Hey guys! I'm Bea from Hagwow, the first modern e-learning platform in the Philippines made for kids. We're looking for Sales Partners or Sales Affiliates from all over the country to help spread our service throughout your communities.
The basics:

• For 99 PHP/month, we offer Grades 1-6 kids daily lessons and worksheets that they can fill out on our platform
  
• We are the first of its kind in this country, selling a direct to consumer e-learning platform with daily classes system
  
• We already have 25,000 registered Filipino students from internal promotions, and we're recently relaunching our social media efforts to continue our growth
  

Our terms:

• We're looking for interested Sales Partners to help spread our subscription across your communities
  
• You will get 30% of every sale, for every month that they stay subscribed. This means for each sale you make this month, you will get 30 pesos every single month until they unsubscribe.
  
• You will also get a 500 PHP bonus for every 10 sales you make within a month.
  
• Our top affiliates are making 10k+ per month due to the previous month sales stacking up, and on average our sales partners make anywhere from 2-3k per month after 3 months.
  

How to apply:

• Please fill out the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLhsFRq1rJGQYWXDHo8fuNmEkr3HZ5rhVbbgYpglIQ5tRxIQ/viewform
  
• Please note that we are only taking in a limited number of Sales Partners from each area, so please apply soon before the quota in your area is filled.
  
• Once you apply, please wait up to 1-2 days for us to get back to you and tell you the next steps. You will be given training materials and you will be asked to join a webinar, and then your Sales Partner code will be generated, which your sign-ups will have to input when they subscribe.
  

Learn more about our platform on our site: www.hagwowcourses.com
Thanks guys! :) Let me know if you have any questions.

• Bea

Capital on Tap is a business credit card for people who are a Director of a Limited Company registered on Companies House.
They’re offering a free £75 reward for those who open a credit card via a referral and make one transaction (any amount) on the card. Plus, there’s 1% cashback when you spend on the card. They also specifically say that: "Applying won’t affect your credit score".
Notes:

• Sole traders are not eligible, you must have a limited company registered at Companies House.
• Your company should have a turnover of at least £24,000 to be eligible (that's what their Terms say).

How to get your free £75 reward with Capital on Tap:

1. Sign up using my referral link here
2. Enter 2REFM892N33 in the promo code section if it hasn't already been pre-filled
3. Complete your application and ID process (I had a follow-up email asking to confirm my business activities, no documents needed, just a quick email response – I literally typed out one sentence and they approved it)
4. Activate your physical card when it arrives and make your first purchase (any amount) within 30 days of activation
5. The £75 free reward will land in your account instantly – you’ll receive an app alert too

My experience: Immediately after making my first transaction (bought some stamps from the Post Office), my phone pinged with an alert saying the £75 credit had been applied, so the offer worked perfectly. Screenshot here. Very happy, and now using it as my main business card for the 1% cashback.
LINKS:

• Referral link here for the free £75 reward + enter code 2REFM892N33
• Non-referral: https://www.capitalontap.com/en/

Law firms are continually seeking ways to enhance efficiency and client experience. We often think of a positive client experience as a well-delivered service, so it’s no surprise that many firms invest in systems that help with client and case management. However, have you considered how phone calls can affect your firm’s efficiency and client satisfaction?
It’s easy to overlook, but who is answering the phone and how they deliver the service plays a significant part in your firm’s ability to retain clients and improve your workflow. One solution is to introduce a legal answering service to your firm, and in this article, we dive into the benefits it can have for your firm.

What is a legal phone answering service?

A phone answering service for lawyers functions as a round-the-clock virtual receptionist. You no longer need to worry about missing calls after hours, when team members are out of the office, or on weekends or holidays. A legal phone answering service ensures that no call goes unanswered, but some providers also go beyond answering calls. Phone answering services can also assist with scheduling appointments, lead qualification, and providing general support to clients. Find out more about what is a legal phone answering service here.

Benefits of legal phone answering service

While there are numerous advantages to having a legal phone answering service for your law firm, we focus on our top 7 reasons – discussing each one in detail with key takeaways describing how it can positively impact your law firm’s operations.
You can be available for clients 24/7/365
A legal phone answering service ensures your firm is accessible around the clock. Clients often call after hours with urgent legal queries, but if the call goes unanswered, this can lead to client frustration and lost business for your firm. By introducing a legal phone answering service, your firm can eliminate this issue by providing help when you’re not around. 24/7 availability gives clients a sense of comfort knowing they can always reach out and helps to reaffirm that your firm is dependable.
Key takeaways

• Enhanced responsiveness – 24/7 answering means your firm can respond to client inquiries outside of standard office hours
• Increased lead capture – grow your firm by capturing potential leads that come in after-hours.
• Reduced stress – alleviate the pressure to be constantly available and maintain a healthier work-life balance.

Improve overall client satisfaction
Prompt responses and effective communication are the foundations of client satisfaction. With more than half of consumers saying they would switch to a competitor after only one bad experience with a company – client satisfaction must be considered from the outset [Zendesk, 2023].
A legal phone answering service ensures that every call is answered professionally. This, in turn, will work to reduce wait times and improve the overall client experience. If your clients are getting a quality level of service each and every time they communicate with you, your firm is also likely to benefit from positive word-of-mouth referrals.
Key takeaways

• Build trust – demonstrate to clients that their concerns are a top priority and build a stronger lawyer-client relationship.
• Reduce miscommunication – ensure client communications are handled accurately and reduce potential misunderstandings.
• Enhance your reputation – great client experiences lead to referrals and increase the number of positive reviews you receive.

Demonstrate professionalism
Virtual receptionists are trained professionals. LEX Reception is powered by real people and each receptionist handles calls with the etiquette and knowledge expected in a legal receptionist role. First impressions matter, and a competent answering service helps to build your reputation from the very first interaction.
Key takeaways

• Maintain your brand image – consistent, professional call handling reinforces your firm’s reputation as reliable and trustworthy.
• Improve client confidence – a professional first point of contact increases clients’ confidence in your firm’s ability to handle their legal matters effectively.

Provide multilingual support
In an increasingly globalized world, law firms often deal with clients who speak various languages. Multilingual support in a phone answering service allows your firm to communicate effectively with a diverse client base and expand your reach. Language barriers can be a significant obstacle when it comes to legal services which can leave many potential clients feeling isolated. Misunderstandings can put people through an emotionally difficult experience during what may already be a stressful time. By having a phone answering service like LEX Reception that offers bilingual support in English and Spanish, your law firm can ensure that no client is turned away due to language constraints.
Key takeaways

• Expand your client base – bilingual support enables your firm to cater to a more diverse clientele and potentially open up new markets.
• Improves client understanding – break down language barriers, and make sure clients fully understand the legal advice and services being offered.

Manage appointments efficiently
Managing appointments can be a time-consuming task for busy lawyers. A legal phone answering service streamlines this process by scheduling, confirming, and reminding clients of their upcoming appointments. For lawyers, missed appointments can lead to inefficiencies and lost revenue. A legal phone answering service takes over the task of managing appointments, reducing the likelihood of no-shows through efficient scheduling and reminders. This not only improves your operations but also maximizes your billable hours.
Key takeaways

• Boost efficiency – simplify your scheduling process and get more time to focus on casework rather than on administrative tasks.
• Reduce no-shows – send automated reminders to decrease the likelihood of missed appointments to optimize your time.

