#Career Opportunity : WE Charity Job Description

[mirakumiruku]

In The Contract

A/N: Yaaay more lewd times >:3c No I will not explain myself, I’m just giving y’all your Shiggy food

Shigaraki Tomura x AFAB reader

Contains: dubcon tw, dressing up, abuse of fine print, and Shiggy being a douchebag. WC: 2.5k

You had gone to the League of Villains in an act of desperation. Your pro-hero boyfriend had dumped you for one of his coworkers, kicking you out of his apartment and leaving you jobless. So when you found a housekeeping job with no experience required, and room and board included, you thought you had been given a miracle.

You weren’t so sure about the opportunity when you arrived for the interview, staring up at the old building that you thought would be abandoned, but after double checking you had the right address, you knocked on the back door. You couldn’t help but think this was some kind of organ harvesting scheme, but you didn’t have much to lose at this point.

You did reconsider your choices when the door creaked open, and a hand pulled you inside by the front of your shirt.

“You’re (Y/N), right?” Turquoise eyes bored into yours with the question, and you couldn’t break the contact when you gave a hesitant nod. You knew this face, you’d seen it on TV, accompanied by a warning to contact the police if you saw him. Of course, it was definitely too late for you to run now. 

“You’re a lot cuter than I thought you’d be.” Dabi mumbled, letting go of your shirt and taking you by your arm to drag you further into the building. “I’d say it’s time for your interview, but I think you’re gonna get hired no matter what. You’re the only one stupid enough to reply to our ad.” He laughed as he brought you into what could only be described as an office, composed mainly of a worn out table and a wooden chair, which was occupied by yet another terrifying face. Or rather, a terrifying hand.

“About time, I was starting to worry that you wouldn’t show.” Shigaraki glowered at you from between the fingers that covered his face, idly tapping a pen on the desk. “Well, we don’t have too much room to be picky, but I still have some questions to ask you.”

The ‘interview’ went smoothly, Shigaraki asking you various questions about your views on certain politics, your career history, your relationship and opinion on heroes. He seemed a little pleased when you expressed your experience with your ex boyfriend, like he was hoping for any shred of disdain.

“You sound perfect.” He purred, scribbling his signature on the contract that laid on the desk, before flipping it around and sliding it to you along with the pen. “We can’t pay too well, but room and board are provided, as we said in the ad. By the sounds of it, that’s quite important to you right now.”

You gulped and nodded, scanning over the contract, but the fine print proved too hard to read in your fit of nerves. You steeled yourself and signed the contract. After all, there was no way they would just send you on your merry way if you declined, right?

“Excellent.” Shigaraki smirked, taking the contract and tucking it into a folder. “Dabi, can you show them to their room?” His eyes flickered from Dabi back to you, “I’m hoping for you to start as soon as possible, tomorrow morning at the latest. Does that work for you?”

You nodded slowly, worried about the panicked babbling that would escape your lips if you dared open them. 

The room Dabi had brought you to was depressing at best. An old mattress sat atop a metal bed frame in one corner, a small dresser and a cracked mirror standing on the other end of the room next to a tiny closet. You looked back at Dabi, still nervous. 

“Um… how am I… gonna go get my stuff?”

“I dunno. Where is it?”

“Well, some of it’s at my motel room, but most of it is back at my ex’s house…”

“Motel we can do, house of a pro hero is a hard no.” 

You sighed, but knew nothing would come from trying to argue with the villain. “Alright…” Maybe you could text your ex and see if he would drop your things off at the motel, or maybe you’d find it in a charity shop in a month or so. 

The night passed without event. Dinner was cup ramen, and you immediately understood why they needed a cook. 

The next morning you were brought to Shigaraki’s office again, where he went over your duties. The group had a food budget, it was your job to utilize it and make a list for whoever was to run the errands that week. You also had daily jobs like making lunch and dinner for the group, as well as various cleaning tasks. 

From what you had seen, you definitely had your work cut out for you.

You spent the first week working non-stop. Scrubbing the kitchen and bathrooms from top to bottom with the strongest cleaner you could find, mopping up the filthy floors and attacking the scattered mold colonies with bleach. How anyone, criminal or not, could live like this was beyond you. 

The first day you had made lunch for everyone, you were showered in praise. It was clear these people hadn’t eaten a proper meal in such a long time, at least not one that didn’t come out of the microwave. 

As much as you wanted to resent the group for their actions, you couldn’t help the swell of pride in your chest when you caught Shigaraki’s smile behind his father’s hand. 

You couldn’t help the nagging feeling in your gut that something was off, though. Shigaraki had a mischievous, almost devilish glint in his eye that most of the others lacked when his gaze landed upon you. None of the others looked at you that way, not counting Dabi, though you felt like he gave everyone that look.

The next week, a few packages had arrived in the group’s PO box with your name on them. Spinner, that week’s gofer, had brought them up to your room and placed them next to your bed, giving you a grin and a quick bow in thanks to you. You couldn’t help the way you beamed back at him.

Your cheerful mood quickly disappeared, though, when you opened the packages. Inside were piles of fabrics and frills, and as you pulled out the one on top you recognized what it was: a maid dress. It wasn’t too revealing, you wagered that the skirt would reach to just above your knee. But as you dug through the first box that was all it was filled with, one dress for each day of the week, either in black or cheery pastels. The other box had petticoats, tights, a pair of shiny black mary janes, and some surprisingly conservative underwear considering the other items. 

As if on cue, you heard the distinctive sound of knuckles on your doorframe.

“Hey.” Came Shigaraki’s low voice, and you could almost feel his eyes boring into your back. “I figured you should have a uniform. It’s cute, right?”

“Cute… cute isn’t the exact word I’d use.” You mumbled, draping one of the dresses over your arm. 

“Well, whatever word you would use, it’s your uniform.”

You pouted, but sighed. “Whatever…”

“Good.”

In the morning, you had changed from your pajamas to the black maid dress. It was a hair tight, but otherwise it fit perfectly. You didn’t want to think about how Shigaraki had gotten your measurements. The petticoat was soft against your thighs, and the tights were a silky opaque white. You topped it off with the frilly white apron tied snug around your waist, and the patent leather shoes shined to a perfect finish.

The reactions to your new outfit were mixed. Himiko had hung off you the moment you stepped into the room, gushing about how cute you were, your new dress was so pretty, could she dress you up in her own costumes sometimes? You also elicited a wolf whistle from Dabi, and you couldn’t help but notice Spinner trying to hide his intense blush behind the magazine he was reading.

Shigaraki, meanwhile, was surprisingly silent. You didn’t miss the approving glint in his eye when you passed him, though, on your way to pick up some discarded dishes from the night before. 

Your first task of the morning was always making breakfast for whoever was up at the time. The fluffy skirt got in the way of your work, and you had to be careful to not burn the petticoats when you put the tray of bacon into the oven.

“Well don’t you look cute?”

You yelped in surprise at the sound of Shigaraki’s voice, quickly shutting the oven. “Er… thank you, Mr. Shigaraki.” 

“Oh, please. You can call me Tomura when no one else is around.” He stalked over, removing the hand from his face and setting it on the counter, his eyes raking up your body. “Too bad the shipping took so long, I would’ve had you wear this a long time ago.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Tomura, but… I really should be getting back to work.” As if to drive your point home, you pulled down a bowl to crack eggs into.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m here for work.” Tomura came up behind you, his palms coming to rest on your hips, with his pointer finger poised in the air. 

You couldn’t help the squeak that escaped your throat when you felt his hips grind against your back. You tried to turn around and pry yourself away, but he held fast. “Wh-what are you–?”

“Oh, did you not read that part of the contract?” Tomura laughed low in his chest, burying his face into your neck. “That was awfully careless of you. You’re here to take care of all my needs, including more–” he punctuated his words with another harsh grind against your ass, “–intimate ones.” 

“B-but… I…”

“But what? It was on the contract. I’d be happy to go get it.”

You opened your mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. Of course you chose not to read the contract, he probably meant for you to not read it. After all, you doubted you would have taken the job if that was part of the description, and he knew it too. 

“I mean, if you really don’t want to, I’d be happy to go find someone else. Can’t guarantee you can keep your job, though.”

You took a deep breath before nodding, bracing yourself on the counter. “F-fine.”

“Good~”

Within an instant Tomura was kneeling behind you, and shoving his face within your petticoats. You could feel his warm breath on your clothed heat, letting out a surprised yelp when he tore a hole in the tights. 

“Don’t know why I even bothered getting these, I knew they would end up ripped anyway…” He mused softly, giving you a few kittenlicks through your underwear before finally moving it to the side. His tongue was on you immediately, flicking your clit and lapping eagerly at your cunt. Your thighs tried to press together, instead squeezing Tomura’s head between the soft flesh. 

“Aww, is kitten enjoying this?~” He purred, two fingers coming up to circle your clit. “Good. I have to make sure you’re nice and ready for my cock.” With that he nestled his face back between your legs, pressing the flat of his tongue against your core in order to take a long, drawn out lick.

Tomura didn’t seem to show any signs of letting up no matter how much you whined and tried to push him away, nor how tight the knot in your stomach was getting from his constant ministrations. 

“Ah ah, kitten. I just want to make sure you’re not gonna hurt when you take my cock.” He gave your clit a teasing flick with the tip of his tongue. “It’s no fun if you don’t feel good while I’m splitting you open.”

You couldn’t find the words to argue with that, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to anyway. 

Your grip on the counter was turning your knuckles white, and you couldn’t help your whimpers and whines as you jutted your hips back against Tomura’s tongue. The stimulation continued without interruption, and you were getting so close, your velvety walls tightening around the tongue that had thrust itself inside of you. And just as your vision became blurry around the edges…

Tomura pulled away, licking his lips and removing his head from your skirts, standing up straight once more.

“N-no faaair!~” You whined, your tongue hanging out as you panted to catch your breath.

“Mm, I’d just much rather have you cum on my cock, kitten~” Tomura gave a low laugh at the childish pout that you took on, quickly freeing himself from the constraints of his pants. Once his length had broken free, he gave it a few languid pumps as he flipped up your skirts. 

You let out a low keen as he slowly pressed inside, punctuated by a grunt when his hips pressed flush with your ass.

“F-fuck, kitten~” He growled, face coming to bury itself in your shoulder. “So fucking tight…” He didn’t give you any time to adjust before he was madly gyrating his hips against you, only pulling his cock a few inches out before slamming it home with a bit too much force.

As much as you wanted to hate it, you couldn’t help the squeaks and moans that flowed from your lips with each animalistic thrust, especially when one of his hands came down to circle your clit in time with his bruising movements. You wanted to push him off when he pawed at your hips and ran his tongue up the side of your neck, but the majority of your mind was determined to at least reach your end.

You could feel yourself getting close once more, standing on your tiptoes in order to give Tomura better leverage to hit the spot inside you that made you see stars. Your moans were growing louder and louder, and you clawed at the countertop for some kind of purchase as you neared your edge.

Just as you were about to cum, you felt a spurting inside you: Tomura’s cum painting your insides white. Once he came, all his movements stopped, prompting a displeased whine to be ripped from your throat.

“Aww, did you not cum?” Tomura gave a fake pout, stroking your hair tenderly before he grabbed a handful and gave a gentle tug, his face contorting into a grin. “Too bad, isn’t it? I guess you’ll have to come find me later if you really want it that much.”

“B-but… I n-need to cum!~” You whined, smushing your cheek against the counter and giving Tomura the biggest teary doe eyes you could muster.

“Is that so?” He gave a thoughtful hum, wiping your tears away and stroking your hair once more. “That’s really quite a shame. Though, your job is to please me. You being allowed to cum every time isn’t part of the contract~”

[bethanyrob-archive]

Gym Time ll Beth & Ella

Discord thread featuring: Beth and @ella-isms

Mentions: @chxrityx @malakhai-ozera @ellicfm

When: The week after the Throuple Pride Party 

Description: Beth and Ella vent to each other at the gym

Trigger Warnings: mentions of past domestic violence

Ella.

whether she liked it or not, ella spent a lot of time in the gym. a certain body type was required for her profession and she had been keeping up on it for this long, couldn't just stop now. as if spending hours upon hours completing grueling variations in the studio wasn't workout enough? still the ballerina did what was expected of her. once she was changed into her gym clothes, the blonde headed to the gym and was actually, almost on time. ten minutes late. that wasn't so bad. not for ella at least. when she arrived she looked around for her friend and upon spotting her headed in that direction. "hey gorge."

Beth.

Beth was prompt as always, she was eager to start her workout anyway. It was unlike her to sit around all day doing nothing, but Ellie had had some free time lately and Beth was enjoying sitting around the house and spending more time with her little sister. She’d take any opportunity to head to the gym though, and it had been a hot minute since she had a good workout. Beth was in the middle of doing a warm up on the treadmill when she spotted Ella. “Hey!” She said, taking several deep breathes. She stopped the treadmill briefly before pulling Ella into a hug. “Thanks for suggesting this. I needed to get off my ass.” She laughed.

Ella.

with the amount of time she spent at this place they should probably start charging her rent. not that she would ever suggest such a thing. but a good portion of the time she did her workouts alone, so that she could get in the zone but once in  a while it was nice to have company. plus, she and beth could catch up. the blonde returned the hug "sorry im already fucking you all up," she chuckled, hopping onto the treadmill next to her. "you're most welcome. i like to think that im a good motivator," a smirk grew on her lips. "what have you been up to though? i feel like time passes and before i know it its been weeks since ive talked to you. sorry im such a flake."

Beth.

Beth shrugged and started to turn up the speed on the treadmill again. “No worries. I just started. I’m just glad you’re here. I need to know about your life.” She smiled as she started to jog. “The best.” She smiled. “I have been up to literally nothing. Just work. Oh, I got into a fight at the pride party a couple weeks ago. Not my finest moment. I will not be drinking like that again.” She said with a huff. “I’ve just been working though. The long hours make me so exhausted by the end of the day that I just want to go home and sleep.” She shook her head. “You’re not a flake. I’m worse than you. I promise. I’m such a recluse.”

Ella.

ella gradually turned up the speed on her treadmill, mostly to a light jog so that she could get her heart rate up while still talking, "how's work been?" she glanced at her friend. and then her brows raised "a fight? what like a fight fight? or an argument?" ella knew that if she meant an argument that's what she would have said. "a fight with who?! about what? details."

Beth.

“Work has been...well work.” She shrugged. “It’s still entry level. I’d really like to open a private practice one day instead of working in a hospital.” Even though Beth was smart, she still needed to work her way up go totem pole. She didn’t LOVE he job now, but she did love her career and field.  Beth laughed as she found her footing. “Like a fight fight. I don’t know if I ever told you about my old friend Charity? The one I fell out with? I was just way too drunk to handle myself and threw my drink at her...then it escalated from there.” Fighting was so unlike Beth but it really was the only interesting thing that happened to her in a while. “Ellie eventually pulled me off though and threw her own drink at her too. It was a great sister moment.” She chuckled.

Ella.

"Suppose it always is, isn't it?" the blonde asked, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "you'll get there some day. you know its just having to do the grunt work first. it'll all pay off," she assured her with a smile. "no i dont think you ever did, but you're going to have to now. what happened with the falling out? and was that the reason for the fight? you threw your drink at her? shut up. i cant believe i missed that."

Beth.

The brunette nodded. She took several deep breathes as she started to feel her body aching from the run. Just a little bit longer for the warm up. She hated cardio and much preferred lifting. "it fucking better, eh?" She sighed again. "Well...I don't know if I told you this either but I was kind of in an abusive relationship back in Toronto. It's one of the reasons I came here...it wasn't just to get to know Ellie better." she began. "Basically Charity saw it for what it was almost immediately because she's honestly toxic as fuck...and it takes one to know one...if you know what I mean. Anyway, at the time I just thought she was jealous or something. So we fell out, and had it out at Throuple. But yeah..." she said as a smile appeared across her face. "it felt pretty damn good."

Ella.

“It will, all in due time,” Ella assured her as best as she could. “Oh shit...” she muttered as the story began and then she continued to listen to her friend. The blonde almost lost her footing getting lost in her own head because had some toxic behaviors herself. She shook her head to clear her mind of that, or at least attempt to. “So even though charity pointed it out to you at the time, she’s not really much better?” Regaining proper footing her glanced over “had it out because of what happened in the past? I guess you’re not in great terms now?” She lifted a brow “I bet it did. Have you ever tried boxing?” It was something Ella got into herself.

Beth.

Beth shook her head. "Yeah she's been the cause of a couple toxic relationships before...and I mean I stayed out of it and let her do her thing, and then she came in and tried telling me what to do. At the same, it was mostly him getting into my head about how bad of a friend she was." she sighed. "Maybe I should apologize." she said, looking straight forward. "No." she said, looking back over at her blonde friend. "There's boxing at this gym! Wanna give me a lesson?" she asked, hopefully.

Ella.

Sighing and shaking her head ella could sort of see the situation from both sides. “That seems like kind of a no win situation you know? I’m sure she was just trying to help but sometimes it hard to see that when you’re in it. Is apologizing and being friendly again something that you’re interested in doing?” Both brows raised and she grinned “you have to try it! And yes to both of those things. That’s what we’re doing next.”

Beth.

Beth shook her head. "You're right. We both kind of lost in that situation. It sucks especially considering that she was right about him after all." Beth shrugged. "I'm not sure if I'm interested in being friendly again with her to be honest...but i do feel like I need to get this off of my chest. It's been weighing on me, ya know?" Beth started turning the speed on her treadmill down. She could feel the beads of sweat collecting on her temples and her heart rate beginning to climb. "Consider me warmed up, then. I'm ready for a lesson, sensei."

