hear me out. i know sam isn't written to be bad for the alt feminist team, it's just that the ppl writing her didn't know what that team actually looks like. but it's important to me that she at least starts out that way if you wanna retool her character arc

i'm sure there are 14-year-olds out there that are embracing alt subculture and feminism for the right reasons, but i've worked with kids in that age group before. it's so so so often a thing, especially for white kids from financially stable homes with increasingly unsupervised internet access, where they've got so much passion and exactly zero experience. they can't go to protests or be in nonprofits unless their parents already are (they're usually not), they have rose-colored ideas of what direct action looks like, they're identity-driven. they don't know who marsha p. johnson or ibram x. kendi or sacheen littlefeather or gilbert baker are. they believe conspiracy theories. they're all getting their information solely from whatever crosses their instagram feeds, so some things they unify on but most things they're painfully chronically online about (i had to break up a fight between two kids about pan discourse once). they look and act very much like how sam does: loud, pushy, single-minded and obnoxious.

so it feels realistic to me if sam's whole deal comes across as immature, as long as she's understood by whoever's writing her. her frame of reference for the world is so small at this point in her life. none of us popped out the womb informed & eloquent – it would be nice to see that reflected in good faith.