Increase client retention
Effective communication and reliable support contribute significantly to client retention. By ensuring that client inquiries and concerns are addressed promptly, a phone answering service can help strengthen client relationships and encourage long-term loyalty.
A focus on client retention through a quality service is not only important for the client, but for your firm’s growth. In fact, it was reported that a 5% improvement in client retention could increase profitability by 25% [Forrester, 2023]. If you consistently deliver an excellent experience for your clients with the help of a dedicated phone answering service, your retention rates will improve.
Key takeaways

• Strengthen client relationships – nurture client relationships with regular and efficient communications.
• Encourage repeat business – satisfied clients are more likely to return for future legal needs.
• Generate positive feedback – happy clients often provide positive online reviews and testimonials which can attract new clients.

Customizable services
Every law firm has unique needs and client onboarding procedures and, as such, legal phone answering services focus on how best to align with these needs. From personalizing your call scripts to integrating with your existing operational tools, you can make a legal phone answering service like LEX work harder for your firm. This flexibility means that the service can evolve along with your firm, providing consistent support that is in line with your growing requirements.
Key benefits

• Scalability – as your firm grows or faces varying demands, your service can be adjusted to provide consistent and unwavering support.
• Unique client experience – build a client interaction model that aligns with your firm’s approach to client service.

Get more time with LEX Reception

Discover the difference a specialized legal phone answering service can make for your firm. LEX Reception’s phone answering service is designed with busy lawyers in mind, providing professionalism, efficiency, and customized support to enhance your firm’s operations and client relations.
Book a demo and experience firsthand how LEX Reception can transform the way your firm handles client communication and management.

Hello everyone. I'm a first generation lawyer student in my final semester, I just got confirmation from one of the best institutes for their LLM program. But in constitutional law. I love the subject, but not sure about it's scope layer on. What can I do other than academics in constitutional law?

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

Suprabhat, Vannakam, Adab and Welcome to the 2024 LOK SABHA GENERAL ELECTION THUNDERDOME.
NO RULES, NO LIMITS, ONLY CHAOS.
THE CAGE -
India is a parliamentary democracy that follows the first-past-the-post voting system, similar to the standard Westminster System. The Lower House of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) consists of 543 seats representing 543 constituencies that send 1 Member of Parliament (MP) each. These 543 MP's then choose a prime minister via simple majority.
For each constituency, a political party gives a ticket to a single Candidate. The Candidate with at least a plurality of votes in a constituency represents that Constituency in parliament as a member of the party.
There are no party level primaries in India, the candidate for a constituency is decided by the party high command and only one person from a party can be on the ticket for a particular seat. You can contest multiple constituencies though from the same party as both Narendra Modi (2014 BJP Candidate for both Varanasi and Vadodara) and Rahul Gandhi (2024 Congress Candidate for both Rae Bareili and Wayanad) have done. If no existing political party gives you a ticket, you can contest as an Independent Candidate or form your own party and contest as a member of your own party.
The government can be formed by the party or the alliance that has a simple majority of MP's. When no single political party has a majority of MP's, an alliance of various parties can be formed that contains the majority of MP's. This is called a post-poll alliance, where the parties contest elections separately but might come together after the elections in order to form the government or be part of the government. However there is also the pre-poll alliance where political parties join or form an alliance before the elections.
THE DATES -
THE RESULTS -
EXIT POLLS -
THE FIGHTS -
Economy & Employment:
The incumbent BJP-led NDA government makes the positive case of economic growth and development under its decade long tenure. It points to strong rejuvenated GDP growth with relatively low inflation, rising wages, a growing middle class, stable macroeconomic positioning, strong spending, slashing of multidimensional poverty, a strong and well administered welfare state, expanded free trade, sharp reduction in regulation, increase in select manufacturing and industry, a revitalized finance sector, and a thriving service market.
The government points to the large-scale infrastructure development undertaken, expanding roadways, delivering expansive electrification, and provisions of basic utility services. They point to the stagnation and policy paralysis observed under the tenure of the last Congress government (UPA 2), and further make point to the opposition's alleged proposed populist economic programs as untenable and unfeasible. They make the case that the opposition has leftist economic policies that are not grounded in economic reality.
The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition on the other hand, makes the negative case against the incumbents, pointing to large scale youth unemployment, even among educated youth. They point to an alleged inability of the government to tie growth to employment. They allege a failure of manufacturing capacity and sufficient industrialization of the economy, highlighting the lack of sufficient private capital inflows. They criticize the growth figures of the economy by casting doubt on the government's statistics, and focusing extensively on growing wealth inequality, alleging that growth only occurs for the rich billionaire class, with minimal relief for the poor, targeting specific attacks against domestic industrial magnates, Adani and Ambani. They allege favoritism on the part of the incumbent government towards their select base, highlighting the state of Gujarat as being prioritized over other states.
In making their positive case, they propose a more inclusive and redistributive model of growth, proposing heightened subsidization programmes, more welfare and support programmes, higher taxation on the wealthy and corporations, leveraging private capital inflows for infrastructure development, and prioritizing equitable growth through a caste census, developing corrective policies for inequalities between castes.
They aim to solve the employment crisis through expanding roles in state enterprises and filling government vacancies, alongside expanding labour intensive industries like manufacturing and mining, whilst pointing to high growth rates of the economy as well as committing to expand manufacturing through reforms and subsidy platforms like the PLI, FAME etc., further claiming that increased infrastructure spending will lead to crowding in effect thus enabling faster industrialization.
Social Justice:
The issues of social equity and justice have become major cornerstones of both the incumbent and opposition electoral platforms. This is most prevalent through the forthcoming section on sectarianism, but also focuses on key issues regarding class equality and - most importantly - caste-based discrimination.
The incumbent BJP-led NDA government point to their solid track record of universal poverty alleviation, targeted successful welfare and affirmative action programmes. The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition on the other hand, point to growing wealth inequality and apparent institutional and systemic discrimination against underprivileged caste communities in academia, employment, governmental programmes, courts, the military, etc. They allege that the government has not committed to taking resolute and definitive action against casteism through corrective policy.
This all boils down to the Reservation system, a large scale, affirmative action initiative, conducted through a systematic quota-based policy of allotment of institutional positions in education, governmental employment, schemes and programmes, direct political representation, etc.
With reservations estimated to have hit 59.5% of Central Government Institutional positions, there are now broader calls to expand the scale and scope of this drive. The opposition wanting to break the cap limits and even introduce this system into the private sector to potentially induce parity, while the government commits to more modest hikes of upto 62.5% while playing into incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi's identity as a member of an underprivileged caste community.
While the opposition campaigns on removing limits to the quota system to deliver equity, the government alleges these commitments to be populist and detrimental, while alleging that the opposition seeks to potentially appease its Muslim voter base by introducing expanded reservations for Muslims, thereby allegedly sabotaging the disadvantaged Hindu lower castes, and redistributing their wealth to Muslims, in a bid to gain their votes.
Communalism:
Both the incumbent BJP-led NDA government and the INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition have framed communalism as a lynchpin issue of the Election. The incumbent government points to alleged casteist and bigoted rhetoric against select caste groups and Hindus. They allege the opposition panders to minorities for their votes, whilst not delivering on the real issues. They allege the opposition seeks to drive up divisiveness and shared social harmony in India. They further allege that the opposition engages in divisive rhetoric on key issues of Hindu-Indian culture like that of the Ram Temple, in ways that contradict the spirit of the Indian State.
The opposition on the other hand, accused the incumbent government of being bigoted against minority communities, from the large Muslim community, to the lower caste communities of Indian society. They allege use of hateful and divisive rhetoric against these communities, and point to select controversial government positions and policies on issues like the Ram Mandir, the controversial CAA-NRC laws, the proposed Uniform Civil Code, among others. They further allege institutional degradation of key offices including policing, academia, and the military in discriminating against minority groups.
Institutional Independence:
The INC-led I.N.D.I.A opposition alleges institutional degradation and capture of various independent governmental entities by the incumbents. They point to the use of Executive, Investigative, Anti-Corruption, Enforcement, & Tax authorities against opposition figures and media as evidence, highlighting specific cases of the detaining and arrest of two sitting opposition Chief Ministers, and the resignation of one. They highlight alleged selective targeting of opposition figures for raids, charges, and arrests, creating an alleged environment of impunity for the government. The opposition alleges heightened and blatant partisanship of members of the Judiciary in support of the incumbent government. They also allege illegitimate freezing of campaigning funds, crackdowns on press freedoms via capture of media institutions, and also critically alleges institutional capture of the Election Commission, casting doubts on election results primarily critiquing India's Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
The Government rebukes these claims as part of a strong anti-corruption drive, highlighting a drop in governmental corruption cases since the previous Congress government (UPA 2, infamously riddled with such allegations). The government frames the opposition parties as corrupt and power-hungry, while further disparaging the opposition's alleged unfounded attacks on Indian institutions, apparent partisan attacks on the judiciary and critiquing apparent unfounded claims of election denialism.
THE FIGHTERS –
The election is primarily clash between two large coalitions, and their leading parties. On one side, you have the incumbent government of the BJP-led NDA, or National Democratic Alliance, and on the other, you have the opposition INC-led I.N.D.I.A, or Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, a new mega coalition of more than 35 parties, with a few unofficial supporters too.
The following is a list of some key players in each of the alliances and is by no means a comprehensive or exhaustive list of all involved factions.
The incumbent NDA includes:

1. BJP – The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party - "Indian People's Party") is a Hindu nationalist party committed to Hindutva ideology, promoting Hindu culture, opposing Muslim immigration, and creating a nativist country wherein India embraces a fundamentally Hindu social fabric. The BJP government under Modi undertook strong reformist policies in promoting liberalization of the economy through aggressive regulatory reforms, furthering free trade through FTAs and privatization of underperforming state assets. They took aggressive stances on defense and counterterrorism against Pakistan and China, while pragmatically engaging other nations despite criticism on some foreign policy moves for being 'wolf warrior-esque'. They uphold a strong nationalist domestic and foreign policy, that simultaneously does not retreat from globalization. On National Security, they aim to make India a regional power with a strong emphasis on modernization & indigenization of military administration and technology, while also reducing bureaucratic and manpower burdens through varied recruitment windows.
   
2. JD(U) - The JD(U) (Janata Dal (United) – “People’s Party (United)”) is led by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and has been in power in the eastern state of Bihar since 2005. It was formed after a series of splits and mergers in the Janata Dal in the 90s. It is credited with doing good work in the state on roads, electricity, and water, however it has failed to provide jobs & spur manufacturing. This, combined with its leader frequently switching between rival alliances, is causing anti-incumbency.
   
3. TDP - The TDP (Telugu Desam Party – “Party of the Telugu Land") follows a pro-Telugu ideology. It was founded as an alternative to the Congress hegemony, by emphasizing Telugu regional pride and serving as the party for farmers, backward castes and middle-class people. Since the 1990s, it has followed an economically liberal policy that has been seen as pro-business and pro-development as well as populist welfare measures.
   

The opposition I.N.D.I.A includes:

1. INC - The INC (Indian National Congress) is a big tent social-democratic/democratic-socialist party with its foundational pillars being equity, equality, and egalitarianism. They take broad commitments to secularism and class equality to be principal positions. The INC under Rahul Gandhi has taken strong positions on caste issues, shining light on inequities from past and current discrimination, and proposing active policy interventions. While the INC also holds a free-market/pro-liberalization consensus, they emphasize growing social and wealth inequality and seek inclusive and redistributive growth with strong state intervention. They also see some proposed liberalizing reforms to further inequality and take an 'anti-corporatist' position. They take a slightly less strong position to Indian foreign policy, stressing a more diplomatic approach (with minimal variance on actual positions to the incumbents). They embrace globalization in part, while emphasizing India's need for domestic development. They aim to industrialize India rapidly through stimulating private investment and aim to subsidize both supply and demand. They seek to maintain the Indian military with a focus on highly trained soldiers. They pioneered multi-alignment as the foreign policy for India.
   
2. AAP - The AAP (Aam Aadmi Party – “Common Man's Party"), part of INDIA coalition, currently holds power in two key states - Delhi and Punjab. Its chief figurehead and leader, Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate under an alleged liquor scam in the run up to elections. Barely a 10 year old party it has expanded very quickly to many states, running two of them, and now has national party status by the Election Commission of India (ECI). It leans centre-left to centre-right, with some play of soft Hindutva, while its economic platform comprises heavy spending in education, health, and free schemes of water and electricity. They rose to power on an anti-corruption program in 2013 and continues to have it as its central plank.
   
3. CPI(M) – The CPI(M) (Communist Party of India (Marxist)). They commies lol. The CPI(M) is one of the larger and more mainstrean communist parties in India. Since they operate within the Indian republic's constitution they have adopted more Indian characterisrics. They are primarily against privatisation in the public sector and in favour of universal education and healthcare. Their base has traditionally been in Kerala, one of the more developed states in India in terms of income levels and HCI. they're in favour of private sector reservations and in recent years have also been pro-FDI They promise non-aligned foreign policy, but largely are very anti-US and pro-China. They promise to restore Article 370 and oppose forceful seizure of land by government. They're one of the most influential parties in India due to a strong cadre and student union ecosystem. They've had an effect on the farmers protests as well as economic positions of the INDI Alliance.
   
4. DMK - The DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam - “Dravidian Progressive Federation") is a big tent broad left-wing party that is foundationally Dravidian (primarily Tamil) Nationalist, with strong emphasis on social equity and caste issues, while being staunchly secular and atheistic, and interventionist, statist, heavily welfarist, and industrialist in economic policy. They are primarily a regional party operating in the state of Tamil Nadu, led by M.K. Stalin, the state's current Chief Minister.
   