Ella.

“People can get in your head for all kinds of different reasons. Sometimes it’s a good thing sometimes it’s not so great..” the blonde told her friend with a shrug. “Well maybe just say something along the lines of you’re sorry that things escalated that you didn’t mean for it to and that you hope you can at least be civil. Or something along those lines?” As they both slowed down the blonde grabbed her water bottle for a sip. “Let’s do this” hopping off the treadmill, Ella led Beth across the gym and into the room with the boxing equipment. “This is my second favorite stress reliever,” grabbing the tape she would wrap beths hands before helping her into the gloves. “Let’s see those hooks you know how to throw,” she smirked, grabbing the pads for her own hands to hold up for Beth.

Beth.

Beth smiled lightly to herself and nodded. Talking to Ella about this was therapeutic, and it was something she hadn't really said out loud to many people before. "Thanks, sorry for the word vomit." The brunette nodded. "Yeah, I don't have any interest in being friends really, but that might be a good thing to say. I just have to find a way to swallow my pride and suck it up and do it." Beth stepped off the treadmill and followed the blonde across the gym. "What's your first favorite?" he asked, raising her brow. Beth held her hands out for Ella to wrap them. This was something that was completely out of Beth's comfort zone, but she trusted Ella so she was actually pretty excited about this. Beth shook her head, but couldn't help but laughing at Ella's sarcastic comments. Beth took a deep breath, and eyed the pads on the other's hands. With her right hand, she took a swing and hit the pad - hard. "Oh!" Beth exclaimed. That felt good. She took another swing with her left arm and hit the other pad. "Damn." she mumbled.

Ella.

“No need to apologize, love!” The blonde assured the other girl. “I’m always here if you want to vent you know that.” She was glad that Beth unloaded what was on her mind, it was good to get that stuff off her chest. “Couldn’t hurt to just clear the air and move on from it,” Ella agreed with a nod of her head. Glancing over at the other Ella made a face as if she should already know the answer “orgasms,” she reminded her with a wink and a laugh. After clapping the two pads on her hands together Ella would hold them up, “alright, hit me.” She paused for a moment “well not me, the pads. You know what I mean.” She nodded and let Beth go at it holding the pads with some resistance “damn girl, you’re a hard hitter. Feels good though doesn’t it?”

Beth.

Beth smiled. This was why her friendship with Ella was so great. She was so easy to talk to and knew just what to say. Beth quickly turned her attention to the pads in front of her. It felt fucking great. To say the least. "Fuck, yes." Now she had remembered by she liked the feeling of fighting Charity at the pride party. After several solid swings, she felt herself working up a sweat. "Alright. Your turn. What do you need to vent about?" she asked her blonde friend, as she took a breather and a few sips from her water bottle.

Ella.

Ella was glad that once in a while her words and advice could be heeded because lord knew that she wasn’t great at taking her own advice. “I know running seems like it clears your mind and all, and don’t get me wrong, running is great once in a while but it’s got nothing on actually punching stuff, ya know?” She replied with a chuckle.  The blonde lifted her shoulders in a shrug and then sighed “I slept with my ex and it rekindled all kinds of fucking feelings that I have no idea what to do with.” Ella hated talking about her feelings “that about sums it up.” She hit the two pads together again and attempted to change the subject “go on, have another go” she held them up.

Beth.

Beth nodded. She loved running and the endorphins it gave off when she did. But this...well she may have just found her new favorite stress reliever. "Oh fuck.." Beth raised her brow. She was so taken aback that her stance weaken a little, but she quickly tensed up again so that she could throw another solid punch."Who's your ex? Do I knew him?" she asked curiously. Maybe she was being a little too snoopy but she genuinely wanted to know who this person was. "You wanna take some hits now?" she asked. "Kinda sounds like you need that."

Ella.

Working out was definitely a good stress reliever and Ella was glad that today she had a partner to do it with. “I literally couldn’t help it. It’s like. We’re like...” the blonde was struggling to find the right words, as usual “I don’t know. Like magnets or something , just “ she brought her two hands together in a quick fashion to make her point. “Mal-“ she was quick in correcting herself “Khai.” That’s what everyone else called him. And she was sure Beth probably knew of him it seemed like most people did that was part of why she had such difficultly in the first place. “It’s just complicated,” the dancer sighed. “May as well,” maybe hitting something would relieve whatever these emotions were that she had built up.

Beth.

Beth's jaw kind of dropped a little. It was clear that Ella's life was far more interesting than hers. Making out with exes was something that Beth didn't do frequently...well..making out with anyone was something she didn't do a lot anymore. She had become a bit of recluse since she broke up with her abusive ex. Beth thought for a moment. She had heard his name around but never really met him. "I know of him, but I don't think I've ever actually met him." she reported. "How is it complicated exactly? Tell me all the tea." she joked, as she motioned for her friend to hold out her hands so she can wrap them for her.

Ella.

Ella sighed noticing her friends reaction, she probably would have had a similar one had the tables been turned. “My impulse control has always been shit, but my self control around him is literally non existent,” she explained. “And isn’t that complicated enough in itself?” Part of her was sort of relieved that Beth didn’t know him it meant she didn’t have any preconceived notions of the situation. “We were together for like two years. And we were doing this like, open relationship thing, which was so stupid because we both hated the thought of each other with anyone else. Then he wanted to get married, and proposed, and I totally freaked because.... well for a lot of reasons, and I left.” Ella held her hands out, “and I shouldn’t have. Because now everything’s all fucked up.”

Beth.

Beth laughed as her friend admitted to being weak around her ex. Beth could empathize. She had no idea what she would do if she saw her ex from Toronto in New York. "That's very fair." she mused. Beth shook her head. "Open relationships never work for that reason. My theory is that if you love someone you'd be committed enough to them to sleep with them and only them." she said, wrapping her friend's hands like she did for her. "Jesus, you were engaged? she questioned. She couldn't imagine being engaged at such a young age, then again, she hadn't met anyone she'd be willing to marry like that. "So you broke up with him and regret it I'm gathering?" she asked, putting the pads on her hands.

Ella.

Weak was probably the understatement of the century, but Ella couldn’t think of a more fitting word at the moment. “Yeah you’re right...” she agreed with a nod, what she said about open relationships was completely accurate. “Neither of us really wanted the relationship to be open.. I just.. I don’t know why I went with it. I guess I thought in a way it was protecting myself, like I had a fall back plan keeping someone else waiting in the wings just in case...” it made her sound like such a shitty person and the more she spoke the worst she felt. “I wasn’t engaged ... I just said he proposed... I ... i didn’t say yes.” Closing her eyes briefly she shook her head with a sigh.

Beth.

Beth furrowed her brow. The whole relationship sounded a little strange, then again she didn't have the best track record. "Sounds a little toxic?" she questioned, unsure if she was using the right word. "Good thing you didn't say yes because honestly that could have opened a whole other can of worms." she smiled, sympathetically. "Could've been worse, Ella." she told her. "Have you guys talked since?"

Ella.

Ella was unfortunately acutely aware that she had been the toxic one in the relationship and it wasn’t something she was proud of. “Of it could have ended up being just the two of us happily ever after,” of course it was impossible to be sure about that but she could still assume it might have turned out that way. “Since we slept together? Yeah. We’re still... talking about where to go from here I guess. Taking it slow...” shaking her head she sighed again “and it’s scary as fuck to be honest.”

Beth.

"Maybe..." she trailed off, even though she wasn't too convinced of it herself. But it wasn't her relationships so who was she to judge? She raised her brow, curiously. "Are you still in love with him?" she asked, a mischievous glimmer in her eye.

Ella.

Ella shot her friend a look, she could tell by the way she let her sentence trail off that she didn’t believe that would be the case. Hitting her gloves together the blonde would throw her punches at the pads, not nearly as hard as she would normally, this was all about easing Beth in after all. “Completely,” she admitted with a sigh “I don’t really know how to handle it. Help me!” She laughed.

Beth.

Beth jumped a little when Ella hit the pads, not really expecting that she would have to really hold her stance if Ella wasn't going to knock her on her ass. She tightened up a little, flexing her muscles for a more sold stance. "Girl, I am the last person that should be giving out relationship advice." she admitted with a tiny laugh. "But if I were to give you some advice from the little I know about the situation...It sounds like you can do way better. If the rumors I've heard about Khai is true, then he's got a lot of his own shit he needs to work on."

Ella.

Ella was trying not to go with her usual force but that was also hard to do when there was something on her mind, too. “Clearly I’m not great in relationships either.” She took a few more hits putting more thought into the force behind them this time so it’s wasn’t overbearing “we’ve all got our own shit though don’t we?”

Beth.

"We can get shit at them together then." she admitted, holding her stance for Ella. "Yeah, I guess. But that doesn't mean we need to bare others' as well. Sometimes we gotta just focus on helping ourselves, eh?"

Ella.

“I’m already shit at them!” Ella said with a laugh and a shake of her head. “But isn’t that sort of what you do when you love someone? Take the good with the bad?”

Beth.

Bethany thought about how we're supposed to love the good and the bad about the people you're with. Beth did that. She loved the good and the bad about her ex, and gave him several chances to fix the bad. "Sometimes the good out weighs the bad.." she paused. She didn't want to be a downer on during their gym session. "But ya know...I'm sure Khai was worth it." she mused.

Ella.

“Sometimes it does...” letting out a sigh she could feel her shoulders sinking down some. “I know I probably need to just stop talking about it because I don’t know what will come of it. It’s just like... it consumes my fucking mind, I don’t know what to do.”

Beth.

Beth huffed. "Working out helps." she told her. "I also heard there's a great therapist around here." she suggested. "But you can always talk to me about it, yeah?" she smiled over at her friend.  "How about we get some food? I'm starving."

[atruththatyoudeny]

MONTHLY READS | October 2018

Happy 1D Fanworks Appreciation Day! Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into your stories and the courage to share them with us! I am so grateful for all the amazing authors in this fandom. Here are the fics I read this month, as always, Top 5 + 16 (!!) more under the cut (to not clog up your dash) 

The Road Less Travelled

by freetheankles | Lumberjack Louis | angst | slow burn | slow build | hurt/comfort | mutual pining | banter | minor character death | 98k Louis was a lumberjack happy to be living his life alone in what could qualify as Middle Of Nowhere, Canada. Every morning, he went out into the woods, cut his logs, then came home at dusk to a scalding hot shower and a good book by the fireplace. Rinse and Repeat. He had a good life, quiet and peaceful; simple. Not a secluded one as Niall annoyingly claimed. Louis certainly didn't need some chatty trespasser dropping into his life, his forest, his home. Invading his space, his circle of friends, touching his stuff, asking questions about his husband. His late husband. A trespasser who wasn’t supposed to crawl under his skin, occupy his thoughts, and steal his heart from where Louis had locked it safely away, only to put it right back on Louis’ sleeve — where it once laid. No, Louis definitely didn’t need Harry.

I Wanna Be More Than Friends

by 2tiedships2 | a/b/o | accidental bonding | friends to lovers | fluff | childhood friends | 20k He hadn't meant to scent Harry. They were best friends and that was it. Scenting best friends wasn't exactly socially acceptable. "Lou," Harry whispered. Louis jumped at his name and sat up straighter to provide a bit of distance between himself and Harry. "You can't scent me, Lou," Harry stated. Which of course Louis couldn't scent him. They were best friends. "I mean," Harry continued. "I wouldn't mind exactly, but if I can't scent you, I don't think you should scent me." "What do you mean you can't scent me? I mean, I get it because we're best friends but..." "I mean I can't smell you, Louis. I fucking can't smell you. I can't smell anything, okay?" Or the one where Harry’s an alpha with no sense of smell, Louis’ an omega who isn’t allowed to scent his best friend, and that’s all they’ll ever be. Obviously.

We'll Never Fall Apart

by GMTYUniverse for 1D Pet Fest | post break-up | pre-make up | exes to lovers | famous/ not famous | angst | fluff | 20k Harry’s hand seems to tremble a bit as he takes the pen from Louis. Louis pretends he doesn’t notice. It’s not his right anymore to notice, he thinks to himself. Or maybe it is – as friends. He’s not sure what being just friends entails, if he’s being entirely honest. He’s a bit confused where they’ve drawn the line, or will be drawing the line. It's just - it’s not really clear where they stand at the moment. Despite all the paperwork surrounding Oliver, there's so much left unsaid. Then again, maybe everything already has been said and Louis is just scrambling for reasons to keep holding on. or the one where Louis and Harry's relationship falls apart after 7 years, but the rescue dog they raised together doesn’t understand the joint-custody agreement they’ve hashed out.

Stars are guiding me back

by coffeelouis | Bachelor AU | post break-up | 78k Directing the first ever season of The Bachelor with a bisexual star is a huge career move for Louis. After throwing himself into his career, he finally has the opportunity to prove himself as a director with a unique vision. For Harry, being cast as the first ever Bi Bachelor means finally putting his ex-boyfriend behind him and starting anew. He's taking a chance on finding love and determined to do it right this time. They didn't exactly think this through. [or, the BACHELOR AU where Louis directs his ex-boyfriend Harry in his season as America's first bi bachelor.]

Dirty secret

by iilarryii | Mulan AU | a/b/o | enemies to friends to lovers | war | mpreg | character death | 122k "Dad, you can't go!" Louis yells to his father as he watches him pull out his sword. "Louis, you know that I have to. It's the pack leaders orders," Dan says calmly. "I need you to promise me that you'll take care of the family if I die." "So what? You'll just give up?" "Of course not. I am just willing to die for my family's safety." "So am I." The Zoely pack is attacked by rogue alphas and the pack leader orders all alphas over the age of eighteen to protect their pack. Dan Deakin is one of the strongest alphas in the pack, but there is one problem. He has a wife and six kids to feed and look after. Louis is the oldest child and the one who wants to protect their family. Or a Mulan AU where Louis is an omega who takes his father's place in the war.

To change how you see and what you believe

by jaerie for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange 2018 | mpreg | unplanned pregnancy | I didn't know I was pregnant AU | friends to lovers | graphic description of birth | 12k Harry and Louis are best friends who just happen to fall into bed with each other sometimes, it's not a big deal. After a drunken night of discussing their kinks, they wake up naked together. They don't remember what happened, but they've done it before and they'll probably do it again, but five months later, a surprise changes everything.

Baby We Could Be Enough

by lovelarry10 for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange 2018 | mpreg | mutual pining | angst | natural birth | 74k Harry Styles has always wanted a family, but his boyfriend doesn’t. When an unexpected pregnancy leaves Harry feeling alone and terrified, he feels he has no choice but to give up his baby. He finds a family with the adoptive parents, and maybe something more. ~ Louis Tomlinson and his wife, Jess, have been trying for a baby for years. Their hasty marriage after they first got pregnant has only led to a series of miscarriages that have put a strain on their already precarious relationship. When they meet a young man desperate for a home and someone to raise his child, Louis realizes that he may have been moving in the wrong direction all along.

He Saw His Own Eyes

by SadaVeniren for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange 2018 | mpreg | doctor/patient | angst | friends to lovers | 16k Dear Child, By the time you read this I’ll be dead. Here’s how I think it’s gonna to happen. Your mum - whoever they are and I’m sure they’ll be a smashing person - will read this letter, realize I quoted a very old and niche video, and teleport to my exact location and strangle me. I know sense of humor is not genetic but if it was I hope you’d get mine. I hope you don’t get my nose - it’s pretty big, and if you get my height I hope your mum evened it out with some grace and coordination so you didn’t spend puberty impersonating Bambi on ice. I’ve finally grown into it but it took awhile and I once almost fell into a bonfire because of it. Maybe I’ll tell you about it when we meet up! Please know that if you decide to reach out to me I will be receptive, so don’t let that cause you any anxiety. I hope that your life has been good so far. I’m sure your mum (and dad or other mum or other parenting figure) loved you with everything they are. Yours, Dad P.S. Then two cops will read this letter and shoot each other. AKA Louis conceives a child from an anonymous donor and Harry’s the midwife.

Shut your mind off (and let your heart hear me)

by BeHappily for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange 2018 | mpreg | ballet | kid fic | friends with benefits | 13k Harry wants Louis for a while, Louis wants Harry forever, but emotions and a little human get in their way. Or, an AU where Louis is a single father to cute twins, Harry is a ballet dancer who doesn't want any relationship, and they foolishly become friends with benefits, but maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

A Perfect Reason

by Chelsea Frew for HL Mpreg Fic Exchange 2018 | mpreg | royalty | fluff | famous/not famous | natural birth| 29k During a visit to a charity he'd like to support, Prince Louis--next in line to the throne of the United Kingdom--meets Harry, the man of his dreams. Trouble is, Louis is not out, and the law says his heirs can only be born of a woman. Louis is determined not to let that stop his pursuit of Harry. His determination doubles when Harry accidentally becomes pregnant. He and Harry will have their little family--and change the monarchy while they're at it.

Does it Look Devious or Something?

by haztobegood for 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names | sex toy store | homophobia | 4k When someone complains about Louis’ new business, he must defend his sex toy shop to the city council. Written for Prompt #231: The amazement at how much hot air people manage to produce.

Beneath the sound of hope

by YesIsAWorld | sexual confusion | high school | 1990s | 6k After Louis Tomlinson leaves the set of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” music video, it’s not the band or the experience that he can’t stop thinking about—it’s the curly-haired boy he met while filming. Determined to track that same boy down, he sets off on a short journey and ends up figuring out some truths about himself along the way.

