Guardian Debates! Live TV and action if you're in attendance!

[genpcs]

[ Everyone's TVs will flicker on and to the Genessia News Channel for a Live Special Report. The Show Host pops out from beneath the podium, a cool tenor voice coming straight from him as he addresses the camera. ]

Well heeeeello there everyone! We interrupt your day for a very special report! It's your favorite host with news about the City Guardian Election, live, despite the weather folks! It turns out electronics don't work so well in the freezing cold, so we've had to move our Guardian's debate to warmer pastures! Thank you to our sponsor, Hot Diggity! Toast your houses so warm this winter you'll think you're bread. Though let's hope a little chill won't freeze out any of the candidates, ha ha ha! Or should I say ho ho ho?

[ There's a brief pause before he swivels to a second camera and the camera view zooms in on his face as if he didn't just make the lamest news pun. ]

We are broadcasting live from right here in Genessia City. Many folks are in attendance, including our very own GCPD who are here to monitor and keep the peace. Let's begin the live debate-slash-Q&A you've all been waiting for. Here's how it works: You all come up with questions to ask each of the Guardians, and each Guardian will have the opportunity to answer it to help you decide which of your candidates is the right one for your city. You can submit your questions via text to the CPU and it will beam them to our stage, or if you're here in the audience, head on up to the podium and ask in person! Now to introduce our candidates.

Attleton puts the A+ in Guardianship, but will it be return Guardian Cassian Andor? Or will Chara or Cecil Palmer talk up a storm in the citizen's hearts?

Everglade as always returns with two beautiful ladies, the gorgeous and charitable returning Guardian Grell Sutcliff and a new gem, Emerald Sustrai! Who will shine harder in this debate?!

Fayren keeps its tradition of having the largest number of candidates with four all-stars! Welcome Alexstrasza, Qubine, Winter Schnee, and current acting Guardian Mavis Vermillion! A goddess, a dragon, an ice queen, and a fairy-esque guild-leader. What a variety!

Nova City's coming in hot! Check it out, Mercury Black and Garrus Vakarian trying to stay in office with a dual ticket! Current Deputy Guardian Grievous saying: It's my turn, boys! And a newcomer from a new corner, Gale Reinhard, ready to rock Nova City all night long!

Let's not forget the heart of our cities, the hostess with the mostest, Genessia City! It's the mayor-punching expert, X-Ray and our long-term favorite returning Guardian David Haller!

Let's get started folks! Get out of the showers and into the town hall for this live debate, starting in 30 minutes! You've still got time to pop in, let's go, and don't forget to cast your votes this Tuesday, December 26th at the polls!

{ OOC NOTE: Anyone can reply to this post with a question they want to ask the potential City Guardians. Each City Guardian candidate is tasked with answering any question on this post. No candidate is required to, but lack of participation may affect public opinion of the candidate! Lack of any activity during the election season will disqualify your candidate, however.

On December 26th, the polls will officially go up and each character will be afforded one vote for each city. So if you play 5 characters, you will need to submit 5 IC vote choices; if you only play 1, then only that character will vote. This means you as the player are voting on your character's behalf because it's going to be in the OOC comm just so that we can include instructions. There will be further information at that time as well as a link to a "booklet" with candidate information. For now though, the debate is here! }

Comments

[redcinemareel]

You're free to experiment, but it doesn't seem healthy. No one willingly touches the barrier, after all.

[unhappy]

I have touched it. But I'm not an emotion-eating creature. They might get something way different off of it than I would.

[redcinemareel]

Then you must have very good friends that helped you recover, or you DIED and returned to normal when you revived. But emitting emotions isn't what Everglade's barrier does.

[unhappy]

Why would you die from touching the barrier? That's literally never happened.

[ Buuuut she will admit she was wrong about her understanding of it. She's not claiming to be a genius here. She tried that. ]

Maybe I don't get the science of everything, but I tried to read the stupid GSRF stuff and it said their barrier chunk thing was made out of brain chemicals. So maybe instead of it just sitting there we have them figure out how to reverse-manufacture it. Or there's that quack that claimed he can make synthetic foods like that, too. Or we can just do what I said in my application thing and that's to intentionally generate fear and other emotions in a controlled setting.