5. RJD - The RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal – “National People’s Party”) is a caste-based (Muslims & Yadavs) political party in the Indian state of Bihar, which it ruled from 1990 to 2005. Its rule was one of extreme lawlessness & anarchy. It was called the “Jungle Raj”. Between 1990 & 2000, Bihar's per capita income and power consumption fell off a cliff due to mismanagement. Its CM, Lalu Prasad, was convicted of corruption in 2013.
   
6. SP - The SP (Samajwadi Party – “Socialist Party”) believes in creating a socialist society that operates on the principle of equality. Although the party previously ran on an anti-computer, anti-English, and anti-machinery platform, under its new national president Akhilesh Yadav, the party has made a 180° turn. Now, the Samajwadi Party declares itself to be the party of infrastructure while maintaining its commitment to social justice, with a special focus on teaching computer skills. The party's main base is in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is the most populated state in India, with a population of 230 million. The only negatives associated with the party are the rampant dynasticism within its ranks and its perceived soft stance on law and order issues.
   
7. JMM - The JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha – “Jharkhand Liberation Front") currently runs the govt of eastern state of Jharkhand. The party has historically centred tribal rights as its central plank and agitated for a new tribal state separate from Bihar until 2000, when their demands were met. It leans centre-left to left with their key issues being tribal control of land, mineral and mining rights, addressing issues of rehabilitation of tribals. The party is primarily run by the Soren family, with Champai Soren being its chief minister candidate in the current government after the last chief minister Hemant Soren was arrested by enforcement directorate. JMM is in alliance with the Indian national congress in the state, and part of the INDIA coalition for the Lok Sabha elections. They face charges of corruption and the image of dynastic politics.
   

The “It’s Complicated”, Unaligned, Split, and/or other Supplementary Parties include:

1. TMC - The TMC or AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) is a Bengali political party ruling over the state of West Bengal since 2011. It is led by Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. It is a center-left, welfarist, Bengali Nationalist party. It has been criticized for using heavy-handed authoritarian tactics against opposition leaders in the state, corruption, and political violence. It is credited with ending 34 years of communist rule in the state. West Bengal under the AITC has registered subpar economic performance and is largely stagnant. Pertinent to note Mamata used to be Congress leader till 1998, and AITC, in spite of being sympathetic towards the I.N.D.I.A. alliance at the national level, is fighting the Congress-Left alliance in West Bengal on all 42 seats.
   
2. AIADMK - The AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam – “All India Anna Dravidian Progressive Federation") is a broad centre-left/left-wing party adhering to foundational Dravidian philosophy, while emphasizing Tamil identity. Traditionally being less ethno-nationalist than their sister opposition party the DMK, they adhere to broad welfarist left-wing populism, focusing on social justice and communal equity, while being less economically statist than the DMK. They also focus primarily on Tamil Nadu as a regional party, currently led by Edappadi Palaniswami.
   
3. Shiv Sena - The Shiv Sena (“Army of Shivaji”) was founded by Bal Thackeray in 1966 as a populist, xenophobic party, although the party gradually added Hindutva ideology to its anti non-Maharashtrian plank. It was the long time senior partner to the BJP in Maharashtra till Narendra Modi's popularity caused a change in the dynamics. After power sharing talks with the BJP failed in 2019, the Shiv Sena switched alliances to join hands with their long time rivals in Congress and NCP in an arrangement that made Bal Thackeray’s son Uddhav Thackeray the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. In 2022 again, The Majority of Shiv Sena politicians led by Eknath Shinde rebelled against the top leadership to ally again with the BJP, taking control of the party and toppling the Uddhav Thackeray government. The splinter group led by Uddhav Thackeray is called SS (UBT) and it is allied with the Congress in the INDIA Alliance.
   
4. NCP – The NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) were founded in 1998 by Sharad Pawar and a few others who left the Congress in 1998 after Sonia Gandhi was made Congress president. Despite it's formation, the NCP was a long term ally of the Congress sharing virtually the same ideology. In 2023 however, like the Shiv Sena, In a rebellion led by Sharad Pawar's nephew Ajit, a Majority of NCP politicians switched alliances to support the BJP and took control of the party. Like the Shiv Sena, the Splinter group led by Sharad Pawar and his daughter is called NCP (SP) and it's allied with the Congress in the INDIA Alliance
   
5. YSRCP - The YSRCP (Yuvjana Sramika Rythu Congress Party – “Youth, Labour, & Farmer Congress Party”) was founded by the son of an old congress Chief Minister after he was denied the role of Chief Minister after his father. It's a populist centre-of-left party with strong focus on welfare schemes and cash benefits. It's mired in controversy due to its dynastic nature, its ties to Christian Fundamentalism and American Missionaries targeting the marginalized.
   
6. BRS - The BRS (Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi – “Indian National Council”) was formed originally with a single-point agenda of creating a separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its capital. They are largely neoliberal and are credited with rapid economic growth in Telangana.
   
7. BJD – The BJD (Biju Janata Dal – “Biju’s People’ Platform”) was formed by Naveen Pattnaik the son of the former CM of Oddisha, Biju Pattnaik. It’s a Odia regional party with a strong focus on poverty upliftment through welfare policies and equitable economic growth.
   
8. BSP - The BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party - "Majority Community Party") is a center-left party in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which was started to uplift Dalits and other marginalized communities in India by Kanshi Ram. Its current party president is Mayawati. BSP is considered as one of the biggest parties in India as per vote share, although it's currently in decline. At its height, this party had a strong base in many states across north India, but now it's only limited to the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the largest states in India with a population of 230 million. There are strong suspicions of BSP working in secret with BJP, and maybe that's why the party is not fighting this election enthusiastically. Although they can still make the competition interesting on a few seats in UP.
   

OTHER KEY ISSUES -

1. Political Dynasticism:

Although dynastism is thought to be a good fix for internal chaos in a party, the current political leader of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, is a fourth-generation dynast who has to carry the political baggage of everything which went wrong during the rule of his grandmother and great-grandfather.
Also because one family has been controlling the Congress for decades, it has caused various state-level leaders to either form their own party or join another one. They see no future in the Congress anymore because the door to leadership is always closed for them. This has destroyed the ground level cadre of Congress party in many key states.
Rahul Gandhi’s privilege combined with the lack of any real political acumen so far has led to the INC taking damage due to is infamy.
Nepotism and dynastic politics has been a key issue throughout the last 10 years as BJP positions itself as the ‘common man’s party’