Better Late Than Never

by reddhede | establishes relationship | mpreg | past abuse | break up | unplanned pregnancy | angst | 72k After an unstable and abusive childhood, Louis finally has the life he'd always dreamed of - a good flat, a good job, and the best boyfriend. But one little plastic stick turns that life upside down.

Navždy

by nikogda | vampires | established relationship | 7k Louis took his hand and walked him over to the up escalator and felt him squeeze it tightly as he stepped on. And that is how it went, up and down as Louis watched Harry from the seats by the puzzles near Starbucks. He could see Harry as he went up the escalator and down, only to repeat about twenty more times. Louis sighed, because he loves Harry of course he does. So he would put up with this and the amusement that wore off a while ago. Yet for Harry, this newness was still very exciting to him. Louis couldn’t wait to show him Netflix. Wondered if Harry had seen a television. He stood up as Harry neared the floor and walked over to him. “Babe, do you know what a television is?” Louis questioned, reaching for Harry’s hand to keep him from going towards the up escalator. “I’m not a complete idiot, Lou.” Louis could see the glint of Harry’s fangs as he smiled, his hand covering his mouth quickly. “Have you ever watched one?” He tugged Harry to the exit. “No,” Harry said quietly. Or, Harry finally rejoins a world where everything has changed but the most important thing is exactly the same.

I love your demons (like devils can)

by ariadne_odair for One Direction Big Bang: Round 3 | Girl Direction | homophobia | internalised homophobia | angst | 60k "I am right here," she says loudly, and she can almost hear the crack when Louis' head whips around to stare at her. "Why?" Louis asks, and Harry feels her insides shrivel up and die. Harry didn’t plan to join the football team. She didn’t plan to sleep with the captain of the football team. She definitely didn’t plan to sleep with the closeted captain of the football team, who promptly acted as if nothing happened and left Harry a pathetic, pining mess.

Sea Salt and Chocolate

by cupcakeL | strangers to lovers | friends to lovers | coffee shops & cafés | cheating | fluff | 10k “How can I help you?” He looked at the customer and wow, Harry was pretty sure this guy had the bluest eyes he had ever seen. When the guy opened his mouth Harry could almost feel the venom in his voice. “Do you have some kind of truffle that passive aggressively says ‘fuck you’?” Or Harry owns a confectionary/café and Louis is an aspiring musician who needs to break up with his boyfriend via truffles.

We'll Paint the Town

by kotabear24 for Larry Abroad Fic Challenge | Say Yes to the Dress AU | Kleinfeld's | famous/not famous | 4k For the Larry abroad prompt: Kleinfeld's, New York. This is a Say Yes to the Dress fic. In which Louis can't flirt, Lottie does all the work, Harry just wants to get her in a damn dress, and Niall is an aggressive affirmer. It ends well for everyone.

Knot Safe For Work

by jaerie | sex shop | knotting | sex toys | wizards | werewolf | magic | spells & enchantments | potions | 5k The world is magical, Louis is a wizard, Harry is a Were, there are spells for lube and supernatural kinks are definitely a thing.

The Things You Hide

by LiveLaughLoveLarry for HL Summer Exchange 2015 | spies Á secret agents | angst | undercover missions | 27k Louis has been an MI6 agent for four years. Now he wants out. Unfortunately, his superiors have other ideas. Their solution: a 'mission' in the Greek Islands, one that's more vacation than actual work. Harry is an avid photographer who shows him around the area. He's open and carefree and everything that Louis wishes he could be. Along the way they fall in love, and maybe Louis learns a little about love, a little about lies, and a whole lot the meaning of home.

Say It First

by Rearviewdreamer | Butterfly Effect AU | time travel | high school | pining | uni | angst | infidelity | domestic fluff | adoption | happy ending | 25k When it comes to Louis, Harry feels like he has spent a lifetime getting it wrong, but on a chance night together where time mostly seems to be on his side, he gets the opportunity to try it all again. And again, and again, and again in an attempt to finally get it right before it's too late.

Take Our Bodies Higher

by littlelouishiccups  | phone sex | dirty talk | Daddy kink | Dom/sub | 21k Harry wasn’t often caught off guard at his job anymore. He called different men Sir, Master, or Daddy for work almost every week, but he’d never been told he was a good boy in a voice quite like that. In which Harry is a phone sex operator and Louis dials a wrong number.

[bestleftnameless]

Untitled (continued) 2

I woke up in a bright room. I must have made too much noise while falling down the stairs because they had taken me. Once again I was infuriated for I had made another terrible mistake. It turned out I hadn't broken my neck falling down the stairs, it had really been broken from the force of them grabbing and pulling me so quickly, though I was grateful they prevented me from falling and breaking my neck. I stood up slowly picking my hat up from the ground. I realized it wasn't my hat at all, in fact, it wasn't a hat at all, in fact, there was nothing there at all. I then saw my hat a foot away and leaned over grabbing it. As I extended myself to full height I realized I wasn't the only one with a grip on the fedora. The other man looked at me with what I imagined to be as equal a look of confusion as my own. It quickly turned to anger as he snatched the hat and walked away with an angry snort. As I was about to take it back I noticed another on the ground not too far away. I decided it was too far away and gave up on it altogether.

I looked around and saw that I was in some kind of waiting room. There was a man sitting on a bench filling out paperwork using his leg propped up over the other as a makeshift table. He didn't fool me but apparently fooled himself as he stuck the gum he was chewing underneath. I turned and saw a secretary sitting at her desk. I asked her how to get out of this place and without looking up she tapped the top of her desk pointing at a blank piece of paper laminated to the desk, apparently trying to make herself feel important. I ripped the paper off the desk, spat in it, crumpled it up and threw it at her face. She reached into a file cabinet and pulled out another sheet of paper then slowly and angrily slid it across the top of the desk towards me. I grabbed the paper then sat next to the table legged man and looked it over. It was a sheet with a list of reasons I should be allowed to leave having boxes to check next to each one. Also at the bottom was a larger box with lines in it for me to write some sort of essay on why I should be let out. Not really being a big fan of essays I walked out of the door marked exit.

I looked back at the building once far enough away and saw an old neon sign reading "death" with a flickering "j". I turned around leaving the building to the left of me and continued on my way. I walked by a man that was standing tall, asserting that where he stood was his territory. Though I tried to stay out of his imaginary circle, I must've stepped on the edge for he took a step toward me and puffed out his chest. Not one to back down from a challenge I ran away but when he chased me he forfeited the rights to his circle and so I took it as my own. It didn't fit in my pocket though, so I left it where it was, hoping it would provide a small meal for some rats. I first made it clear to them, however, that the rent was due on the first as to avoid any future conflicts.

Before the rats, I had another patron. He was wearing a black cloak and wore it wrapped completely around himself including the head. He held it closed with his hand which was all I could see of his body. I noticed his hand was missing a finger and it reminded me of the time I lost one of mine. A long time ago I had a fight with "the great ruler of the land", Lord BomVoZwich (pronounced prudence). I was a swordsman at the time and defender of a nation after taking a 6 hour course. He personally challenged me to combat face to face by sending one of his minions to formally invite me to a battle. Never one to refuse a fight I said no. I knew how high the stakes were but accepted anyway because this was only a twice in a lifetime opportunity and if I didn't do it now I would never have a sicond chance, because sicond isn't a word.

I arrived at his castle and took a number at the front desk then sat waiting. I was number 37 and the current number on the projector was 36 1/2. I refused to wait for such a ridiculously long period of time and called for him to come out of hiding and fight me. He refused and so I had to reschedule the appointment. The next day when I returned to the castle he stood there waiting for me, him being the doorman waiting to let me in. I tipped 15% and ran up a spiral staircase to face off against his majesty but had arrived early so I instead waited there leaning on my sword. When Lord BomVoZwich finally arrived he explained that he had trouble with the doorman not letting him in because he wasn't on the list. He apologized for the inconvenience then switched to his battle position. Neither of us wanted to attack first because the person that did would get suspended from school a day longer than the other and I couldn't risk it. He taunted me by saying how he was going to get my lock mandarin pie recipe and I taunted him by calling him by his first name, "Bernard". Neither of us got very worked up but eventually I initiated the fight by complimenting his hair.

 We began swinging at each other. I wondered why my attacks were so ineffective until I realized I wasn't using my sword. I grabbed it just in time to turn around and slice his head clean off, him being one of Bernard's minions. I was distraught because we had a poker game planned that weekend and now I had nothing to do. Bernard took advantage of my distraction and leapt at me. I was barely able to dodge in time but had my pinky finger cut off. He stumbled upon landing, then while catching himself slipped on my finger and impaled himself on his blade. From that day on I gave up on being a swordsman and promised myself I would never fight again. Though I knew I was lying because I refused to look myself in the eye so I gave up on giving up.

 After successfully pawning the circle for much less than it was worth I continued on my journey. I suddenly felt a burst of energy which most likely resulted from the coffee I had declined to drink earlier that day and began sprinting at 3 miles an hour. Feeling half priced as a bird I lost focus and walked a red light, which was the smart thing to do as the bases were loaded and he was a homerun hitter. Normally I would go back and apologize to his mother only for her to tell me she's not the one I need to apologize to, but I'm not normal so I continued running until colliding with a man in slow motion which triggered an altercation. After the camera circled us twice and a disembodied voice yelled ‘Go!’ as his words flashed across the screen, I was disheartened to see I was starting the fight with only half of my health bar remaining.

 I wondered what I could have done recently to lose half a health bar then remembered the bathroom break earlier in which there was much toilet roll squeezing and wall slapping resulting in me getting punched 20 feet for watching a man go about his business. While I was spaced out, the opponent had already attacked me leaving me with only a sliver of health left while in his bar you could still see his entire name. After seeing his name I laughed because he had the weirdest name imaginable, "John". He quit the match because apparently I hurt his little girl feelings, no offense to little girls out there (as if saying that makes a difference). No offense to anyone for that matter, except for wasps. Nobody likes wasps.

 As I watched the man leave with such speed smoke trailed off the ground behind him I thought to myself that this man is horrible for the environment, and did nothing about it. I did however, go to the local diner and order the first woman I saw to make me a sandwich. I wouldn't call me a sexist pig just yet as I only did because the lady was a waitress. Please, I was raised better than that, and after all I am a lady. At least I would hope so, after all, the rest rooms I use do only have stalls, but I am often kicked out and called a pervert.

 On the way I ran into a man named unbinchin. He didn't seem like a bad guy but once again I felt there was something off about him just like the man before, my worst fears were confirmed when I saw his jacket lying on the ground. I would have helped him pick it up but this isn't a charity. Upon having this thought, I realized that nearby there was a charity for rolling children down stairs in folded up boxes. Unsurprisingly they had a huge 2 stair out front and also a ramp. I ran up the stairs 4 at a time until clipping the front of one of my shoes near the top causing me to fall professionally. I base that description off of what I overheard one man say shortly afterward to his friend when he stated that I fell like it was my job. Excited at the thought of a promising new career I ran off to apply.

[la-jolie-mln-posts]

Kerry’s story

Turning a sports broadcasting career into the art of giving.

In business, the term “road warrior” refers to someone who spends enormous amounts of time traveling for work. That’s an apt description of my life before marriage and kids. I’ve worked in broadcasting throughout my career, starting in sportscasting which had me on the run between the Midwest to the West Coast covering both collegiate and major league baseball, hockey and football.  But I always had a passion for community service and tried to fit in charity work whenever a window of time opened up.

Actually, I met my husband while we were both volunteering in a soup kitchen. My television sportscasting career came to an end not too long after we were married. We had two kids right away, and the profession simply wasn’t possible with all the late nights and travel. It was time for a change.

By 2012, I was no longer on TV, but still working in sports radio. Then, I got the opportunity to co-host a TV show called “Through the Decades” with Bill Kurtis and Ellee Pai Hong. We take our audience back through memorable moments in history. Not only is the work fun, but because it is part-time, it has also enabled me to pursue my true passion, helping others.

Combining a broadcast career with giving

I started hosting charity events and assisting with fundraising, a welcome opportunity to combine my broadcasting experience with events that focused on helping others. I have a personal connection with a number of the charities and support them as much as possible. During Covid, I hosted a number of virtual “Go Red for Women” events for the American Heart Association for chapters on the West Coast. I also served as the emcee for Scoreboard Charities “Uncorked: Pull a Cork for Cancer” event for the 2nd straight year, and next February, I am planning to host an event for Foundation 205, the fundraising arm of the Elmhurst School District. In late June, I was excited to return to an in-person event format for Bridge Communities event called “Wine, Women & Shoes”, featuring vendors from the Chicago area that give portions of their sales back to Bridge. The event culminates in a fashion show sponsored by Sweet William, a high-end women’s boutique in Hinsdale.  

Bridge Communities is an organization close to our home in Elmhurst, Illinois that offers support to families who find themselves homeless due to things like divorce, job losses or an illness that caused a loss of income through a two--year program that includes transitional housing, job and family mentoring, as well as support services. The outcomes are inspiring. Breaking the stereotype of homelessness as simply a drug induced condition is critical.  

What called you to do this?

I always wanted to volunteer. But sports broadcasting doesn’t give you much time for other pursuits. Since becoming a mom, my husband and I have volunteered with both of our children for “Feed My Starving Children,” a way for families to come together to pack and ship food to third-world countries where kids are in need of good nutrition. It’s been a great bonding experience for us. My husband and I want to give our kids a foundation of service—contributing their time, talent and treasure to others.

There are those who are doing far more than us. But as our kids get older, we hope they’ll take these experiences into their adult lives and pay it forward.

La Jolie MLN: ”It’s our mission to give young ladies the lessons all of you can share with us. So, let’s share our experiences, strength and stories.

I cordially invite you to join a cohort of empowered women. Please send your stories to Blog@lajolie-mln.com

[carbonatehr]

5 Effective Employee Retention Strategies

"Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first."

- Angela Ahrendts (Senior Vice President, Apple Inc.)

If a trillion-dollar corporation values its employees as much as its customers, I think it should hold true for all companies big or small.

And yet many employers forget to build relationships with their workforce and then appear shocked when they leave.

Here is a scary statistic:

Around 40 percent of employees who quit in 2017 did so within a year of being hired, according to a study based on 34,000 exit interviews studied by Work Institute. 

What is even more astonishing is about half of them left extremely quickly—within the first 3 months.

If you are a business owner or an HR leader, such numbers are bound to worry you. You know you need effective employee retention strategies and workforce management processes to prevent your valuable workers from leaving. 

But before discussing these, we first need to understand why it is essential to retain employees.

Importance of Employee Retention 

a) Complex and Time-Consuming Hiring Process 

From posting an elaborate job description to reviewing all the resumes to screening, interviewing, and offering a job is a difficult and tedious process. 

And you are not done yet. 

You still need to run background checks on the shortlisted candidates, do all the legal documentation, and finally onboard the new hire, all of which is a long-drawn-out exercise.

b) High Employee Turnover Expense 

According to estimates, it may cost a business 50 percent to up to 250 percent of the annual pay package of your ex-employees when replacing them with new hires. 

Apart from onboarding, supporting new employees in learning their job responsibilities and helping them fit into their new organizational culture can be major expenses. 

c) Losing Domain Knowledge

This is especially true when experienced and highly skilled employees leave without properly doing a knowledge transfer. 

The institutional and subject expertise they possibly hold may be lost for the company.

d) Teamwork Challenges

It’s exhausting for long-time employees to keep training new hires.

And the constant turnover in the workforce prevents any team bonding and working together as a productive unit.

e) Business Rivals Benefit 

What's the most likely place your ex-employee will join? 

That's right, your immediate business competitor. Your rival organization will gain from the skills and knowledge your previous employee brings to the new company. 

On the contrary, what happens when you implement employee retention strategies successfully in your business?

● Higher Productivity

● Greater Earnings

● Excellent Customer Service

● Increased Employee Satisfaction

So how do you accomplish all of these?

By carrying out some of the most effective employee retention strategies, along with a good workforce management process.

Employee Retention Strategies-The Top Five

1) Hire the Right People

The best way to hire the best people is to be transparent with them during the hiring process. This ensures the new recruits are set to clear expectations and are better informed about their roles and responsibilities. 

And when they start their new job on an assured and positive note, they are more likely to stay longer.

2) Competitive Pay Package

Like it or not, even the most loyal employees won't stick around with poor remuneration. 

Offering competitive salaries and meaningful benefits such as health care and insurance are some of the most influential employee retention strategies. 

Good employees must be provided monetary and other compensations that are commensurate with the industry standards. You don't want them exploring other options just because you didn't offer good monetary benefits.

3) Competent Leadership

No one wants a boss on their head; however, everyone likes a leader.

Employees look up to their superiors and expect them to lead and be able to tackle challenges head-on.

As a leader, you also need to be a visionary and share your organization's goals and direction with your workforce. 

Moreover, you need to motivate them constantly and instill confidence in them.

Always be respectful and fair to everyone. Remain accessible to your people and encourage constructive feedback and criticism.

4) Employee Engagement 

Employees that are disengaged are less likely to stay put in a company even if they are paid well and perform their work satisfactorily.  

Here are some of the features that inspire a worker to engage, be passionate, and have a desire to remain in a workplace:

● Learning opportunities: Employees who are highly engaged in cross-training projects and leadership programs outside of their job profiles are usually more engaged at work.

● Clear Advancement Goals: Clear goals and paths for promotions and career advancement are one of the best employee retention strategies. These motivate employees to push themselves towards accomplishments and rewards.   