Either way, Everglade is literally the home of "unsavory eating practices" and humans need to get over the fact that they're not the top of the food chain anyway.

[redcinemareel]

The result from touching the barrier isn't death, but that is one of the ways to return to normal. Intentional generation of fear might be a breach of rights, depending on how you do it. Yet if it's a controlled setting, then who is doing the controlling? How do people know we, or outside parties, aren't abusing our powers? The simple solution is to take control away from everyone and be on the same level.

[unhappy]

Grell, have you never seen a scary movie or been to a haunted house or a spooky theme park? People eat that stuff up, voluntarily.

[ her solution is much simpler than even Grell is thinking here. ]

[redcinemareel]

[That kind of stuff does nothing for her.] Of course, but people do that for thrills, and isn't true fear, as someone else mentioned earlier. You can't enjoy something and be afraid of it. Generating fear means that person must fear for their safety and life, and you can't get that from making the city into some theme park. If you want true fear, having a random night or two each month where laws are nullified would be much more effective. It can even be limited to certain areas of the city, which would also be random. Even creating a fear spell would suffice, but it would be breaching civil liberties.

[unhappy]

Not making the whole city into it. Having specific areas, and the fact that you haven't tried it means you don't know if it's going to work or not. There are some people who legitimately freak out at that stuff, and maybe some people go for thrills, but fear is all psychological. You don't have to make someone be afraid to die to make them experience fear, you're just not thinking broadly enough and assuming the only thing that would work is the terror of life and death.

Hell, even if you wanted to nullify the laws, why not just tell people to get the hell out if they don't want to subject themselves to it? No one forces you to visit a city, you do that on your own. Instead of trying to control the residents here for the comfort of a handful of humans, most of whom don't visit anyway, and make everything hunky dory for everyone, why don't we just work with the outside and do what us "walking nightmares" do best?

[redcinemareel]

I could say the same for you, actually. The difference being I'm willing to enlist support for this. [That last point really gets to Grell, and it's visible on her face. She's a bit ticked by it.] You can't just kick out lawful residents just because they're in the minority. They have a right to live here just as much as any other being! This sort of thing is exactly what I've dealt with for years in another world: outcasting the minority just because they don't fit in. If human residents wanted to leave, they would have done so, but they chose to stay, despite the incentives to move. So obviously, most residents here are conditioned to this way of life in Everglade, so it's time to change it up far more than what you're planning. They're made of tougher stuff than whatever people may think of them. They aren't easily scared, and you have to match that. [It'll take more than cinematics to scare the people of Everglade. Something that she is proud of in them.]

[unhappy]

Grell, if you put words in my mouth one more time I'm going to question if you actually have listening skills to hear what people want.

[ Seriously. ]

No one said anything about kicking anyone out. No one said they didn't have the right to live here! I said that if they want to live here, they should stop trying to change who people are to fit them. If they don't want to live here as it is, rather than how they want it to be, they should go live in one of the other subarchways. The people who live in Everglade itself are never the ones who complained about it not being safe. The majority of the people who complain about it not being safe for people never set foot in Everglade until they're told they can't get their way, then they start a fuss about it! Or have you actually seen people who live in Everglade complaining about anything other than humans causing problems the second they're the ones who are being told they're not number one? Because I haven't. You've been responding to a vocal minority that rose after there was backlash from Ted trying to enforce his stupid religious ideals over Everglade. I know you weren't around back then, but it wasn't a contentious, obnoxious humans VS monsters war before he got there and ruined that for everyone. Now the people who actually live in Everglade are constantly being treated like they're the ones who need to accommodate the humans who started whining about how they shouldn't be a food source despite that most of them never set a foot in Everglade until they heard they weren't welcome.