1. The Ram Mandir:

A land dispute originating from the alleged destruction of a Hindu Temple, replaced by a Mosque built allegedly atop the site (the Babri Masjid) in the 16th century allegedly by Mughal Empror Babur in present day Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, the proposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram.
Following a century of sporadic conflict, from 1853 to 1949, a revivalist movement in the 1980's would lead to rising communal tensions, culminating in the 1992 destruction of the Ram Temple by Hindu Nationalists and devotees.
The legal conflict over the land would continue until 2019, when the Supreme Court of India issued the controversial ruling that the land be handed over to government trust for the construction of a Ram Temple, with seperate land being allotted to the local Muslim community for construction of a Mosque.
Almost all elements of the dispute remain mired in controversy. From the historical and religious associations of Ayodhya with Ram, the existence of a definitively Hindu structure, the alleged deliberate destruction of the said temple, the times and events of construction and use, the participants, planning, and events of the 1992 destruction, the ASI Archeological Surveys that served as key evidence for the Supreme Court being tampered and politicised by both sides of the politcal aisle, the legality of the ruling itself, and other surrounding issues regarding justice against those alleged to have partaken in the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

1. Foreign Policy:

The BJP is campaigning on building a multi-aligned foreign policy where India is seen as the world’s friend as well as an upcoming regional power. This was at its peak during India’s G20 presidency. Many Indians claim the rise of India’s global stature is an electoral issue. This can be seen in the popularity of the government’s anti-terror operations in both Pakistan and beyond. The resurgence of an interventionist foreign policy has proven to be popular in projecting the strongman image of Modi. The country’s commitment to it’s strategic autonomy and multi-alignment have been a fixture right since Nehru.
SUPPLEMENTARY SOURCES:

What's up guys
I've traveled all over the US and have lived in quite a few cities, including Denver, Miami, and several mid-sized cities throughout Louisiana and East Tennessee.
I was always amazed by cities growing up. I love the architecture, the sense of community, the food, the energy, the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself.
But the more time I spend in cities, the more I feel like our cities and the communities they're home to are crumbling.
Corporate control and corrupt politicians have made life in the city highly unaffordable. Car-centric design has littered our communities with asphalt, unwalkable streets, and parking lots. New architecture - office buildings and residential alike - has been designed to maximize profits rather than for the enjoyment and use of the people.
It's upsetting to me that we've lost so much of what made American cities and life in the West so great in the past.
So, imagine if we had a chance to reinvent our cities and society as a whole. No politics, no BS, just a fresh start, with all of the technology we have today. What changes could we make to create a better life for ourselves and our next generations? Here's some of my ideas. I hope you enjoy.
Architecture, Construction, and Urban Design:

• Plan the City Ahead of Time as a Digital Model

Let's build a digital model of our next-gen city, based around a state-of-the-art public transportation system, with a clear architectural style. Future residents can propose design changes online.

• Create the Most Livable and Community-Oriented Neighborhoods We Can Imagine

Within our neighborhoods, we'll have walking and bike paths, parks, trees for shade, lighting at night, local businesses and eateries on the ground level, filtered water stations and clean, nice restrooms set throughout. We'll rid our public spaces of advertisements, parking lots, and loud cars and replace it with art, eateries, local business, and effective public transportation.

• Create Better Homes, Apartments, and Complexes

We'll have local business on the ground level of our buildings, a set minimum of restaurant spots built in each neighborhood. Condos and apartments will be equipped with water filtration systems, better air filtration systems, humidity control, zone-specific HVAC control, better sound proofing, and temp-control mattresses in bedroom to improve sleep. The complexes will be designed harmoniously with their surrounding environment in mind - No more balconies overlooking a 4-lane highway. Complexes will have community-spaces (pool deck, garden, gym, community balconies), and larger complexes will have redundant spaces, each assigned to different floors / sections of the complex, so that residents see the same people more and are able to foster community more easily. (It's hard in big complexes - there's so many people)

• Sustainability, Construction, and Decentralization

We could manufacture many of our buildings in a modular fashion outside of the city, for final assembly within the city to minimize construction noise and time. Our current cities are constantly under construction, it's a drag. Construction tools could be redesigned to make less noise, and we can allocate more resources / labor to each project to complete faster. We'll utilize sustainable building materials like CLT where feasible. We can even design architecture to be disassembled and recycled at the end of its life. Disassembly, material sorting, and recycling will be much easier to accomplish down the line with AI. One of our best defenses against tyranny and outside forces is decentralization - Equipping each neighborhood with solar, and creating redundant water systems, online communication systems, etc will create a strong, resilient city.
A New Education System

• One Completely Free Education System

Let's quit putting children in $100s of thousands in debt over education and create one, singular education system that equips both children and returning adults with all of the tools they need to succeed in society. We'll have a core curriculum and then a multitude of different areas that students can pursue based on their passion and current job market conditions. We'll utilize video teaching (like people are doing on YouTube now) and AI simulations to drastically increase retention and course quality. Again we'll teach the basics, like math, scientific method, geography, language and rhetoric, but we'll also teach essentials like how to cook, how to exercise and take care of your body, how to build relationships, how to open a business, how to operate our city's political system, the basics of modern society - basic housing construction, water systems, electricity, our public transportation network. And then once kids start to branch out into their niche, we'll offer courses on specific careers, like construction, urban design, culinary arts, music, engineering, etc. Real, practical, skills all for free in one system.

• Real-Time Job Market Analytics, and Enhanced Student Report Card

We'll tap employers / local businesses into our education system for the sole purpose of making job-market data available to students in real time. Businesses and employers will post their labor needs into the system, and students / parents can make educational path decisions based on real-time data. As students progress and expand their knowledge, their progress will be automatically compiled into an advanced and details student 'report card' which details their expertise, interests, and knowledge rather than pinning them up against other classmates in a GPA system. This will allow employers and parents a much better understanding into student's strengths, passions, and progress.
A (Much) Better Political System
There's a long list of issues with our current political system - only two parties, corporate control, federal overreach, money laundering, massive corruption and human rights violations around the globe. Let's scrap it entirely and create a reddit-like 'community forum' for our city where once every 2-4 years during a limited working-hours political holiday, we come together to discuss policy, issues within our community, new developments and plans, and how we would like to allot our tax money. We'll have a highly secure voting system and make decisions for our community within our community. We can still elect officials, as well as management and development companies for projects and managed systems. These contractors and companies can bid for the communities' business within the forum and we can vote there. Something else we could do is scrap IPO's and instead buy out systems that arise within our community like uber or airbnb and turn them into community assets the same as we've done with education, public transportation, etc. We'll elect / re-elect a management team and these services will become dirt cheap for everyone, instead of being bought out by investors and turned to shit to maximize profits.
Hope y'all enjoyed. Feel free to pick this apart, lol, or add your own ideas! I have a whole journal full of this stuff so if you guys liked it, I'll post some more soon.