● Constructive Feedback: Contrary to what some leaders think, great employees, love receiving feedback. Instead of an annual affair where assessments bring out bad surprises and resentment, good workers welcome random, constructive feedback from their leaders to help them constantly improve.

5) Responsible Brand

More and more employees are starting to associate with organizations that actively contribute to making the world a better place. 

And through them, employees, too get to participate in making a change in issues they are passionate about.

As a senior leader, find out what your employees care for and involve the whole company including its management to come up with ways to help. 

Be it the local community or a global charity, rally around your employees to contribute and actively work for good causes. 

Socially conscious people love to work with a business that not just makes a great product or service, but also takes extra initiatives for the society.

Bonus Tip!

Along with enacting the above employee retention strategies, you should also consider a workforce management software. These applications help companies in planning, payroll, appraisal, and tracking employee activity. 

A robust workforce management software such as Carbonate increases the optimal performance of an organization by efficiently taking care of the entire HR processes.

[sportsmediainternshiplmoody]

Entry 8 - Overall reflections on the internship and your studies from starting your degree

I’m not quite ready to submit this entry, though the due date says I must.  Knowing I still have a few hours left on the internship program and the showcase still to come, I would've loved to have written this entry once that was completed. Nonetheless, there has been so much achieved, so many learnings, so many ups and downs, times I’ve felt like quitting and times I’ve felt like I could take on the world. 

I’ll start with the internship, the dangling carrot at the end of two and a half years of study. I think I’d share similar views to the rest of the cohort in that, the internship was great opportunity to test our skills and knowledge learnt at school and put them into professional practice. Its also been a great learning curve, be placed into a new environment and hitting the ground running is never easy, however, that's the beauty of overcoming challenges and growing professionally and personally.

As Klimova (2019) states, self reflection is a great way for students to look back on what they have achieved, what they have learnt, what has been challenging, how they have overcome these challenges and how they have positively developed and grown from day one of study. This has been just as important during the internship phase too. Beginning with two internships was a scary thought. I think I wanted to finish the degree on such as high that I thought by throwing myself into one and a half internships, that would provide me with more satisfaction at the end. 

The Amy Gillett Foundation (AGF) was the full internship, 228 hours and two full days a week. When reading the job description, I really jumped at the thought of being able to be apart of positively impacting the community. This is what provides me more fulfillment than anything else and with AGF sharing similar values, I knew this was the right internship for me. Although working remotely was going to be a challenge, the power of technology still allowed a great sense of engagement and eagerness to do the best I possibly could. From creating and running a virtual trivia night to contacting local councils all across Australia, the AGF internship was extremely diverse. It was a shame the pinnacle event being the Gran Fondo (a charity bike ride along the Great Ocean Road) could not be run due to the coronavirus, however, I was still able to learn about event planning and be involved in a momentous moment when the Victorian Government passed legislation that a minimum one metre must be given to cyclists when passing in a vehicle. 

GolfBarons was quite a different experience. I didn't really feel the same connection as I did with AGF and that was largely due to lockdown restrictions in Victoria. Working for a company for a sport I love was an easy decision for me to be a part of. The interview process went really well and I knew this would be a great fit for me. Unfortunately the tasks given to me were not quite too my liking being social media based, however, it was still a learning experience and it did allow for me to test my creative side. From a social media audit to creating an October social media calendar, I was able to utilise the skills learnt in the applied learning program along with advice from Phil who was my supervisor. The major downfall with GolfBarons was not being able to film their show on location. That was what I was looking forward to most, seeing how all the production elements work and maybe, just maybe getting to fly the drone. Though this did not occur, the networking made and the skill acquired are something I’ll carry forever. Unfortunately the internship came to hasented ending due to an overwhelming amount of commitments, nonetheless, I’ve learnt more about time management than I would have anyway else. 

Keeping this under 400 words is not easy. In summary though, looking back on the past 6 semesters, I feel a lot of pride and satisfaction. I learnt so much about myself, I’ve acquired knowledge I would never have dreamt of and gained skills that will carry me a lifetime. The highlights have definitely been the applied learning program. Working with the Caulfield Grammarians for three semesters was fantastic. We were able to apply our social media, marketing and sponsorship skills to a real world environment and see them make a positive difference. We were also blessed to have countless guest speakers shed light on their careers which provided great insight into the paths they took which aren't to dissimilar to ours. Many of our subjects and assessments really provided a real life aspect which has myself and classmates the skills to transition well into industry. Whether it be writing, marketing, sponsorship, professional skill development, exposure to media editing softwares and researching, it has truly been a plethora of quality learning aided by fantastic lecturers. 

As stated by Behrman & Stacey (1997), university studies have so many benefits other the jobs and economic factors. The acquirement of knowledge can never be underestimated and how it is used can create great change. Whether is be socially, professionally or even personally, education is an extremely powerful tool. One thing is for sure, I’m certainly not the same person and I when I started. I certainly didn't ace this degree but still remain very pleased in all that has been achieved, including the relationships made and knowledge gained. I felt this speech from Michelle Obama was fitting after looking back on three incredibly challenging but fulfilling years.

References: 

Klimova, B 2014, ‘Self-reflection in the Course Evaluation’, Procedia, social and behavioral sciences, pp.119–123, 25 August 2015, viewed 19 November 2020.https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1877042814034466?token=39595676D5C85EFAF4EEDA6A2E175F4CCB27C2E284B650C11C4C8BAB70816ADA3A5ABD45A48957A08281EA12A95168A0

Behrman, J, Stacey, N 1997, ‘The social benefits of education’. University of Michigan Press, viewed 19 November 2020. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B43bmVZDkTwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=benefits+of+university+education&ots=-ConFEGwH-&sig=wwtB5LPWKL3bdEN7aOrpTP_aTO4#v=onepage&q=benefits%20of%20university%20education&f=false

[madstars-festival]

MA SHUAI ON WINNING GOLD AT YOUNG STARS 2019

At AD STARS 2019, Ma Shuai, Zhang Ruoyu and Sun Hanchen represented Shanghai Normal University at the annual Young Stars program – and won Gold.

AD STARS’ Young Stars program gives university students from around the world a taste of what it’s like to work in advertising. Last year, their brief was to sell Busan as the ultimate tourist destination using social media – with just 30 hours to create a solution.

There was one team that stood out above the rest: Ma Shuai, Zhang Ruoyu and Sun Hanchen from Shanghai Normal University. We spoke to Ma Shuai about what they learned from the experience…

How did you hear about the Young Stars program?

As a student majoring in advertising, we pay attention to international awards, which is a channel for us to learn practical tips in creativity. Since AD STARS has been becoming a more and more influential event and award show in China, we would often hear relevant news about it, hence the interest. Students always value the participation more than the honor, so we try to join in a variety of competitions so as to earn the opportunity to watch and even be part in these big events, such as OneShow Youth or D&AD Young Blood. That's why the local competition jointly held by Young Stars and China Advertising really fascinated us.  It not only let us know this platform of communication, but also provided us with a convenient way to take part in it.

What was the hardest part of the Young Stars competition? What did you learn?

The first steps were the most troublesome. We didn't want some forms of expression which are just funny or dazzling, but a solution that can really help. For this purpose, we spent so much time finding out a powerful insight. As we only knew what we don't want, we just kept coming up with ideas, denying them, and doing that again and again. I was really anxious when we saw that other teams were already in the execution phase and we were still arguing with each other. In fact, we argued over everything right up to the last second: details as big as the choice of interactive mode, and as small as the use of a simple picture. Maybe this can be seen as a reflection on the pursuit of perfection.

In terms of the result, logics and insights matter more than appearances. I used to come up with an idea, then dress it up with conceptual expressions to make it seem like it fits creative demands. I won't do that anymore.

Your campaign was called, ‘Busɒŋ— Melody of busan shape’. Why do you think it won Gold?

Perhaps because of its simplicity? We really persisted in achieving a most simple mode ── our goal was to reduce inconvenience, so we started by assuming that our audience will be reluctant to specifically download new apps, will be reluctant to use certain functions through complex interactions, and will be reluctant to spend more time experiencing the fancy effects ── all should accompany the behavior of the audience themselves, happen unconsciously. Based on this understanding, we chose maps and music as entry points without much effort.

Besides, I think our idea fits the theme of "tourism" quite well. It is not an idea packaged with travel-related descriptions, it really accords the behavior patterns and interests of the visitors as an audience. First of all, in our idea, what the tourists get at the end is produced entirely along with their travels, which makes the concept of "musical memory" very attractive. Secondly, the fact that everyone can obtain unique output also makes the audience more willing to share. This appeal is completely active, rather than wishing a social communication just by generating some commemorative pictures or words with no personality.

Finally, the use of new technologies. The idea of automatically generating music at different altitudes in different terrains is quite a fantasy, and we checked a lot of references about music creation AI to confirm the feasibility to achieve this. We knew the idea might be too wild to be anything more than a draft, but new technology always takes ideas to higher dimensions. Looking at the creative awards of recent years, a growing proportion of new technology is on display, and ad agencies are also setting up their own proprietary technical teams. Since it is a creative idea, we want to let ourselves always have the courage to consider the highest possible, the apex. We hope this will keep us curious about learning!

Would you recommend Young Stars to other students?

We're already doing that! More than any other competition, Young Stars is a precious platform for advertising students to communicate and to learn. We are very lucky and grateful to have the opportunity to participate. I hope that more and more Chinese students will join in this event in the future.

Are you still at Shanghai Normal University? What is your dream job once you finish studying?

We have graduated in September this year, and this award is a memorable highlight of our school days. I'm now pursuing my Masters degree and the other two have commenced their careers.

My dream job should be in an art museum! Considering that art museums are non-profit organizations, I might try to create some art experiences with the brands’ advertising budget before doing that with my own money...

What is your favourite advertising campaign?

Poetry POS Machine: it was a public welfare action presented by Tian Yu Kong for UnionPay. They put poems written by children into UnionPay's POS terminals, where people pay 1 RMB using the UnionPay APP and could get a special poem printed on a normal receipt. These children poets, who come from less developed rural areas, spend little time with their parents during years as the latter move to the cities to work, and the proceeds from this campaign will fund their educational programs.

What I admire is that it was not a condescending charity ad as usual. For children, they bridged a channel where children can get help dignified with their own talents. For audiences, this simple, innovative, meaningful action has more appeal, and more value through spreading and sharing. For brands, UnionPay, as a state-owned enterprise, took the initiative to shoulder social responsibilities, thus enhancing the brand image of UnionPay's mobile payment.

Do you have a creative hero?

Ma Xiaobo, head of SGAD+! Someone who can tell every story in a fascinating way is really cool, not to mention the fact that his copywriting can strike a deep chord with all people, not just the target audience. His pieces embody everyone's empathy, beyond the "hit" tricks of marketing.

What is your favourite memory of Busan?

I took my friends to visit the Busan Museum of Art, where we were happy to get guide books in Chinese. As a tourist city, Busan's inclusiveness and service construction always impresses everyone. Speaking of which, there was a little story: on one bus ride, the driver greeted me in Chinese and said he had studied at a university in China years ago. We talked about our lives in our respective countries then left contact address. The day before the competition began, he came specifically to encourage me and wished me the award ─ a little warmth in a foreign land.

To be part of Young Stars 2020, you must come up with an idea to promote Korean home meal replacement brand ‘Mitus’. For more information, visit our website or contact zannylee@adstars.org. The deadline is 23 September!

[gizkasparadise]

PLEAAASE write that post about what you can do with an English degree! I'm getting mine rn and everyone's either assuming I'm going to teach, or trying to push me into the med field instead :\

look, english degrees are awesome okay. i’m going to try and make this as brief as possible but am here to elaborate on anything anyone has questions on. 

what everyone thinks you can do with an english degree:

teach

write a novel i guess

teach when the novel writing doesn’t work out

what you can actually do with an english degree:

whatever the fuck you want (no really)

first, there’s different types of english degrees**based on the US education system, which i’m most familiar with

literature! guess what you get to do with a literature degree? a lot. 

skills: close-reading, critical thinking, problem-solving, potentially translating, communication (written for sure, maybe verbal as well), self-direction, detail-orientated, editing, style guides

stuff: archival work, curation, history if you specialize in an era, making digital humanities projects if you want to work with computers or apps, working abroad (especially if you want to do comparative lit), social justice work, public events including readings and vigils, copy-editing, writing (and we’ll talk more about what “writing” really means on the job market in a second), non-profit work, academia/professor, library work if you’re interested in information science, consultant, book history and printing, publishing

creative writing!

skills: close reading, critical thinking, translating, communication, editing, creativity, design, art, self-direction, analytical thinking, problem solving, giving and receiving constructive feedback, art 

stuff: write that novel! or short story! or chap book! or poem!, marketing/advertising, storyboarding for tv or movies or video games, creative development, script writing, social justice work, non-profit work, academia/professorship, campaigning, travel writing, content development for corporations or charities or whatever you want, social media coordinator (guess what, that starts hiring at around 50k now), administration, public relations/press releases, creative director, creative consultant, medical humanities, publishing

technical writing/communication!

skills: collaboration, communication, technical skills, design, problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking, qualitative and quantitative research methods, documentation, development, project management

stuff: user experience, front-end design (web/software/interfaces/etc.), document design, technical writing, medical writing or design, app design, report writing, grant writing, editing, academia/professorship, political campaigning, social media coordinator, software engineering, programming, risk management, project manager, program development/administration, game designer, accessibility and assistive technology developer, consultant for the government/industry/non-profits, proposal developer, business plan developer, publishing

linguistics!

skills: sociology and anthropology, syntax, editing, writing, typically competencies in many languages, cognitive science and psychology, speech therapy

stuff: computational linguistics (PROGRAM COMPUTERS AND AI TO SPEAK?!), assistive technology developer, develop grammar and editing programs for technology (squiggly lines), academia/professorship, translator,  forensic linguist, teach foreign languages or english as an additional language, lexicographer meaning you get to basically archive human language for everyone and that’s fucking cool, tech writing, programming and coding!, speech therapy, user researcher/field researcher, speech therapist and setting you up for speech pathology, consultant for the government/industry/non-profits, voice/dialect coach for actors or voice actors

and many more! (rhetoric, writing studies, teaching english as a second language, others i’ve forgotten)

guess what all these skills and jobs are likely mix-and-match! take classes across the board, figure out what you’re interested in, and chances are your english degree can be used toward those careers!

also guess what there’s different types of teaching you can do too! elementary, middle school, high school, vocational or technical colleges, community colleges, universities, corporate training, government training, specialist training, writing centers, teaching abroad, tutoring, instructional design, curriculum development/educational program development. teaching is also awesome and you can do a lot with the teaching focus beyond being just in the classroom if that’s where you want to go!

but i only want to write!

don’t worry dude there’s tons of writing out there for you to find comfortable employment in. here’s a few i can think of off the top of my head:

creative writing: scripts/screenplays, video games, novels, short stories, poetry, journalism, blogs, freelance digital writing, travel writing, think pieces, editorials, marketing campaigns

technical writing: grants, documentation for engineers/programmers/factories/products, SEO content, web content, medical writing, contract writing, business plans, proposals, job descriptions, freelance or contracted writing, user experience test plans and reports, codes and software scripts

civic writing: press releases, speeches, journalism, non-profit grants, charter documents, legislation or other legal documentation (usually hired by contract work)

tips

make your minor count. you want to write video game scripts? minor in something related to the industry (game studies is even a thing now in several universities). you want to write science books? minor in astronomy. want to write speech programs for AI robots? minor in computer science or human factors. go go go!

learn how to translate your soft skills to hard skills. english majors, generally, have a lot of critical thinking, analytical, and detail-orientated skills. think of specific projects where you’ve used those and talk about *those* on job materials (we can make our qual life quantifiable, #trust)

be adaptable. english degrees (and by extension, humanities degrees) are some of the most flexible skill sets out there. don’t pigeonhole yourself into roles that don’t fit what you want to do (i can’t tell you how many colleagues i’ve had that did editing jobs even though they hated editing and wanted to do design work instead. #DegreesCanDoTwoThings)

know that “publishing” and “editing” and “writing” have much, much more potential than what you might think initially. publishing jobs exist everywhere if you’re willing to work outside of creative fiction (university presses, magazines/newsletters/blogs, documentation for corporations, data-driven or science publications, etc.). these jobs are competitive, but they exist and you can get them

get experience working with cross-functional or cross-disciplinary teams. find opportunities to join clubs or orgs outside of your major that are doing projects you want to do. want to write movie screenplays? join film club, meet people who want to make films! showing that you can work with a bunch of different people from different knowledge bases/disciplines/skillsets will take you a lot farther on the job market

*dabs at forehead* obviously this isn’t exhaustive, there’s more out there! anyone who wants to chime in or add please do!

[angeltriestoblog]

I’ve been thinking and writing and thinking about writing

This time last year, I spent my free time cooped up in my university’s study hall. There, I would drink from smuggled cups of vending machine coffee, in the hopes of converting my lethargy into caffeine, and the caffeine into words. My dream publication at the time had opened up internship applications, and though they set no deadline, I pressured myself to finish all the requirements as fast as I could. Every impulse decision I had was always coupled with this need to execute at the soonest possible time, like my brain knew if I took a second longer, my common sense would kick in and pull the brakes. I guess my failure to think everything through reflected in my cover letter template (lazy), resume (unremarkable), sample works (in retrospect, bland and uninspiring), and the absence of an acceptance letter in my inbox.

