, and how she decides to take a stand, leave her cozy life behind and fight against her own people for the sake of Bakugan liberation? Was that just me or..?  

Needless to say, that’s definitely not what happened because not only was Mira’s character writing weaker than her brawling record, her role as leader and as the one to stop Spectra was eventually stolen by Dan.

Dan and Spectra’s rivalry essentially strip Mira of the last remaining thing her character had going. Trying to fix Spectra was literally her thing, and the only thing she wouldn’t shut up about. However, she’s the not the one who has a climactic fight against Spectra at the end of NV1, Dan is. She’s not even allowed to fight alongside Spectra and gets knocked out so Spectra and Dan can fight Zenoheld and Hydron. When she has seemingly given up on her brother returning to the good side (which she didn’t really because she kept fucking moping about it), Dan is the one telling her not to give up on Keith, and it’s Spectra’s final battle against Dan that ultimately “makes him see the error of his ways,” not anything that Mira did.

So basically, Mira spends the entirety of season 2 ignoring her mission in favor of bringing Keith back from the dark side, only to not be the person who brings him back from the dark side?? What the actual fuck.

So yeah, Mira is worst girl, possibly even the worst character of season 2 and she’s one of the many reasons why that season sucks <33 Thanks for coming to my ted talk uwu