sorry if tthis super long and complicated, but you need to get the full story so it makes sense. [hope i get to update you guys]
so it started about 7-8 months ago, so my best friend (now my ex-bestfreind) started spreading roumours about how i was a bitch and didnt hang out with her and blaming me for things i didnt do or were a misunderstanding but she JUST wouldnt listen to me and we just fell apart because she never gave the effort to our relationship and i just gave up trying to initiate evrything. but we were neutral for a while.
exactly 6 months ago we had a school trip where we went to taiwan a i developed a crush on this guy(ill call him Mike) because he is the hottest boy ill ever see and im notbsure ull get over him but, on that trip he was in my group and he stuck to my side and even carried me on his houlders for a taks we needed to complete. he carried me a few times later on and everybody, even the teachers were shipping us together.
everyrhing was going smooth until some people went into our room and stole my MAC squirt gloss(26 usd), my fav mascara(21usd) and my snaks i brought. and after i found out i was originaly mad and stormed out of my room demanding my stuff back( my roomates things also got touched but onlyiner were stolen) and everybody crowed around my room and it bevame so chaotic amd ubearable and my freinds i made along on the trip came to hep but i couldent take it and locked myself in the toilet. eventually my freinds told the teachers while i was in the toilet and people got punished but nothing serious, like having a group talk and having to sit on the teacher's table. but the boys blamed me for getting me into trouble and didnt give my stuff back. and on that night where the people had a talk i had to list down the things people took in front of the teacher and i was trying so desperatly to keep it in but i started to tear up from the over crowding of emotions and she saw that soso told me to take a peice of paper and write the studf down and heading back to my room i started crying and my freind (not in the room) started covering me and mike asked if i was ok and omg that was really made me confirm he was my crush and that i wanted to be their friends. and eventually after the trip i confessed my feelings and he said he liked me back but tbh i didnt believe it bc it sounded fake? but after that i asked him for the truth and he told me he said he liked me bc he felt bad for me. so after that my friends invited me to a sleepover for my freinds birthday and i was acting spoilted (i was stressed about tests) and that was my fualt. but i think thats when they started talking behind my back also to my ex bestfreind and im so stupid to belive that they reallt liked me. and its pathetic really, so first some chain reactions happened 1. mikes friends started teasing me and tauting me saying i got rejected (when i never asked him out??) 2.my freinds started spreading roumors that i was a fake f1 fan bc my freind was and there was also gossip about how mike liked her but FIRST OF all my dad was semi professional race car driver so idk where they got that from 3. talking smack about me being a pick mr for crying and laughing in front of boys?? and key info someone made a gossip account for all the international schools in the area and some individual schools made one includong ours and people blamed me for it becuse i took a screenshot and reposted one of them (that was me being dumb) but i have proof it was not me [if you want it just ask for it in the comments] and i explained over and over again that i was not it and started posting about me and calling me names like bitch, whore, so on and so on and then the school found out there was an acvount and one of tje teachers told my mom to delete my insta account (i was pissed at this bc i message everyone on insta and keep up w people/trends) and i posted on my story(private account btw) saying how the teacher was a **(if i said it i would be prob banned tbh) it wad stuff about how much i hated her. and i got called to a school administrations offic and got suspended for a week becuae off that and people kept on gossiping about me more and over this week i think is when my ex bestie and my new freinds got together and planned everything. also i was at an all time low at that point and tried killing myself once but i failed. but what happened next was 1. freind A was the main hater on all of this told everyone she hated me 2. everyone turned their backs on me 3. i was an outcast and my old freiind group said they were sorry and wont do that again and PROMISED but guess what, here we are 4. they slowly showed signals to me 5. i started to notic how i was always at the back of thr group just following them and notknowing about code names 6. i picked up on some clues about me being code name gummy 7. aking them about it 8. them denying 9. the next day coffesing 10. me getting kicked out from that group
and now i have found a few freinds that are in a group but im not in it se somepoepe in that group dont really like me. and on another school trip recently i was hanginf out withthem because they were in my group along with freind a and ig she felt left out bc i wad laughing witb them and wanted to exile me away agin, so she staryed physically pushing me away from them and it made feel so fucking crappy. and im pissed at her for neing such a skank. i just cant do this anymore because i feel that im desperate for my freinda attention that is being stolen away from freind A and i am constanly finding myself in the same position, following at the back of hthe group when i was finnaly happy, she just has to ruin it al to make me suffer.. i dont know what to do next, please help me

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

This summary was generated by an AI LLM from autogenerated meeting captions. As such, this output may contain factual errors.
https://vimeo.com/952185255
Overview
The key topics covered in this County Board meeting transcript include:

• Review and approval of the previous meeting minutes
• Discussion and approval of revisions to the "Parent Notification Concerning Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry" policy (Policy 8550)
• Discussion and approval of revisions to the "Student Speech and Expression" policy (Policy 8273)
• Discussion of the "Student Personal Device Use" policy (Policy 8655), including consideration of using Faraday pouch devices to restrict cell phone use and the need for a district-wide policy rather than allowing individual teacher discretion
• Exploration of using personal student devices (laptops, tablets, etc.) for educational purposes
• Announcement of a proposed "Tiered Plan to Address Drug Use" policy, with plans to have a presentation on it at the next meeting

The committee reached decisions on the policy revisions and agreed to have staff further explore the potential use of Faraday pouches to restrict cell phone use. They also expressed interest in receiving a presentation on the proposed drug use policy at the next meeting.
Major Agenda Items

• Parent Notification Concerning Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry Policy (Policy 8550)
  
  • Presenters/Participants: Committee members
  • Key Discussion Points: The committee reviewed the redline revisions to the policy and had no further questions.
  • Agreements/Disagreements: The committee unanimously agreed to approve the redline version of the policy and send it to the full board for consideration.
  • Decisions Made or Action Items: The redline version of Policy 8550 was approved to be sent to the full board.
  • Timestamp: 00:18:19 - 00:24:21
• Student Speech and Expression Policy (Policy 8273)
  
  • Presenters/Participants: Committee members
  • Key Discussion Points: The committee reviewed the redline revisions to the policy and had no further questions.
  • Agreements/Disagreements: The committee unanimously agreed to approve the redline version of the policy and send it to the full board for consideration.
  • Decisions Made or Action Items: The redline version of Policy 8273 was approved to be sent to the full board.
  • Timestamp: 00:27:75 - 00:36:12
• Student Personal Device Use Policy (Policy 8655)
  
  • Presenters/Participants: Committee members, Aaron Smith (staff)
  • Key Discussion Points: The committee discussed the potential use of Faraday pouches to restrict cell phone use, including the cost, administrative burden, and feedback from other schools using similar devices. They also discussed accommodations for students with health-related device needs.
  • Agreements/Disagreements: The committee agreed to have staff further explore the use of Faraday pouches, including piloting them at a high school. There was some discussion around making the policy more specific regarding when teachers can allow device use for educational purposes.
  • Decisions Made or Action Items: The committee approved the redline version of Policy 8655 with an edit to require school leadership approval for any teacher-approved device use. Staff was directed to explore the Faraday pouch option further.
  • Timestamp: 00:40:41 - 01:41:34

Other Notable Items

• The committee was informed of a proposed "Tiered Plan to Address Drug Use" policy that had been sent to them, and they agreed to have a presentation on it at the next meeting. (01:53:99 - 02:07:52)
• The meeting was adjourned with no other new business. (02:08:58 - 02:17:46)

Keywords and Definitions

• Faraday pouch - A pouch that blocks wireless signals, preventing cell phone use while inside. Allows students to carry phones but prevents usage during the school day.
• 504 plan - An accommodation plan under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for students with disabilities.
• IEP (Individualized Education Program) - A plan developed for a student with a disability to establish learning goals and support services.
• SRNR (Standards of Responsible and Ethical Student Behavior) - The code of conduct for student behavior.