I have lost respect for said publication since then, though not because I harbored bitterness in my heart: their failure to compensate hardworking interns as well as the steep decline in the quality of their content should be enough reason. (Looks like I dodged a bullet back there.) Though it can’t be denied that at the time, I was heartbroken. The feeling lingered with me longer than I cared to admit. Despite getting featured on a national broadsheet and accepted into my school’s student paper less than a month later, I still couldn’t bring myself to be fully confident in my skill set because of that one specific, indirect rejection.

Which is why, being where I am now and having achieved as much as I have in a span of five short months feels like the highest form of vindication. Quarantine boredom compelled me to submit an article pitch to the then newly-launched Underdog, an online platform dedicated to the digital native’s latest preoccupation. It was a piece about the boybands I loved and lost (read: the dissolution of One Direction, and every other group I adored with the same degree of intensity), one I was actually planning to post on the blog. But in a span of a few weeks, my idea was accepted, refined, revised, and turned into a full-fledged essay that landed me my first ever paycheck.  

I was still on some euphoric high, emboldened beyond belief, when I chose to take it a notch higher and apply as a staff writer for one of my all-time favorite magazines. During the summer before college, I was paralyzed by a legitimate existential crisis that left me aimless and afraid. I turned to the Internet for solace, and in my search for a voice of reason, I found Lithium Magazine, and their collection of articles which viewed life in the authentic, critical, occasionally self-deprecating way only Gen Z teens know how. I was aware being turned down by them would easily mean a one-way ticket to retirement for me; thank God my inner critic was taking a power nap or else it would have talked me out of it for sure. The day after I submitted my accomplished application form and a far more impressive portfolio of sample articles (by my standards, at least), I woke up to an acceptance letter and just knew life was not going to be the same.

The past four months I’ve spent as a contributor for Lithium have been some of my most fulfilling as a writer. I am constantly being pushed to the limits of my imagination and creativity when it comes to the content I produce. I can’t find it in me to half-ass pitches or beat around the bush in paragraphs: I owe it to the effortlessly talented people I work with, and the impressive body of work they have managed to accumulate over the years. My first pieces for the month of July were about the effectivity of online therapy in a Filipino context, and the irony of being a low-maintenance friend during a time when the need for human connection is higher than ever. This was followed by my personal essay in defense of basic girls: my favorite one so far, and probably my boss’ too, considering that it’s an Editor’s Pick for the month of August. Though I am infinitely proud of them, as they are my first forays into the international publishing world, I know I can (and thus am determined to) do better.

Since then, I’ve churned out articles on an almost-daily basis for an array of online and print zines. I scout for inspiration in the morning and once struck by lightning, I type away until roosters start to crow once again. Most days, I only took a time out for the daily two-hour movie. It seemed like I was working a part-time job instead of nurturing a hobby. But it never felt like a chore to me. I simply love what I do and I feel like the fact that it shows is the reason why sites are kind enough to publish my work. 

You can view my portfolio if you want to see everything I’ve put out so far but here are five of my most recommended, in case you’re too lazy for that!

The story of my coming-of-age based on the usernames I had on social media platforms, for Uniquely Aligned;

An expose on all-girls Catholic high schools in the Philippines and their inaction towards sexual harassment cases, for Ashamed Magazine;

A part-review of Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay, part-rant on the evident lack in Western media that accurately portrays Filipino life, for Reclamation Magazine;

A piece on why talking about mental health should never be a one-way street, for Gen Rise Media;

A love letter to one of my favorite movies of all time, and its flawed eponymous protagonist, for Mid-Heaven Magazine

On a rather tangential note, I also started expanding my network on LinkedIn, though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was hoping to get out of this exercise. I simply enjoyed the process of generating new variations of the same job descriptions. One day, I was sent an email by Riya, the Executive Director of The Young Writers Initiative, a nonprofit that provides resources for aspiring authors to improve their craft and advance their career. They wanted to recruit me to be a mentor for freelancing for their upcoming summer internship program. I had just woken up then and had to rub the sleep from my eyes to read it properly. Apparently, I was recommended by a connection (hi, Srilekha!) who took my sample works as an obvious display of my credibility in the field. Given that this sounded like an exciting opportunity, I immediately agreed. Everything happened at a pretty fast pace after that, as I got swept up in the process of selecting a mentee and figuring out what I could possibly teach them. I guess I didn’t find the time to process what exactly was going on, and what it meant for me as a writer.

It didn’t take long for the impostor syndrome to hit. And quite hard, if I may add. I was due for an interview with Madison, one of my fellow TYWI mentors and I had scanned the questions she sent me. Though I clearly knew what advice I would give to aspiring freelance writers, or had a routine in mind that allowed me to balance all my existing priorities, my hands felt like they were loaded with cement. I could barely type on the document before me. I must have had a staring contest with my taunting cursor for an hour.

I mean, maybe I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t have the right to say them. After all, whatever I knew, I borrowed from someone else - perhaps an actual authority in the field. Wasn’t I just some girl who got lucky during the quarantine? While the current state of the world forced everyone into stagnancy, I coped best with the help of the written word. Had everyone else been under the same circumstances, I wouldn’t be in my current situation. Needless to say, when the actual feature came out, I spiraled. 

I wish I could claim that I only had to do x and y for the storm cloud above my head to go away. But as controversial as it sounds, I maintain that no writer fully gets rid of impostor syndrome. In fact, let me widen the scope of my statement: no creative can do it. I have never known anybody with both an inclination toward the arts and a strong sense of confidence. It’s like our limitless imagination only raises the already impossibly high standards we hold ourselves against. We never really think highly of ourselves to begin with, so when we meet a goal, achieve something we’ve only ever dreamt of, we bring ourselves down. We invalidate our hard work and dismiss it as an act of charity by the karmic forces of the universe.

Thankfully, I have an amazing support system: my immediate family members and closest friends, always ready to offer reassurance when it’s scarce (hold on, I got these intense Economics war flashbacks GOD). I seriously don’t know where I’d be without them. Actually, I do know. Probably wallowing in pools of self-deprecation. I think I would’ve ended up chickening out of new opportunities on the sole basis of my self-imposed inexperience. My loved ones were the quickest to remind me that I was only a beginner in freelancing but I had been writing since I learned how to grip a pen in my hand. I have prepared for this all my life and I was finally reaping the fruits of my labor. Who was I to shy away from the blessings that were so generously being lavished upon me?

In fact, just a few hours ago, I bagged two very exciting contributor roles for organizations that I admire very deeply. I have several pitches in the pipeline as of now, which I absolutely cannot wait to bring to life and share with you guys. As far-fetched as this sounds, this is only the beginning for me. I am so grateful to everyone who has believed in me, read my work (or even a mere paragraph of it because I know how underappreciated the written word can be these days), and left encouraging comments. 

WIshing you nothing but love and light always, always, always,

Angel

[emmatrustsno-one]

Brace yourselves A very long essay (like, a thesis) on the British class system with references to Harry Potter Part 1

OK, I did this already. It’s long, but stick with it anyway. And watch the videos.

In Britain, people are broadly split into 3 social groups: working-class, middle-class and upper-class. The factors which determine which class you belong to are varied and complex, but in a nutshell include: how wealthy you are, where you live (location and type of dwelling), what variety of English you speak (or whether you speak English), what level of education you have, what you do for a job, what you do in your free-time, who you are friends with, what you like and dislike, your political views and affiliation, the nature and number of the opportunities you have in life and, in some ways the most important of all, which family you belong to, how far you can trace your ancestors back through history and what those ancestors did and who they were.

Although people who fall into the following categories are often working-class because our society, like any other country’s, is still trying to eradicate prejudice, these categories are not factors in and of themselves: race, nationality, religion, disabilities, gender and sexuality.

 It is not the case that people’s class is constantly mentioned or even at the forefront of one’s mind, nor does it harmfully imply natural divide in the way that, for example, the caste system in India does. Class is subtle, nuanced, exists unchallenged and often doesn’t occur to you as the cause of a problem unless you really go looking deeply for it. It is undoubtedly damaging, however. Your class determines your path in life. It determines where you will live, how much money you will have, what education you will be able to access, what job you will be able to do, who you will be able to socialise and have relationships with and what opportunities you will have access to.

It is impossible to outline concisely but accurately exactly what sort of person is in which class. I will aim to do my best here, with references to Harry Potter, since I want fans who aren’t British to be able to understand these nuanced class subtleties better.

A very crude, basic description is that working-class people do “unskilled” jobs, usually for minimum wage and earn just money enough to exist; middle-class people have professional jobs, an education higher than secondary school and earn enough money to live comfortably and buy things they want as well as things they need; upper-class people belong to certain families who can trace their ancestry back a long way and are usually very wealthy and often related to the royal family. Their lifestyles are often funded by taxpayers’ money.

An overview

It is already complex enough, but it gets even more murky. For one thing, there are layers within the classes. You can be lower or higher within your class and the terms “lower middle-class” and “upper middle-class” are very common. Where you come on these inter-class continuums affects your life just as much as which class you are in.

Secondly, there are also two distinct groups who don’t fit in to the three classes. 1) very wealthy people, usually celebrities, who are super-rich but come from lower class backgrounds. A great example of this is the Beckhams. They are so rich from his football career and her music career that he had his wages paid directly to charity in the latter half of his career. They live lavishly, spend a fortune on designer clothes and their wedding was an imitation of a royal wedding. However, they spent years being mocked for seeming stupid and uncouth and it was all because of one thing: how they sound. As soon as they speak, you can hear that they started life near the bottom of the social ladder. I will do a separate post about language and voice at some point. Here’s a clip from an impressions show.

2) an “under-class” who lives on state welfare benefits and doesn’t work. These people tend to not have enough money for their needs and their chances and aspirations in life are extremely limited. People in this category range from those unable to work through disability to drug addicts to genuinely unpleasant people who would rather take hand-outs from the government than contribute to society. The right-wing media portrays them as lazy, worthless and a blight; the left-wing media portrays them as misrepresented people who have been failed by society. The truth is in the middle.

Thirdly, unlike upper-class, what constitutes “working-class” and “middle-class” are not fixed concepts. Rather, they are in a state of constant flux and progression. What those terms meant when I was a child and Harry Potter was being written are not the same as they mean now, nor were they the same as when my parents or grandparents were children. It changes slightly with every generation. Nowadays, the middle-class is much bigger than it was then. Efforts have been made to get working-class children to go to university and some do, meaning that more people are moving into the middle-class. We are more aware of class prejudice than we used to be and many people do try to avoid it, therefore options have opened up for working-class people and allowed them to access things they couldn’t before. The technological revolution has made a huge difference. The internet allows people to travel everywhere and find anything from their own sitting room and has given some people aspirations they wouldn’t have had before.

Conversely, the definitions of ‘working-class’ have broadened. Many people now consider themselves working-class when, in my parents’ youth, they would have been middle-class due to the house or street they lived in or the fact that they manage to go on holiday every year. The two lower classes are definitely more mixed than before and the lines between them are blurring. I guarantee someone younger than me will read this and think “I consider myself working-class but I have never had any of the experiences OP describes”. Another thing which has made a huge difference is the collapse of British industry. In the 80s and 90s, the majority of the working-class worked in factories or similar industrial businesses. Then the powers that be closed them all and sold production to firms abroad who could make things more cheaply, and unemployment boomed. Literally, cities just died. Some people eventually got different jobs, though jobs where their skills were undervalued, and which alienated them from their work value. Many people didn’t. Many people had to live off state welfare benefits, which were not adequate and somehow out of that, that “under-class” I mentioned was born. Many of the people who choose to live off the state are people whose families lost their livelihoods at that time and ended up broken; just gave up.

Linked to that, another factor which makes it all quite complex is pride. Those people (the film The Full Monty is all about this btw) were proud of what they did with their skills and then they were just thrown away like they were nothing. They lost their pride and many never got it back. Working-class people, in particular, tend to be fiercely proud of being working-class. I won’t comment on the psychology of that here, but to illustrate: my husband won’t have it that he is middle-class now. He is. His argument is that he has to work, but that’s a huge over-simplification of what “working-class” means. He can afford holidays abroad and organic food, he lives in a detached house in the countryside, he owns 3 houses which he rents out to tenants (and they are kept to a very high standard). He is without a doubt middle-class. A teacher at school once claimed he was working-class for the same reason, and a lecturer at university did, but it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what it really means to be working-class. There’s a good book about going back to your roots called Pies and Prejudice by the radio DJ Stuart Maconie, who is northern working-class originally but now lives a privileged life in London. He was inspired to write it when he had a friend over for lunch one day and they asked where the sun-dried tomatoes were, and he replied that they were by the cappuccino maker. Such ludicrously posh items made him stop in his tracks and think “what the hell has happened to me?”

Lastly, it is possible to move both within your class and to another class. This is called social mobility. I, for example, grew up almost at the bottom of the working-class. I lived in a very deprived area, had few opportunities and my family had only just enough money to subsist. I am now technically lower middle-class. I now live in a detached house in a sought-after village, I do a professional job, I have enough money to buy more things than just those I need and I am educated to postgraduate level. However, moving up a class is extremely difficult and many people never manage it. Those who do always carry markers of not quite fully belonging there, such as accent, vocabulary, etiquette etc. I have managed it, in short, because I am intelligent enough to have won scholarships for university, because my immediate family are also intelligent and exposed me, as much as possible, to other cultures, and because I married a builder whose parents had moved up the social ladder a little and gave him some land to build a house on. It is mostly down to luck and chance.

Sometimes people are very sensitive about their class and worry about it; sometimes British people themselves are not fully aware of it all. Such people are usually (and this is not meant nastily): middle-class from birth, therefore comfortable enough not to have thought much about it, or younger than early 20s, therefore they haven’t experienced and analysed hindrances arising from their class or had a university education where they would learn more about it. Very young people might have even more trouble getting their heads around it because of sheer lack of world experience and the modern world: it’s not quite the same as it used to be since the internet took over, since that brings opportunities to everyone that lower-class people might not have had before the turn of the century.

The reasons for class and the role of history

The reasons why this class system exists are even more complex. Keeping it brief, there are two key factors. 1. to maintain power for a privileged few and ensure the populace doesn’t try to take that power (people are too busy, pre-occupied and uneducated to challenge it). 2. historical influence: we used to have a feudal system where serfs worked the land for rich land-owners in exchange for living on it. During the Industrial Revolution some people managed to gain capital and power through production and factory ownership. They became the middle-class. This has evolved into what we have today.

The importance of the influence of the feudal system cannot be overstated if people are to grasp why race isn’t as critical a social issue here as it is in the USA. The USA is still recovering from Slavery, by which I mean the historical, slave trade triangle event, not the concept of enslavement. A major part of that country’s history is brutally, sickeningly forcing people who aren’t white to do the manual toil on US shores that kept privileged people in their positions of power. Racism and racist slurs equate to supporting slavery. Britain has a different history. Whilst we played an awful role in the slave trade, we didn’t have slave plantations on our shores. It wasn’t coloured people who did the toil. It was the working-class. For centuries the working-class were forced, at times with as much violence and as little food and rest as African slaves endured in the Americas, to do back-breaking work all day without a break, simply to have a place to shelter and some food. Under the feudal system this meant in the fields and during the Industrial Revolution it meant in dirty, dangerous factories. The working-class was, and to some extent still is, enslaved. That doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist here or that it’s not despicable. It does and is. But it doesn’t have the same connotations. Slurs about class, however, DO have those connotations. Here, making nasty comments about, or looking down your nose at, working-class people equates to supporting slavery, albeit more subtly than racism equates to supporting slavery in the US. Disparaging comments about the working-class are a bit like, for example, calling a black man “boy” in the US. But because a) it is more subtle and b) much longer has passed since we had the feudal system and the Industrial Revolution than has passed since America had slavery, class slurs in Britain are less emotive, emotionally-charged and offensive than racial slurs in America.

What makes you upper-class?

I mentioned that ancestry plays a huge role in determining class. I also mentioned that there is social mobility (moving up to a higher class or even down to a lower one). There are certain families who can trace their ancestry back centuries and are descended from royals and rich land-owners. That means that certain surnames and bloodlines are prestigious. These people form the upper-class.

It is very unusual for upper-class people to mix with working or middle-class people. I, for example, have only met one upper-class person in my life. They go to different schools from the rest of us and do different things socially. For this reason, upper-class people tend to marry other upper-class people, in fact most would frown upon anyone who did otherwise. Because it’s all about family status, marriage would be the only real way you could move up to upper-class, but it’s practically unheard of. You are born into the upper-class. If you inherit the surname, you inherit the status that goes with it, regardless of any other factors. For this reason, upper-class families tend to be ‘pure’. Here is a newspaper article illustrating my point. The comments are also interesting. It’s from a popular right-wing paper.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2838183/How-having-right-surname-sets-LIFE-ancestors-social-status-determines-rich-ll-study-claims.html

Another illustration: when Prince William married Kate Middleton, whose family are crazily rich, the media and nation went into a frenzy over the fact that he was marrying “a commoner”. They used that exact word. Kate’s family became wealthy during the Industrial Revolution and she, her siblings, her father, grandfather and great-grandfather all attended expensive, prestigious public schools. Her family is incredibly wealthy, has the best opportunities available and were friends of the royals for decades before she met William. Nevertheless it was huge news for her to marry William. Why? Because she wasn’t upper-class. Despite the privileged life she led, despite her family’s centuries of wealth, she didn’t have the name or the blood to be considered upper-class. It all comes down to family status. In crude terms, William married below him, and they were very lucky that it wasn’t a scandal. Some people were offended by it, in fact. Remember that in the 1930s Edward VIII had to abdicate in order to marry “a commoner”. To most people “a commoner” is someone normal, but here it is someone who doesn’t have the name or blood of a small, select group of families. It’s also interesting to note that she is rarely called ‘Kate’ by the media since joining the upper-class, but rather her full name ‘Kathrine’.