So what have you done to scare people in Everglade? Make a homeless shelter and feed people? If anything Everglade's lost its spark under your Guardianship after its residents lost their rights from Ted and Fai just tried his best to maintain things under a mayorship that refused to let the Guardians overstep their boundaries. A mayorship that immediately disappeared when you got into office, so now you have no oversight because the current mayor was your deputy- I doubt he's going to question much since he's in your pocket. [ She rolls her eyes. ] Maybe I shouldn't do anything and the barriers will fall on their own if you keep going and we can all just leave or get swarmed by the spirits you aren't supposed to be watching out for... unless that's your plan to scare the hell out of people.

[ The people of Everglade weren't who she was wanting to scare with the cinematic approach. Telling people to learn to appreciate Everglade as its meant to be and cinematics are two different plans, the first of which was a response to what Grell said. The cinematics are intended to work with tourists. But you know, she's OK with either end of that argument. ]

[redcinemareel]

No one's making anyone change who or what they are, nor do they want Everglade as a whole to change in their favor and to be accommodated. They stay because they like and accept Everglade as is. If people know Everglade isn't safe, it's by word of mouth or actual first hand experience. It's their choice to not come, and they're obviously free to complain as much as they want. You should keep in mind that a lot of the laws and services that protect vulnerable groups were actually created by the mayor, who is human. Can you blame him for wanting at least that much done for the humans that remain? No one has forbidden the hunting of humans for food, so yes, it still happens even though no one wants to talk about it. Residents who chose to remain know and accept the risks of living there. But since not everyone is violent or hunts, there is a meat market for them to get what they need. Necromancy and Divination practices has been restored. And I still have to get any law or decree approved by the mayor, not the other way around. That hasn't changed, and it's the same for every city. He isn't the sort to bend to anyone's influence. You don't have proof that there's a lack of oversight in what I do, because I haven't done anything worth needing to reign in my current powers. Everglade has had a better standing with the world at large under my guardianship, because it isn't some sort of secret not talked about. Quite the opposite. It's become something to talk about. It's vital to keeping the balance of all cities. Allowing it's barrier to fall on purpose isn't a viable option for any of us, because restoring it takes multiple, voluntary sacrifices.

[unhappy]

If the mayor is all about protecting vulnerable groups, how come they're just the groups that were included on the platforms you ran on when you were first elected? What's one thing the mayor has done that wasn't your idea first? And wait- Hold on.

[ Emerald actually looks confused for a second. Whether or not it's genuine is hard to tell, considering her penchant for acting. It certainly looks like it. ]

The only reason people know Everglade isn't safe is because they hear or witness it. But it's talked about and shared and not a secret. So which is it? If you've demystified it, how is it that the only way people know Everglade isn't safe is through the whispers of others? You can't have both, Grell, that completely contradicts itself.

Sorry for the lack of icon. I'm getting on plane! xD

[redcinemareel]

That's the thing about being a City Guardian: not all ideas will be your own. Everyone has a point of view different than your own. It takes maturity to realize you're not alone when it comes to protecting everyone, and that we all must work together. No idea is truly original these days.

[Grell only shakes her head in amusement.] It can easily be both if you would only just pay attention to tenses in a sentence. So maybe instead of attacking me with falsehoods to build up your own campaign platform, which no other candidate has bothered to do, we could just run on our own merits and not try to poison the public. Cutting each other down is...

[The word "petty" comes to mind, but she refrains.]

Unnecessary.

Re: Sorry for the lack of icon. I'm getting on plane! xD

[unhappy]

Debating actual points at a debate is unnecessary. Uh huh. You know I'm not cutting you down because I'm a big meanie but because there are actual questions people should be asking here, right? Right or wrong, telling someone not to ask questions is creating a culture of people who follow without question.

[ she knows all about that. It's far too familiar a concept, but you're not the person she shuts up for, Grell. ]

Calling it cutting down is just a way to get me to shut up because you don't like the conversation topic. You had no problem when I was on the defensive.

[redcinemareel]

No one wants you to shut up, least of all me. I actually enjoy healthy competition. Your strategy of going about this debate is what I'm referring to. I only spoke up to correct the multitude of inaccuracies against me.

[unhappy]

This isn't about healthy competition, this is about the fact that you don't want to talk about what I'm talking about, so you're trying to make it look like I'm the bad guy here for bringing up something you don't want people to hear.