I initially posted this in petpeeve, and was suggested to post here.
I don’t know if it is a confirmation bias thing (over representation on Reddit), but I often come across Redditors who emphatically say that they have decided to not do XYZ because the world’s outlook is so gloomy right now.
Here is a perspective that I think everyone should consider:
Do you know what the literature and those movies about dystopian or apocalyptic futures were inspired by?

• 1949 Nineteen eighty four
• 1953 Fahrenheit 451
• 1954 I am legend
• 1968 Night of the living dead
• 1968 Planet of the apes
• 1971 Mad Max

They were inspired by the world’s outlook at the time.
The world had just seen 70 to 85 million people die because of an armed conflict that took place across 30 countries. The casualties would have compared to 60% of the US population at the time.
Think of 10 guys that you know. Boom! Now 6 of them are dead.
To add insult to injury, hundreds of cities had been flattened, and as people were rebuilding them, the Cold War was quickly setting in, with the threat of escalation and mutual nuclear annihilation.
One trigger happy army officer, and half the globe would have been microwaved to the ground. And we did actually have a very close shave.
Nothing that has been happening since has been that extreme. If our parents or grandparents were as brittle as people are being today, a lot of us wouldn’t have been born.
In 1987, we embarked on an international quest to allow the ozone layer to repair itself. And it worked. Whatever is dangling over our heads, if we put our hearts and minds to it, we can overcome it.
Don’t give up on the future, because older generations haven’t, and they definitely had a worse outlook than we do.

UPDATE: Just wanted to update in case someone was curious as to outcomes.
TL;DR: RDH fired by Assoc. DDS. RDH took on new office.*
At request of corporate, a meeting took place with Assoc. DDS(s), RDH and manager. Manager attempted to strong-arm RDH into a PIP several times during the meeting citing a few policies that corporate identified as having been in breach of.
RDH declined PIP, referred to state practice act which prohibits the existence of non-owner based practices and precedence of those bylaws over corporate policies. RDH did countered a number of times with an offer to continue on if Assoc. DDS would be open to expanding his school of thought, compromising and collaborating in regard to hygiene treatment. Assoc. DDS didn't seem interested in the offers and declined a way forward working with RDH.
Manager proceeded to options for RDH: sign PIP and continue employment or hand in letter of resignation. RDH declined both options, repeated their offer of collaboration by DDS or confirmation that they were being terminated DDS. After some back and forth, DDS acknowledged termination.
Heard through colleagues (there's a lot of offices hiring by us) that RDH took on a new office shortly thereafter. The practice is known for its rare turnover, they run single-column hyg w/a dedicated RDH-DA, given a 10% raise, benefits/401k, CE/licensure fees, uniforms/equipment covered, a seven minute shorter commute.
Original Post:
Discourse in the office, opposing opinions between associate with <4yrs experience and RDH with 20+ yrs experience.
Assoc. is "uncomfortable" with charging out 1110 and 4342 together. Feels it's "taking advantage" and that an 1110 should be part of the 4342 and not charged additionally. Area treated was two teeth one having had older PFM sub-g w/BL and mod. BOP, 4-5mm pd.
RDH disagrees and is uncomfortable being "called to the carpet" by the associate, it was vaguely implied by associate that by RDH coding these two procedures together there would be questionable insurance practices.
This is not the first set of opposing opinions these two have had but the associate called another DDS and remaining RDHs to weigh in as the episode evolved. So by doing that, associate made it public enough in the office that the RDH felt discredited and uncomfortable continuing to practice, they excused themselves from this week's schedule.
What do I do with this?

Hello, silent reader ako ng sub na 'to. Some information about me, I graduated Bachelor's degree in Information Technology and works in IT Industry for almost 5 years now. Nagwork ako as an IT Support (More on back office support and firewall config) for a 1 and a half, then due to pandemic nagsara company then unemployed ako for 6 months, then nagka work na ako as an IT Support ulit sa isang engineering company for 8 months then napunta ako sa current work ko ngayon as a Cloud Support Engineer (more on GCP and Microsoft Azure yung handle ko ngayon) for almost 3 years na. I am planning to apply for 189 or 190 pero I heard mahirap mag apply ngayon since mataas yung needed points 90+ yata to have a chance to be invited. So I'm eyeing for Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) (Subclass 491) tingin ko kasi mas okay sa regional for low cost of living and madami na nakatira sa city areas ng OZ. Target ko na skill occupation is ICT Customer Support Officer (ANZSCO Code: 313112), planning to undergo skill assessment via TRA (Trades Recognition Australia). Baka sakali lang po na meron dito na katulad ng sitwasyon ko. Can you share po some tips. Hehe.
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I have a dependent who is my fiancé, ikakasal na kami this September. Wala na akong plano pa tumira dito sa Pilipinas para na din sa future ng family ko. Medical Technologist yung fiancé ko dito sa pinas and plan niya mag take ng AIMS kapag nasa OZ na kami.
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First option ko before is via Student Visa (Pathway to Aus) and take Certificate in Cybersecurity (IV) or Diploma of Information Technology. Kaso considering yung limited work hours per fortnight pati na din sa tuition fee plus yung cost of living expenses parang hindi siya worth it given na may 5years experience na ako sa field. Been applying sa Seek kaso hanggang ngayon wala pa din.
​
Open for suggestions and tips po.
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Thank you!

Deception in video games: examining varieties of griefing
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Victoria-Rubin/publication/258692768_Deception_in_video_games_Examining_varieties_of_griefing/links/0f31752fe4a740dccb000000/Deception-in-video-games-Examining-varieties-of-griefing.pdf
Crossposting audience: Even less than narcissism research, there is a huge dearth of research on denial, the last and arguably most disturbing and long-lasting arm of genocide. Similarly, denial is employed by serial killers and is a type of extreme psychological violence that decouples the system of language's sensemaking from its actual sensebacking isomorphism to reality, while still parasiting sensemaking's credit until the lie's energy final dies, revealing the true devastating truth and the double violence to what truth means itself in the wake of the crime. Some lies last for disturbingly long amounts of time, however, in a reactive and aggressive insistence on sheer social power. This subreddit aims to study that disturbing psychosis at the heart of denial.
Griefing is normalized antisocial behavior with the clear intention to cause grief to players. Self-reported instances are deception by scheming, luring, entrapment, pretense and verbal concealment in griefing acts

1. The authors found self-reported instances of deception by scheming, luring, entrapment, pretense and verbal concealment in griefing acts. The interview respondents, as predominantly victims of griefs, do not think of griefing (or may not be aware of it) as an act of deception and primarily associate it with harassment (inciting emotional reactions) or power imposition (exerting superiority)

Refusing to comply with the rules for mere entertainment stands out

1. Casual griefing – refusing to comply with the rules for mere entertainment – stands out as another griefing variety.

Deception is found on griefing, showing that those who deceive when gaming intend to cause pain and are trying to gain power through antisocial means by locking off the access to the truth to themselves and away from those who expect communication that does not violate and erode social contract

1. Online gaming affords a unique opportunity to examine deception in computer-mediated human-to-human communication. The complexity of the phenomenon and associated opposing views are offered here to be weighted by the LIS scholars and professionals

Intentionally malicious communicating strategies for the purposes of accumulating personal power are deeply disturbing.