Two things out of this: firstly, don’t fall into the trap of assuming being upper-class doesn’t affect your life negatively. The lower-classes have worse struggles, but it would be wrong not to appreciate the difficulties associated with being upper-class. The expectations of you, the responsibility you have to your name, limitations on who you are allowed to socialise with and love, constant media and public attention and pressure to be someone important. It is exactly these issues which led Prince Harry to have a troubled youth.

Secondly, it is because of all this that many people feel it is incorrect to view death eaters in Harry Potter as a metaphor for Nazis. They are really a metaphor for the ‘pure-blood’ upper-class families. They do not round people up and exterminate them. They use power and influence to gain more power and to subjugate those they see as inferior because they do not share their names or blood. They do not base their ideologies on pseudoscientific claims about appearance, like phrenology. They base it on inherited blood. To highlight the fact of the class metaphor even further – there is a way to become effectively upper-class without being born or married into it. It is a lesser upper-class, because you don’t have the family name or blood, but you still become a de facto nobleman. The way is to become a Lord. You can google how to do it in the real world if you’re interested, but clearly the key point is that Tom Riddle’s adoption of the title Lord represents the change in his class. He does it because he knows he has upper-class blood but can’t prove it, so he has to indicate his status another way.

Why is Harry Potter about class?

The three blood statuses of wizards equate to the three classes: muggle born = lowest-class (working-class in the real world), half-blood = middle-class and pure-blood = upper-class.

It is because of this that the word “mudblood” is not the slur many people take it to be. It is not the wizarding version of the N word. It is not as offensive as that. It is offensive, yes, but it is not an unforgivable utterance which betrays inherent racism. The fact that the characters are prepared to repeat it when reporting it has been said shows that it is not comparable. I can’t even think the N word. If I think about it I don’t say it, in my mind I literally say “the N word”. Both characters and fans are prepared to say “mudblood”. It is not the same.

 The fact that Voldemort and Snape are high-ranking death eaters also proves the story is not a metaphor for racial aggression: they are half-bloods and Snape comes from a working-class background and yet they have moved from their groups to be prominent members of the highest group. They have moved from lower classes to upper classes. It hasn’t happened by marriage like in the real world and it was very difficult – they had to be great wizards to manage it. But they did manage it. It is not possible to change your race, but you can change your class. Therefore, the wizarding war is a metaphor for class struggles not racial struggles, therefore “mudblood” is a nasty way of saying “commoner”. If you have dirty blood you aren’t part of the pure, select group. You don’t belong to the wizard upper-class. People shouldn’t say “mudblood” because it implies inferiority and enslavement, but if you do say it you are not racist, it isn’t the same as being racist, and isn’t as offensive or as unforgivable. It’s only slightly more offensive than saying “chav” or “ned” in a nasty tone of voice.

So it would be great if people could stop calling Snape a racist based on him saying “mudblood” one time as a teenager under extreme stress.

This all also explains why joining the death eaters was attractive to half-blood, working-class Snape in his youth and why JKR said he did it because he thought it would give him power and impress Lily. Those people who are confused because Lily wouldn’t be impressed by his joining the wizard Nazis – this is the answer. It’s because he wasn’t joining the wizard Nazis, he was joining the wizard upper-class.

Real class-based insults

A quick note on terminology – “chav”, or “ned” in Scotland, means a similar thing to “white trash”, but anyone can be a chav/ned, regardless of skin colour. The opposite of that insult is “toff”, which means upper-class and posh, but it’s negative. Here’s a picture of fictional chavs from the comedy TV series Little Britain.

Here are some comedy clips of some chavs interacting with the higher classes. You might not make all of it out, especially if English isn’t your first language, because working-class people generally speak with strong regional accents and use dialects (this couple are from London). You will probably notice though, bits where you can understand it much better – that’s because they are switching into “proper English”, or their version of it.

These vocab tips might help you out:

‘to have it off’ means to ‘to have sex’ as well as simply turning something off

‘winalot’ is a dog food brand; ‘camelot’ is the national lottery organisation

‘giro’ means welfare cheque

Education and class

In general, working-class people go to state-maintained schools.  These vary enormously in quality, mostly in terms of what resources and  spaces can be bought and built for the budget the government gives them.  Middle-class people normally go to these schools too, though a substantial  number go to grammar schools, which are state schools that you have to pass a  test to go to when you are 10/11, or private schools, which are schools  independent of the state which charge fees and can be boarding schools. Both  of these have good sites and resources and get good results.

Upper-middle class and upper-class people go to public schools, which  is another level of private school. They are incredibly expensive, very old, boarding schools which select students based on who they are, as in, what family they belong to, and how much money they have. Teaching and the content  of lessons is similar across all three types of schools; the difference is in  funding – what the school can afford to offer in terms of books, experiences, classrooms, class sizes etc. Having a public school on your CV basically guarantees you entry to any university.

Private and public schools get good exam results because of their facilities and the fact that the students’ families are educated and encourage (or pressure) them to achieve highly. State secondary schools get mixed results because their facilities and resources are not adequate and many working-class families don’t value academic achievement, so don’t encourage it. A lot of students are unable to cope with the level of critical analysis required to succeed at A-Level (qualification at 18 years old) because independent thinking and reading non-fiction hasn’t been encouraged at home. I left school without finishing my A-Levels because I found that too difficult and had to build up my abilities gradually until I was able to handle that level.

The top universities now have to release data showing they are trying to admit students from working-class backgrounds, but nevertheless attendance by working-class kids at top universities like Oxford and Cambridge is low, because those universities demand things working-class kids don’t have: varied extra-curricular activities, the ability to pass an entrance exam, a proven track record of independent enquiry, enough money to pay double the fees most universities charge, the etiquette (e.g. dining manners) required to interact with all the upper-class kids etc. This is a poor state of affairs and denies working-class students access to ground-breaking research and thinkers. The bigger issue, however, is that it keeps them away from power. All the influential people: politicians, big businessmen, investors, lawyers etc, go to the same few universities. They meet there, get to know each other through secretive clubs (google the Bullingdon Club for more info) and this enables them to network and make contacts, which they use later in life. Working-class people never get those contacts, therefore find it almost  impossible to get any power.

To demonstrate the prejudice, an anecdote:

My friend Claire is middle-class and went to a grammar school. She got As in her A-Levels and went to Cambridge University. On the first day she met the people who would be on her course as well. Every single one of them  had gone to private or public school. When she told them which school she had come from, they said, with what they believed was genuine praise and kindness, “wow, you’ve done really well to manage to get As and get into Cambridge considering where you’ve come from”. She isn’t even working-class. She had led a pretty privileged life. Yet they were astounded and condescending towards her. They viewed her achievement of coming from a middle-class grammar school with good exam results the way many of us view Malala’s success and entrance to university after her experiences in the Swat Valley. They were, like many people of that class, totally disconnected from popular reality.

This leads me to the defence of another Slytherin: Slughorn. Some people view him as racist because of his comment that Lily’s academic success was even more impressive since she was a muggle-born. As I have shown already, blood status in HP is a metaphor for class struggles not for racial  tensions, so it is not correct that he is racist. In fact, he was doing what those people on Claire’s course were doing: expressing shock that someone from the (wizard) working-class could achieve so highly in academia. It’s inherent prejudice, it’s patronising, yes. But it’s not racist, and it is even well-intentioned.

Another point to mention here is access to knowledge outside the content of lessons. That has improved a lot with the internet, but still, access to books is limited. A few years ago the government started talking about closing some libraries and it caused an uproar. Without libraries, most working-class people would have very limited access to books. It is yet another case of failing to understand that most people do not have the privileges they do, as well as desiring to limit the extent to which the working-class can get an education, so as to keep them in their place.

Personal hygiene and class

This issue is very close to my heart because as a child I had very poor personal hygiene and I was bullied terribly for it. It is not a nice thing to have to admit, but some working-class people don’t have brilliant personal hygiene. It isn’t unusual for very low-class people to smell, have bad teeth, not change their clothes regularly, rarely change their bed sheets and not to wash every day. To take myself as an example first, when I was little I was not bathed regularly, nor was I made to clean my teeth. I hate saying this, because I know it’s horrible, and believe me I am OCD with washing now, but when I was a child I went weeks without a bath or a change of clothes. We didn’t have a shower. It was neglect, there’s no way around it. However, it wasn’t malicious. In my parents’ generation and before them, it was normal not to wash very often if you were working-class. These days, hygiene practises amongst the working-class are much much better, but even still you do even now get smelly, dirty people.

It wasn’t just me. In my year (grade) alone at secondary school there were three students who were showered at school by the matron (in a kind way) because they didn’t wash at home.

Why? Well obviously that is complex, but I’ll try to explain. It is absolutely linked to being working-class. For a start, facilities were a problem because of poverty. When I was born (1985) we didn’t have a bath or shower, our bathroom was just a toilet. We also didn’t have a washing machine. We just couldn’t afford those things. To use a bath we had to go to my grandparents’ house. When I was a few years old we got a tin bath, which is like an unconnected bathtub that you fill with jugs. We didn’t have much money for water and soap though so use of it was limited. My mother washed clothes in it as well by hand. When I was around 5 or 6 we got a proper bath. However, our house was so cold that it was physically painful to use it. We didn’t have any heating except for an open fire in the living room and this was the north of England I’m talking about. In winter the bed sheets got damp from the cold. When we had the tin bath you could put it in front of the fire, but the plumbed in bath was upstairs in a bathroom. My dad braved it more often than my mum, and since I was little I didn’t bath myself. Those three students that got showered at school I mentioned did so because even by the late 90s, they still didn’t have a bath or shower at home.

Another reason is lack of education. People just aren’t taught about personal hygiene at school, so if they don’t already know at home you won’t find out either.

On top of that, many working-class people are too busy or pre-occupied to remember about or find time for things like washing. They work long hours, often multiple jobs, and when you aren’t sure if you’ve got enough money to eat, getting washed just doesn’t seem that important.

Another factor is depression. Living in poverty, working hard just to survive, knowing you have little opportunity in life creates depression. Depressed people can lose interest in things like personal hygiene.

Not washing is so ingrained in working-class history that the phrase “the great unwashed”, originally a term used by Victorian authors, is now a reasonably common way of referring to the masses. It is used both derogatorily and ironically:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/the-great-unwashed

I was bullied terribly, especially at primary school, for being smelly and dirty. It was constant, day in, day out, and is definitely the reason I am now over-the-top in cleanliness. One of the main things people made fun of was my hair. I was bullied for having greasy hair to the extent that, on a school trip where we were staying overnight, 2 girls that I was forced to share a room with, having tortured me for hours, including ruining my shoes, said they would stop it if I washed my hair.

I understand that some people say cruel things when they are young, but the fact remains that if you choose to make fun of someone because they are dirty or greasy or smelly, you are actually making fun of them for being poor, not having basic facilities at home, not having been taught proper personal hygiene because their parents didn’t know or were too busy or depressed. You are behaving like you are socially superior to them.

This is obviously the main reason why I love Snape. I immediately saw myself in him, and every time someone mentions his greasy hair it alludes to his working-class childhood. When he joined the death eaters he moved up the ladder, but the disadvantaged start he had in life is still written all over him. It is also why I love Slytherin – the house is populated mostly by pure-bloods, or in other words by upper-class people, and yet they embrace him and allow him social mobility anyway. They looked at him and saw something other than his class.

It’s not just about wealth

Since membership of the upper-class is brought about through ancestry, it is possible to be upper-class and not rich. Most upper-class people are descended from rich people and have inherited wealth alongside their name and blood, but occasionally there’s a family whose ancestors lost most of the money, so they are left with just a title and the estate (house and land). It costs a lot of money to run an upper-class house because they are invariably old, listed, castle-y buildings in the countryside.  That means they are big and cold and cost a fortune to heat. Stuff breaks or wears out so the maintenance costs a fortune as well. They might be so big that they need staff as it’s too much for just the family to keep on top of, so there are wages to pay too. On top of that, they try to live an upper-class lifestyle to keep up appearances, which is very expensive. A good few years ago now there was a documentary called The Fucking Fulfords, about an upper-class family who couldn’t afford their lifestyle or house and swore all the time. Even though they weren’t wealthy they didn’t get jobs, largely because they had been brought up to believe it was beneath them, and as a result they are lazy fucks. It’s on youtube if you want to watch it.

Lazy is not the only stereotype of the upper-class. There are quite a few, all based in fact, such as that they are eccentric and strange. Fulford is definitely that. Another is that they are stupid. Since they don’t understand life in the same way as regular people, because they don’t have jobs, some things they don’t know are astonishing. There was a reality TV series years ago where this entitled, upper-class girl did working-class, minimum wage jobs, and it was painful to watch. She didn’t know how to do basic tasks like make a cup of tea, because she never did anything for herself at home. She didn’t know what a gas bill was. A lot of these people barely wipe their own arses so it’s no wonder they appear incapable. The Monty Python sketch “twit of the year” utilises that stereotype to make fun of the upper-class. It also pokes fun at the stereotype of having ridiculous multiple-barrelled surnames. My husband does building work for an upper-class family occasionally and the woman’s surname is Booth-Clibburn-Shimmins. The Pythons are doing that thing with their faces because yet another stereotype is that upper-class people talk weird.

[faithfulnews]

Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about spending, saving and charity

Bible study that hits the spot

A practical lecture on money – spending, saving, charitable giving – from famous pastor Wayne Grudem.

I like the way that Wayne Grudem navigates the Bible finding the passages that tell you who God is, so that you can make better decisions by analyzing alternatives and choosing the one that gives your Boss a maximum return on investment. He’s very practical.

The MP3 file is here.

The PDF outline is here.

Spending:

Christianity does not teach asceticism (= don’t enjoy anything in this world), Paul condemns it in 1 Timothy 4:1-5

When you buy nice things, even if it is a little more expensive, it’s an opportunity to be thankful for nice things that God has provided

Even being rich is OK, but don’t let it make you haughty and arrogant, and don’t set your hopes on your money (see 1 Tim 6:17)

It is important for you to earn money, and you are supposed to use it to support yourself and be independent

It is possible to overspend and live recklessly (Luke 15:13) and it’s also possible to overspend and live too luxuriously

Increasing your income through career progression is wise, because it allows you to give away more and save more

God gives us freedom to decide how much we spend, how much we give away, and how much we save

every choice a Christian makes with money will give him or her more or less reward in his or her afterlife

Do not spend more than you have – you should make every effort to get out of debt as quickly as possible

Saving:

Saving money is wise so you can help yourself and others, and have money in your old age when you will not be working

If you do not save your own money, you end up being dependent on others (e.g. – family or taxpayers)

Not saving money for the future is a way of “putting God to the test” (Matt 4:7)

You are to “be dependent on no one”, to the extent that you can (1 Thes 4:12)

We don’t know the future, that’s why we should prepare for an emergency, and buy insurance to guard (James 4:13-17)

It’s right for us to learn how to save to be able to buy bigger assets, like a car or a college education

Saving and investing in stocks and bonds lets people in business start and grow companies, creating jobs and new products

Don’t over-save, trusting too much in money more than you trust in God (Ps 62.10; Matt 6:19,24; Luke 12:15-21)

Giving:

it is required for the people of God to give something out of what they earn, but no percentage is specified (Deut 26:12-13)

you do not give money to become right with God, you can’t earn your salvation

a Christian gives to show God that you trust him to take care of you, and to experience trusting him through your giving

the quality of your resurrection life with God is affected by giving you do for the Kingdom (Phil 4, Matt 6:19-21; 1 Tim 6:18-19)

when you get involved in the lives of others and give to them, you have the joy of experiencing caring for others (Acts 20:35)

it’s possible to give too little, but it’s also possible to give too much – be careful about pride creeping in as well

The first part of this lecture made me think of my treat for the week, which is to get a double chicken burrito bowl after my weight lifting. It is very easy to say grace when you are hovering over a double chicken burrito bowl. It is good to have nice things especially when it makes you thankful for what you have.

I was so happy listening to this talk because he was condemning bad stewardship, which I see in a lot of young people these days. I was happy until he got to the part about trusting in your savings for your security, and then I thought – that’s what I do wrong! I save a lot but it’s not just for emergencies and to share with others, like he was saying – I want a sense of security. This was more of a temptation in my 20s than it is now in my 30s, though.

Charity should hurt

I can remember being in my first full-time job as a newly hired junior programmer when the 2001 recession struck. I would cry while signing checks to support William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith ministry, because I was so scared. I had no family or friends where I lived to help me if anything went wrong, and that’s been the story of my working life. If anything goes wrong, there is no backup. But it’s that experience of crying when I gave that allows me to say today “that’s when I became the man I am, that’s what a man does when he is a follower of Jesus”. If you are not doing the actions of charity, then you will not having the experience of trusting God and letting him lead you. There is more to the Christian life than just saying the right things – you have to do the right things.

Don’t follow your heart

If you’re scared about giving when you are young, then do what I did in my 20s: work 70-hour weeks, get promoted often, and save everything you earn. I volunteered every Saturday for 9 months in order to get my first white-collar part-time job when I was still in high-school. The faster you increase your savings, the easier it’s going to be to take a genuine interest in caring for the people around you. Read Phil 1 (fellowship), Phil 2 (concern for others), and Phil 4 (charity). Turn off your emotions and desires when it comes to choosing what to study and what work to do, and put Philippians into practice. Your freedom to give is very much tied to the quality of your decisions of what to study, where to work, how much you spend on entertainment, and so on. That’s why you need to turn off your feelings and desires and do what works, even it it’s not fun, and even if it involves responsibilities, expectations and obligations.

Go to the article

[thecurlysafari]

What lay behind the Door

My post regarding Knocking on the Door of Development was almost my love letter to the career field and lifestyle I have chosen, or more-so, walked, as often its as though the path chose me. 

As illustrated previously, I’ve spent my adult life genuinely knocking on this illustrious door. How could I ensure that my 7.5 or 12 hours of a working day was spent genuinely working towards reducing poverty, injustice, inequality? How could my job description contain objectives that empowered people, collaborated with those in poverty, facilitated participatory methods into people shaping their realities, futures and lives. Aka, when can I work in International Development?! 

My reflections for what lay behind the Door are as follows:

1. I had stepped through the Door many moons ago. From the time I was 20 years old, leading volunteers to raise funds and work in partnerships with grassroots projects across Kenya. Or the time I was 24 managing 24 adults in a rural Zambian town on a DFID funded project. Let alone the expeditions and projects I designed with superheroes across villages and slums in Kenya. From setting up a society or social enterprise, to governance, managing volunteers, designing training, creating a brand, editing videos, social media strategies to managing the programme aims and impact. 

This is what ‘Development’ was all along. Real people in disadvantaged marginalized, vulnerable environments and the people and projects working to support, help, empower. 

But because I only held a stipend or used my own funds, this wasn’t Development? Because my job title was not with huge INGO’s like Save the Children or UNICEF, I wasn’t in Development? 

So my first reflection is that I knew all along how it felt behind that Door, but the realisation didnt come into my consciousness until recently. 

How many of us are chasing the stars, ambitious, goal oriented and focused on that next step, that next role or opportunity, that next moment to level up? Well I know so many that are and all whom in some way or another achieve such in their own way in their own time. But something I failed to do was keep my feet on the ground whilst my head was in the sky. How I often didn’t marry the grounding and gratitude with the goals. Ultimately, I was chasing something I had already experienced and worked so hard at, but as it didnt look or categorise the way I thought it should, I overlooked its very significance and presence. Being present, honest and inward is something that can enable each of us to appreciate the work we currently do and the impact it currently creates. Being kind and honest reduces the silly emphasis on ‘should’ and replaces with ‘is’.

2. Behind the Door = Work!

Brendon Burchard is one of my favourite speakers, authors and trainers. His words are poetic and incredibly uplifting to me, with his truly beautiful ability to shape ideas and move me with his words. It is he who coins this famous phrase:

‘Behind the door of opportunity is work!’

Obvious? Not so much. It is one of those classic life cliches that seem so obvious, but one that doesn’t necessarily resonate until we are faced with that truth. 

I was faced with this truth almost this time last year, when July onwards my daily work involved managing the in country operations of a grassroots charity across two countries, delivering humanitarian aid to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers weekly. 

Now, any job I have worked since graduating with my BscEcon in 2011 has been hard work! Crazy hours. Vulnerable groups. Difficult but exciting roles. 

But until I was faced with full day to day responsibility of this level of aid, support and a role...I didn’t realise the magnitude of what lay behind this door. 

It’s one thing to work endlessly, tirelessly, have huge targets to reach, limited time, constantly evolving roles and responsibilities...whichever sector. 

But- what does work look like when your targets involved keeping people physically alive after a police clearance in the thick of winter? Or stretching aid to reach the most vulnerable out of everyone who is homeless, cold, tired and desperate? When I’m balancing the safety of volunteers lives with the delivery of effective support to hundreds of people at a time. 

Knocking on a Door and having ambition and drive is the fire to keep the soul and spirit alight. Through work, passion, art, love, focus, curiosity in work and life, we live fully and purposefully. Yet, in chasing the sunlight, in knocking on that door, be ready for what is to come. Getting the person, job, gig, contract or opportunity brings both a fantastic sense of joy, pride, satisfaction. But my word does it also bring about an incredible amount of work! The ability, knowledge and skillset acquired to live out those goals and dreams are far more than you can often anticipate. Yet so is the magnificent capability and potential you already have withing you to honour this.

3. Curiosity leads to beauty 

To be in a certain place in your life and aim for something different elevates you or moves you into new places, discovering new parts of who you are, hobbies or interests, people, experiences, new loves or passions. Without such we stay still. Stuck. Sure, we also stay secure and stable as we simmer by, contented and present. 

And at times how I envy those who live this way. This simpler way. Same job, friends, home, holiday spots, foods, habits, hobbies. But, curiosity doesn’t have to mean quitting your job, relinquishing your life of responsibilities, shaving your head and moving to Bali.

Curiosity can be picking up a paintbrush for the first time and attempting a new skill. Going to a new class, visiting a new place, meeting new people. To act on curiosity brings in new life and joy. 

I, though, have been incredibly fortunate to meet, work and co-create with the curious of this world. The friends who created businesses and charities, touring the World, spreading light and impact. The Chief Execs moved by a cause and working tirelessly to address this. In my work, this is all I’ve known. Jobs, projects, charities, events, creations, all birthed from curiosity. All constant moving parts. 

Knocking on doors of opportunity invite this curiosity into your life. Professionally acting on an idea, starting a new project or taking on a new level or role, activates a new excitement and can ultimately bring so much more. 

Knocking on the Door of Development led me to African countries full of colour, innovation and a lifetime of lessons. It led me to study more, grow in humility, become obsessed with developing myself further. The sector isn’t stagnate so neither can you be. A charity needs better social media so its time to learn social media strategies, trialing out tools and learning techniques. A project is focused on technical assistance so its time to upskill on curriculum. 

Accept that to seek and to knock is an act of courage. Sending the CV, working on your idea, sharing your talent with other, interviewing for something new, focusing on achieving something more...these acts of curiosity are brave and can ultimately lead to such beauty. Add a splash of colour, develop who you are, be brave in your wonder and the benefits outweigh it all. 

Working in International Development is the most humbling, challenging, heartbreaking and heartwarming thing I could think to do. A sector with brilliant minds, courageous people, complexities and challenge like no other. 

I was proud to step into the Door and continue my work, my efforts to partner, collaborate, move, shake, create, resolve. But on reflection, I am prouder to seek to knock in the first place. 

So, be daring enough to seek out a new Door to knock, be prepared with what’s to come behind the door, full of work and challenge but most importantly, be grateful and present enough to recognise your journey throughout it all. Navigating your way professionally is rife with expectation, challenge and stigma. But being curious, brave and daring to want to do more and be more; its the reason we have exciting companies, products and services. 

In my industry, having courage and being curious of a better World, is the reason global movements are set on combating poverty, abuse, injustice, climate change, health epidemics, political instabilities, exploitation and more. As long as as we live in a World where these things are rife, you better believe people like me will forever knock on these doors for the opportunities to continue fighting, moving, building and creating. 

If you believe in your vision, keep knocking. One day the door will open- and things will never be the same again.

[annashipper]

Ophie Hunter: the exclusive second lost interview

Interviewer: 3 years of complete silence and now 2 interviews in 2 weeks…

Rachel: For the record, I want it to be perfectly clear that it was not my idea to give this second interview so soon after the first one. I do not need to remind anyone, that I am a shy and private person, who strongly dislikes the spotlight and abhors self-promotion. You can’t even begin to imagine, how difficult it is for someone like me to come forward and be the center of attention again but I was strongly persuaded to do it.

Int: You were? By whom?

Ophie: I will name no names. It is sufficient to say that I received an angry and extremely menacing phone call from a well-known American film producer and film studio executive (he and his brother have been co-chairmen of their own production company, since 2005) you can call him Mr. W. Mr. W. shouted at me over the phone that in my previous interview I came off as “a self-important snob boasting of her refined tastes and worldliness through language” . I strongly disagree but he was most persistent, that I should retract the statements I made in my previous interview and clean my image.

Int: What was your immediate reaction to his phone call?

Ophie: The avant-garde artist in me immediately saw the potential opera and theatrical narrative of the individual in that phone call and created a moodboard which included the images of the 1781 oil painting “The Nightmare” by the Anglo- Swiss artist Henry Fuseli, and the bloody horse-head scene from the 1972 American crime film “The Godfather” directed by Francis Ford Coppola (based on Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel with the same name). The whole concept of a ‘mafia theatrical opera’ came to me as a vision and inspired what will be a wonderful work for the operatic stage. I will be seeking to develop a new kind of theatrical event reflecting and profoundly questioning the actualities of my way of looking at the world.

Int: Some people also accused you of being pretentious. Do you think there was some truth in those claims?

Rachel: Pretentious, moi? Don’t be ridiculous. Conflating “foreign”, “artistic”, “intelectual” with “pretence” as you do in the working classes is disquietingly parochial.

Int: Do you care to elaborate on that?

Rachel: People are always suspicious of the unconventional. Experimental literature, avant-garde performances, modernist art, or fashion design are only pretentious for you low and middle classes! I have never pursued these interests out of affectation! I have an art school degree and decades of experience as an Actress/Opera Director/Playwriter/Avant-Garde Artist/Model-Fashionista/Producer extraordinaire working in the field of Contemporary Art/Indie and Mainstream Cinema/Experimental Theater/Fashion/Opera, so you could say I’ve spent a life embedded in pretension. But you would be wrong.

Int: How is that?

Rachel: I am just one of the crowd really! I get on with my staff (when they do their jobs properly). My sense of sense of humour is very appreciated (amongst people who I have on payroll). I smile a lot and even genuinely (for the paparazzi). I have friends who can vouch just how my salt-of-the-earth credentials are. I am a very likable and emphatic person who is also involved in Charities.

Int: What Charities?

Rachel: I do not like to brag but I am most commited to help people to fulfill their hopes and dreams. Particularly my close relatives and friends because as mother says 'Charity begins at home’. Naturally, I understand the overriding demands of taking care of one’s family, before caring for others and I have dozens of close relatives, and friends - each one with his/her own ambitions, dreams- and as God is my witness, I will not rest until Bob helps each and everyone of them to find their way, their ambition and their success in this world!

Int: What were the other reactions to your first interview?

Ophie: As soon as the interview was out I received hundreds of notifications on my phone. Naturally I assumed that the interview had gone viral and I was receiving congratulations and accolades, instead you can imagine my surprise when all I got was worried and stressed messages from my interns reporting to me that I was receiving all sorts of negative reactions on social media. Among other surprising and unfair things, people were accusing me, ME of being a Diva that was putting on airs and graces.

Inter: How did you react to those accusations?

Ophie: I was very upset, obviously! I’ve never done one diva-ish thing in my life. Not a single one! I had a temper-tantrum, then calmed down, collected myself, flipped my hair and proceeded in firing all the members of my in-house staff- who were responsible for managing my online reputation and I left the stage, I mean the meeting room!

Int: You fired everybody? Wasn’t that a bit extreme?

Rachel: No it really wasn’t. My intern’s job’s descriptions were perfectly clear since day one: manage my name domain online, establish a clear, fleshed-out presence on multiple social networking sites, post to each of them at least once a week, blurr my husband��s face in all the photos where I, a celebrity in my own right, was endorsing high profile brands and products such as designer shoes and jewelry, fashion clothes and accessories- while simultaneously tagging his name in order to lure in his fandom, and most importantly keep monitoring the web (particularly the hateful so-called “Skeptics” blogs) for any unflattering photos or mentions of me. If they did find something negative or unflattering, they had clear orders to do everything in their power to bury them with positive content. They failed on all accounts.

Int: What happened next?

Ophie: My Media Team Management which included my Reputation Manager, my Press representative, my Public relations publicist, my Special publicity consultant, my Unit publicist and my Media Agent resigned in block allegedly because they were “extremely frustrated with me and particularly my perceived interference in the team’s affairs”. The truth was that they promised to make my preferred online profile float to the top of search results in order to boost my personal or corporate brand and instead due to their collective incompetence they failed to achieve my stated target of securing me a place in the Top Celebrities League.

Int: Did you feel people misunderstood you?

Rachel: Yes of course. I want people to understand- because Mr. W. was most insistent about this specific point- that I care hugely about my role. I care hugely about Bob. I care hugely about SM. I think Sunny March is a fantastic organisation full of people who just want to make a difference. I want people to know that I want to be a tool to Bob, SM and Mr. W- if they really enable me and my people to make a real difference in Bob’s career. I want Mr. W to know that I am extremly commited to help him on this long-term agenda, because I think that this is the opportunity of a life time, and I think I’ll probably look back over the last three years and say, that we helped each other a lot.

Int: Do you intend to give any more interviews in future?

WHM: In the immortal words of mother: Watch this space! You never know.

Int: Thank you Ophie!

Ophie: That’s Mrs. Cumberbatch for you! C-U-M-B-E-R-B-A-T-C-H

# cumber*atch # benedic*cumber*atch # lovingwifey # realcouplesarereal # realfamilies # ben*phie4eva # ijustwanttobefamous # 17yearsgoingon2weeksandcounting #hopeitlasts

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Anna:  After reading the above submission, I feel the need to be very clear:

This is not a real interview by Sophie Hunter.  I repeat.  NOT a real interview.

I just feel it’s imperative I make the distinction, because the snarky Anon who’s getting these imaginary exclusives has managed to capture Weirdo’s spirit so well, I half expect excerpts from it to end up on SHC as quotes.  Having said that, the interns who run SHC haven’t posted anything since the 4th of March, so perhaps I don’t need to be as vigilant...

[emmeiine]

I CAN HANDLE THIS, HAVE A GOOD DAY! EMMELINE VANCE / GRYFFINDOR ALUMNA / FC: PAULINA SINGER / TAKEN

PROMPT OO6. ORIGIN STORY

AFFILIATION : Order of the Phoenix

BLOOD STATUS : Pureblood

CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER’S FULL NAME : Emmeline Betty Vance.

The story behind her name isn’t a particularly emotional one nor a particularly fanciful one. She wasn’t planned, they hadn’t even brooked the thought of pregnancy and babies and all that came with them, the crying, the screaming, the clothes, toys, what they would do when she got older and grew taller, grew stronger. In fact, they hadn’t even come up with a name when she had arrived - she was Unnamed Baby Vance for weeks, the nickname ‘sweet baby girl’ substituted as her name. It was something that had caused her mothers family (the little known Wilkinson’s,) to slip into disarray, for even a small pureblood family as they were, they were meant to be prepared in all cases, for an heir. They eventually decided on Emmeline, an age old name that her mother had spied a novel by Charlotte Turner Smith. It was quickly shortened to ‘Line and Emme, and her middle name was decided on as a byproduct of her parents distinct fascination with muggle music - in particular, the American Jazz movement.

They had been to America a few times, even trying one of those muggle flying contraptions, as her father put it, and were practically in awe of the place. New York was one of their favourites, even after hearing stories of what had happened with the near complete shattering of the International Statute of Secrecy. One of their favourite artists was Betty Carter, ‘Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant’ lingered in the corridors of their small manor (more like a large house, if anything.) A few months after Emmeline became Emmeline, her new album, ‘Social Call’ arrived on their doorstep and they finally gave her a middle name. Emmeline Betty Vance was Christened in the December of 1956, a small affair in their extremely small village, where they were known for their oddities, and their dedication to making sure that they were there for people, even if they were known to hold no openly political views, when the town itself was small and utterly depraved of good representation in Parliament.

CHARACTER’S AGE / BIRTHDAY : 23 / August 19th, 1956.

Born in the middle of a storm at home, Emmeline Vance came into life three weeks early, a little underweight, but, otherwise perfectly healthy. She had a full head of hair, each and every toe and finger, tiny hand that cradled her mothers pinky finger. She cried, wails rising from her lips, and did not cease until the next evening. She didn’t settle, even then, only distracted for a short while by the bright burst of colour emerging from her fathers wand, who had sat rocking her for hours while her mother slept on, exhausted from the unpleasantness of childbirth. Each Birthday was celebrated with exuberance, muggle and wizard friends alike mixing on days that were striped with joy. She would get everything she asked for, with her father working as an Obliviator and mother an Unspeakable (both of whom retired after Emmeline’s 22nd birthday came around,) and tried not to take her life and family for granted. People were still sore, still healing, in their Northern Industrial town from the war, and the loss it brought with it.

OCCUPATION : Auror in training.

Emmeline, as a byproduct of being fearless and at the same time almost tyrannical, hadn’t lasted at a job for more than four months, before she signed up to become an Auror. It wasn’t the career she had planned, nor was it the dream job from her childhood. She had, originally, wanted to work far away from England, from the privileges of being pureblood and the downsides of being achingly friendly with muggles, which garnered some disdain from the Sacred 28. By her seventeenth and breaking of the Trace, Emmeline was sick of the Wizarding world and had decided to try her luck at muggle labour. She lasted two months at an export business before they received a complaint that she was overruling the manager (who had been wrong, but, they didn’t care.) Then, she worked in Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour for four months - she wasn’t bad at her job, she showed up on time, sold as many ice creams as she could, brought them to tables in a timely fashion. It just wasn’t what she was meant to do.