1. Communicative strategies in video games, especially those of an intentionally malicious nature, are poorly understood and often disconcerting to many. This study examines one such potentially malicious phenomenon – i.e. griefing, an act of play intended to cause grief to game players.

Deceptive elements and relationship to associated malicious acts in video games show an antisocial proclivity that begins to hegemonize and normalize in the cognitive style of gamers

1. This study aims at achieving an empirical understanding of griefing, its varieties, its deceptive elements, and its relationship to other closely associated malicious acts in video games. We aim to raise awareness of griefing behaviours and its varieties in video games, and offer two points-of-view for a discussion in the LIS community.

Credibility assessment relies on a prosocial person making it, otherwise they can reward noncredibility as credible, rotting the entire value system

1. Broader information science and communication scholars may find griefing varieties in video gaming of interest in their research in credibility assessment and deception detection, within this specific domain of video game communication or in broader computer-mediated communication contexts.

Griefing can be seen as a way to subvert the rules while taking advantage of anonymity

1. Griefing can be seen as yet another form of subverting the rules while taking advantage of anonymity.

Violence has been studied in video games, not the normalization of deception

1. Although violence has been studied in video games (e.g. Dietz, 1998; Robertson, 2004; Wolock, 2004), there is surprisingly little research about deception in video games beyond the examination of cheating (Consalvo, 2005) and identity deception (Donath, 1999; Turkle, 1995).

Falsification, concealment and equivocation all are three types of deception

1. Buller (1994) distinguish three deception varieties: (1) falsification (lying or describing “preferred reality”), considered most prevalent and most practiced and least readily detected; (2) concealment (omitting material facts); and (3) equivocation (dodging, skirting issues by changing the subject or offering indirect responses).

Griefing is considered to be a type of cyberbullying

1. In virtual communities, such as Second Life, griefing is often considered to be a type of cyber-bullying (Coyne et al. 2009). Alternatively griefing is equated to a form of cheating by using logics of code to demonstrate superiority over certain other players.

Griefing can pretend to be not confrontational, but still achieve wealth through antisocial means through the careful deception of others

1. For some this may be less directly confrontational, such as achieving great wealth by the careful deception of others (as a scam on Eve Online[1] reveals), or it may be through actively defeating others in gameplay, by illegally (or unethically) acquired skills or items (Consalvo, 2007, p. 102).

Power imposition can be nearly pedophilic in power imbalance, taking someone with no background at all nor any protection and trying to destroy them simply because they can

1. . In power imposition, a player exerts their superiority in the game, for instance, by killing weaker characters multiple times or preventing weaker characters from achieving goals – simply because of the offender’s ability to do so.

Scamming also occurs in griefing

1. The third type of griefing is scamming – an act of making an intentional “bad deal” with another player in order to gain either real-world or virtual-world benefits

Greed players act for their own benefit, with no regard for other players

1. Finally, Foo and Koivisto (2004) identify greed play as a less obvious type of griefing due to its unintentional yet callous nature: griefers simply act for their own benefit, with no regard for other players.

Griefers bond over committing antisocial behavior, look up to each other for it and congratulate each other for it, normalizing this and creating cognitive tropes that this is a functional, not maladaptive trait

1. The griefing thread specifically is considered by some to be the birthplace of griefers (Dibbell, 2009) and is ideal for our purposes. It is the forum where a select group of griefers purposefully shares grief play experiences, and that allows us to unobtrusively gain insights into griefers’ points-of-view.

Encouraging meaningless economic performance that ultimately devalues the currency

1. the forums require paid membership for posting on threads (implying that those willing to contribute have sustained interest in the topic).

Griefing experienced happened with more gaming, showing an overall high exposure to abuse in consistent gaming

1. Half of the interviewees experienced griefing fairly frequently, at least once every two weeks. The more time the gamers reportedly played, the more they tended to experience griefing (with the exception of Participant I)

Griefers intend to cause grief through stalking, hurling insults and exploiting unintended game mechanics. These may be ok in a game, but normalized these are seriously pathological outside of them.

1. . Griefers differ from typical players in that they do not play the game in order to achieve objectives defined by the game world. Instead, they seek to harass other players, causing grief. In particular, they may use tools such as stalking, hurling insults, and exploiting unintended game mechanics (Forum Thread Participant 37)[2].

Casual griefing is meant to cause the person to quit the game.

1. Griefing is using a game to intentionally annoy someone, with the goal of making them upset, perhaps to the point where they quit the game (IP I)

Entrapment is normalized and are inherently deceptive; cooperation is actively disincentivized due to the higher than average antisocial proclivity in the gaming platform which makes it too costly.

1. Such entrapments, though not necessarily verbally stated, are intentional and inherently deceptive: the players (avatars) do not comply with cooperative principles of communication by neglecting to state a necessary piece of information or give a warning about something obvious

Greed play encourages economic maladaptation; for example a perpetrator in a game was seen setting a high price and then killing those who opposed the prices.

1. Greed play – playing for one’s own benefit regardless of the consequences to other players – does not necessarily have to be accompanied by harassment or scamming. In Example 10 the perpetrator describes selling trees and killing those who opposed the prices – a malicious act for his or her own gain.

Casual griefing is contrarianism not to exert power but as a sick form of entertainment. It is also antisocial in tendency.

1. In contrast to clearly abusive types of griefing, casual griefing – proposed in the findings of this study as a distinct variety of griefing – lacks those elements of griefing described in the literature. It is an obstructive form of game play without any harassment, power imposition, scamming, or greed play. It is a simple act of defiance: a player refuses to comply with the script of play for his or her own entertainment.

There are six dimensions; disruptiveness, malice, lucrativeness, means, deceptiveness, and emotional perceived valence.

1. Overall griefing varies along six salient dimensions: (1) intentionality to disrupt; (2) maliciousness/caused harm; (3) lucrativeness; (4) means; (5) deceptiveness; and (6) emotional perceptions, ranging from awe to frustration, from acceptance as a friendly badgering to condemnation for anti-social behaviours.

Grievers who find they are good at causing grief enjoy it. This may encourage it and make them develop a predisposition towards antisocial behavior in areas that do not consent to me affected by these gaming ecologies and whatever norms they have maladapted to create.

1. The difference in attitudes is most likely explained by the predominant group perspective: the griefing “masterminds” obviously enjoy griefing, while victims suffer to various extents, and may not be entertained by the disruptions of their gaming experience.

Griefers disturbingly sound like thrill criminals, saying they enjoy the act and attention.

1. We confirm Foo and Koivisto’s (2004) findings that “griefers enjoy the act and attention”, are “unabashed about their activities” and that griefing successes are determined by the victims’ reactions (p. 247).