Eventually, Emmeline threw caution to the wind and signed up to Auror training a few days after her 21st birthday and many failed opportunities outside of the Ministry. By this point, she had already been picked up by the Order of the Phoenix, her logic and eagerness to fight useful to them. She was all brute force, all chaos, forgive but never forget, intimidation and unhampered fire, the flames that lick the surface, a hurricane of a girl with aggression and stark fearlessness. It got her the job, along with a sharp logic that challenged everybody around her to keep up with her. In her second year of training, nearing the final examination for Dark Magic Tracing, she has flexed her muscles at the Auror office more than she has anywhere else. She enjoys her job, enjoys living some form of a double life with Kingsley Shacklebolt as her mentor in both the Auror office and Order. She might appear to some as delicate, somewhat stately when she tries to be, but, she’s fire, resolute when she burns and consuming everything.

SHIPS / ANTI-SHIPS : Emmeline/Kingsley (this may end in DISASTER, but, the idea of it is so beautiful to me), Emmeline/Travers (because I’m here for THAT angst), Emmeline/Charity, Emmeline/Millicent, Emmeline/Chemistry. / Emmeline/Forced, Emmeline/No Chemistry.

As far as intimacy goes, Emmeline is no stranger to hook ups and short-lived relationships, warier of long-term relationships, believing they might shackle her down to a live she swore she would never to resign herself to. She’d watched muggle women go about their days, never talking of the bruises beneath their cotton blouses or the makeup that dances over the tender spots on their chin, and go home every day, never catching the small, weird girl from next door looking at them as if she knew their secrets. No topic ever makes her squirm, but, marriage is one thing that has always managed to come damn close. She’s been caught lookingbefore, with a less than carnal look on her face when she thought of being what her parents families thought a pureblood woman ought to be. The domestic life does appeal to her - the idea of being in love enthrals her, to some extent. She just won’t admit that she’s terrified of it - that it’s one of the only things she’s genuinely afraid of, that she needs someone and can’t decide if she wants someone.

It would be very interesting to approach Emmeline’s different relationships with people in the Order. Given her ability to be both unreliable and astoundingly logical, there is a neutral ground that tosses up possible friendships and possible problems for her and them. She’s good, intelligent, resolutely fearless, but, she’s also too eager to pull punches, too ready to use her wand rather than talk, bossier rather than able to take orders. It’d be nice to see her as someone that not everyone considers trustworthy enough to rely on, but trusted desperately by others.  It would also be interesting to consider her relationships with those who refuse to partake in the political aspect of war or any aspect of war, at all, and those who are on the opposite side of the metaphorical river to her. There are sides to friendships that people rarely get to see - the blistering, falling apart sides, the sides that are ugly to everyone but one another. The friendships she forms are just as important as any possibility of romance are, to Emmeline.

WAND DESCRIPTION : A rune-enscribed Red Oak wand, nine inches long exactly, less round with edges and a core of Phoenix Feather.

Emmeline has found that her Red Oak wand makes for a strong and assured partner in duels, allowing her to react as quickly or as slowly as she chooses - perfect for those anger filled duels that started quickly and ended as such. She doesn’t particularly care that her wand is of average length - it’s easy enough to hide, easy enough to buy a perfectly sized wand holster to store it on those days when she isn’t technically supposed to have her wand with her. It’s aided her during Auror training sessions and surprise faux attacks, orchestrated by the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The core means she’s got a powerful wand at her fingertips, that learns as quickly as she can extract observations. Her wand doesn’t bond to many - for some, it will take lifetimes to tame and personalise, but, for Emmeline - it was easy. Her wand core and herself are so alike, much in their initiative and hard-won allegiance. On occasion, she has been attracted to the flamboyance of great spells, and her wand has expressed that, many a time.

WHY THIS CHARACTER? : This is going to sound really, overwhelmingly cheesy, but, she was one of my first. One of the first characters I ever picked up and roleplayed - one of the few that is so deeply embedded in my heart that I can’t seem to walk away from her. She might not seen spectacular, too arrogant in her own abilities, something she doesn’t really grow out of, fearless, almost to a point that it is stupid, but, she is. She’s a member of the Order of the Phoenix. She knows the risks she’s taking - in both Wizarding Wars. She fights in both, fights for what she believes in, and never backs down, not even when there’s a wand pointed at her throat in the middle of Muggle London. I feel like every character deserves to have their stories told, deserves to have their voices heard, even if the writer of the original story doesn’t want to expand on the lives she destroyed in her books. Emmeline is one of the few I would love to tell the story of. She risked her everything, and I admire her for that.

We know little to nothing about her from the books. All we can gather is that she was in both the Original Order of the Phoenix and the reformed Order, seen in Harry’s fifth year, and that she looked to be a ‘stately’ witch, whose death saddens most (if not all) of the modern Order’s members. It is also said that Snape claimed to have given information to Voldemort that lead to her death, and that she was a member of the Advanced Guard. I would love to expand on the things we don’t know and humanise her. No human is ever flawless. If they are perfect, they are bound to be arrogant. If they are not, they are bound to be insecure about that fact. I perceive Emmeline as being caught between the two: arrogant because she knows what she is capable of, but, insecure because she knows what she isn’t. The traits you’ve assigned her leave so much room to explore, so many things to think about - so many reasons and paths to consider. She is so different to other Emmeline’s I’ve played and I would be honoured to play her.

AFFILIATION : Order of the Phoenix.

Emmeline was covered in sweat when she got the invitation, the barn owl undistinctive and one she had seen in the Owlery at Hogwarts. She had been at work, shifting delivery boxes from the back of vans, for twelve hours and had just returned home, a sweltering bruise on her thigh and hands aching for warmth and one day of calm. It was in Moody’s handwriting, the mans gruff voice playing like static in the back of her mind. She was that girl at Hogwarts, the one that hung out with everyone you didn’t think she would, considering her last name and the fact she was, by all means, to outsiders, a successful pureblood daughter. She was the one who would get into fights in the hallways, be sat in class with blood beneath her fingernails and an ache in her stomach that made her more calm than anyone would like to hear, hear echoes in the halls of mudbloods being scum and feel rage pool in her mind that left her unable to do anything other than react in the only way she knew how.

There had been whispers. Tiny inklings from people older than her that there was more than two sides to this war - more than just the helpless and the Ministry against the Death Eaters. She wasn’t daft: she could read between the lines better than most she knew, even if acting on the things she read often left her to become a bundle of tenacity. She said yes before the words even fell from Dumbledore’s lips, sat in Alastor Moody’s quietly kept together kitchen, the defiance in her gaze obvious as she gritted her teeth and whispered that the pureblood society could go fuck itself, the battered wooden chair she sat in feeling like an embrace in the last few seconds before she focused on the fact that she was at war. She had missed feeling like she belonged, the familiar thumping of having something to fight for, not just for the same of it, ringing through her head. Her world tipped on it’s edge that day, a grounding force that has left her scrappy and hungry for a world without the power hungry Death Eaters.

She hates the pureblood society, the values they’ve instilled in such brilliant young minds that could’ve been so much more if they had been kept away from the ideal that not everyone deserved to be magical, to be their own person. There are many things she doesn’t like, but, the ideology that surrounds the elite is something she wants to tear apart, from the inside out. The people they want to rip apart, the people they’ve tried to curse to hell and back, are the people she cares about. It is the only thing people can rely on about her - that she is fearless, frightless, downright terrifying when you’re on the other end of her wand, her stance calculated so she gets the perfect spot at your neck. She fights out of hatred and out of love, the snarl that forms on her face nothing compared to the smiles that those she cares about can elicit. She lived in a world where blood purity mattered more than what you were good at, and that is a cold, barren, unhappy world that she fled as soon as she was introduced to it.

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER FEEL ABOUT THE WAR? : Emmeline’s never been one for blithe optimism or harsh cynicism, she’s only ever known one thing: fighting. There wasn’t a doubt in her head, not even as she weighed up the risks, hours later when she was sat in bed, tearing through her memories to pinpoint the moment that Moody said it wasn’t a choice to take lightly, that it could kill her. It didn’t scare her so much as spur her into reality. For her, it wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t some tossup between naivety and innocence or war and death, as they made everyone else believe. It was so much more than that. She didn’t blame anyone for deciding not to take part - if she were any less her, she would be scared shitless. There is something about the fight, something about the long nights stationed outside potential Death Eater hotspots, curling in safe houses when she’s sure it’s not safe enough for her to go home, that makes her come alive, that makes her blood flow faster, a little more sure of herself.

Emmeline hates the fact that they are at war, and yet, craves the feeling of the chase, of her flesh pounding against skin, boots hitting the floor, dungarees over a shirt that’s a bright shade of pink with specks of blood and dirt flying through the air around her. She hates how it’s making martyrs of everybody, how they’re sacrificing pieces of themselves, from their soft-hearted smiles to hearts that will open for anybody who needs it. She lives for the thrill, for the longing, the love it brings out in people, the courage, the discovery of new things about old friends, and despises herself for it, all the same. She keeps it all hidden away, in the corners of her mind she rarely ventures to. War has made soldiers of them all, soldiers of children, who barely knew their own minds before they were thrust into a war for all of the things they had probably taken for granted, for all the people whose faces surely blended into a crowd, strangers who didn’t know there was a tornado that was headed straight for them.

WHAT IS YOUR CHARACTER’S GREATEST AMBITION? : Emmeline’s driven, calculated, logical, dauntless, and at the same time, terribly unambitious about life. She’s always punching over her weight, but, never to get anything. It’s one of the reasons why she wasn’t sorted into Slytherin - that and her inability to just be cunning (she was more a drive-her-fist-into-your-nose to get information kind of girl.) There is only one thing she has ever felt like she wants to strive towards. Her greatest ambition in life is to be remembered. She doesn’t care how she dies - doesn’t care if she dies in a firefight, or asleep in her bed at the age of 93, or sat at her desk in the Auror office. She just wants people to remember her name - Emmeline Vance, the girl who looked nothing like she acted, the girl who wore bright colours and strange patterned socks and still managed to kick ass and ruin the pureblood patriarchy, while she was at it. That’s her greatest ambition, and rules over both her head and heart, at times.

HEADCANONS :

i. Emmeline, up until November last year, had never owned a pet in her life. It was a byproduct of her mothers hatred of owls and the way their eyes seemed to follow wherever you went, and her fathers indifference to cats or dogs. As a child, she reigned and created chaos all by herself, and had never craved the companionship of an animal, preferring the muggle children or wizarding children she made friends with during childhood. In late November, she fostered a three year old Springer Spaniel-Unknown cross from an agency that specialised in animals that were used to magic, and fell in love. She trained the dog from the ground up and is thankful for the affection and reliability of her dog, who is the stark opposite of her, and can calm her down from the after effects of a duel. Her nights are spent at a dog-friendly flat, with her dog spread out across the sofa next to her and wand in the holster at her ankle, listening to some muggle music that is, thankfully, not entirely similar to Celestina Warbeck.

ii. Emmeline narrowly avoided being arrested earlier this year, after being discovered at the scene of a robbery. She explained away her presence by stating that she had followed somebody, something that was true, and that she had done nothing. She was just grateful they didn’t catch her when she was using her wand to petrify someone or send them flying back into a wall, that would need some explaining and a good Obliviate to the forehead. She currently has no criminal record, trying to keep on the good side of both muggle law and Wizarding law. It took the police eighteen hours to clear her, and she was lucky enough that she was able to get a message off to (Edgar) Bones, via the even more unreliable Mundungus, before being taken for questioning. Ever since then, she’s managed to stay away from trouble in both the Wizarding and muggle world, yet still can’t keep a straight face whenever she thinks of the night she nearly got towed into a jail cell at the police station.

iii. Irena and Roscoe Vance live in Broomfleet, a very, very small town on the Humber estuary, where Emmeline Vance took the population from 284 to 283. Emmeline adored the place where she grew up, with a house that was slightly bigger on the inside (more so when it came to the bedrooms,) and went to primary school. It was a very non-Pureblood thing for the Vance’s to do, something that the Wilkinson’s and the Vance’s extended family supported, stating that it was the right thing to do. Emmeline learnt Maths, English, and on occasion, Science, working as hard as she could while simultaneously correcting everything that was said in her head. When she turned eighteen, she moved away to be nearer to the other Order safe houses and away from the prying eyes of the neighbours. She still owls her parents on a near daily basis, catching up with them, and making sure they’re okay - the Vance’s were never ones to back down from a fight, it’s what she got when she inherited their genes.

iv. Emmeline prefers hot chocolate to tea or coffee. She just never acquired the taste for either one, despite being at the centre of what seems like hundreds of debates about which one is better, as the unbiased party. She will drink hot chocolate any day of the week, no matter the weather and no matter where she is. Tea, sometimes, just seems too milky or too strong and coffee, most of the time, means she stays awake for hours and hours and hours, longer than she had planned on, and it tends to make her space out when she’s doing something important. There have been days, days when everyone has thought she wouldn’t be able to bounce back, that were cured by a single cup of hot chocolate, a mug warm to the touch and smell sweet, but never overpowering. If she absolutely has to have tea, she’ll take it with no milk and two sugars, and coffee is only reserved for long, long nights, and she’ll usually only have one sugar, unless the situation calls for a butt load of coffee and sugar.

v. Emmeline’s parents only introduced her to pureblood society once. As they weren’t a member of the Sacred 28, it was quite a shock when they got a letter when Emmeline was 15, inviting them to an event purely for the pure families in the region. The decision to go was Irena’s - who wanted her daughter to know she still had a choice, between a society hellbent on judging her for her skin colour or a society hellbent on destroying all muggles, muggleborns and everything other than themselves. They attended the gala, three days before Emmeline’s birthday, and she was anything but cordial to the hosts. It took less than an hour for her to be thrown out, something she certainly doesn’t regret, knowing she was raised up in what felt like a completely different world to the way the other purebloods had been raised. Hell, she had learned about the muggle part of the world before she had learned about purebloods, and had a fierce indifference to any pureblood who took a neutral stance in the war (unless they were friends.)

vi. As a child, Emmeline would dream of running off to America. She dreamt of watching Broadway shows and wearing the finest of dresses, being more refined than she’d ever managed to discipline herself into, with the insistence that she didn’t start fights, only finished them. She dreamt of joining MACUSA, or joining the Ministry of some foreign country, more often than not Bulgaria or working for the wizarding school, Uagadou, carved out of the mountains. She loved England, loved the place where she lived, but, the world was an exciting place for a young girl who didn’t yet know that the world wasn’t as kind as she wanted it to be. She soon grew out of these fantasies, though, would still entertain the idea of a trip to America, if ever the situation grants her the option. Her dream occupation was a professor or a member of MACUSA, something she has since forgotten about, in the rush of war that has left her half an adult and half a child, still stuck between where she needs to be and where she wants to be.

vii. Emmeline was a Hat Stall. It took the Sorting Hat five minutes to sort her, eight torturous minutes of a voice inside her head that nobody else could hear, starting up like an old record and booming like it could see all of her secrets, all of the parts of herself that she didn’t want to talk about. She sat, hands curled around the seat armrests, fingernails short and purple tights visible beneath her robes, torn slightly where her knees were grazed and a jaunty smile on her face. She insisted that she wasn’t Ravenclaw material, something the Hat became stuck on, before deciding that she was, in fact, right and that Gryffindor was the most suitable house for someone with such a soul as hers. By that time, many of the people watching the sorting were sat with their heads in their hands, though the Gryffindor house seemed to roar with delight, feet hammering against the floor and hands slapping against the table or one another’s. She didn’t really think much of it, growing into her ability to be systematic and incisive.

viii. Emmeline rarely ever remembered her tie. Hell, most of the time she didn’t wear school tights, and her shirt was usually speckled with some dirt (or was it blood? She could never remember,) and her shoes weren’t always suitable for lessons. If she ever did remember to wear the correct uniform, it never lasted more than an hour before she took her robe off and her tie came to tie around her wrist. She hated the idea of a school uniform, had approached the idea with a quiet indifference that blossomed into an uneasy sensation of dislike. Her old school uniform had been purple and yellow, with black vests that went over their white polo shirts, adorned with the purple and yellow logo. On occasion, her primary school would sell purple or yellow polo shirts. Emmeline still has hers, hung up in her wardrobe. In some pictures, you can tell that she’s wearing brightly coloured tights before you see her legs, the hatred of uniform having dissipated after she left Hogwarts.

ix. When Emmeline sleeps, she doesn’t sleep heavy. Her sleep is light and any sign of movement beside her can jostle her out of whatever semblance of dream-like sleep she was experiencing at the time. She rarely was able to sleep so deeply at Hogwarts, casting the silencing charm so she was in complete silence in her own bed, her own four quarters, and four four years at Hogwarts - she slept soundly, without stirring once in the night. It meant that she could get up and function normally, for her day writing essays and practising transfiguration and DADA spells that they were never taught. Her sleeping pattern hasn’t changed much, only the fact that it’s when she always sleeps, she could sleep through a lightbulb or something crashing on her head. Now, she can sleep through a hurricane or significant spell damage to the building outside, compared to the images she’s used to seeing. Her unorthodox napping method means that she spreads out the 12 hours of sleep she needs over the day.

x. Emmeline loves being the exact opposite of what people say she is. She loves being one of the few pureblood girls who recognised that there was a problem that needed to be fixed, rather than perpetuating the problem and supporting all the people who created the problem, itself. She doesn’t appear to be much, on the outside. She doesn’t seem spectacular, doesn’t really look as if she’s that interesting, but, she has learned how to produce grandiose spells, how to duel so efficiently the other barely sees her wand moving. She doesn’t want to be predictable. That’s why it’s so easy for her to be unreliable - in one place one minute, and another the next. She, despite the fact that she is so unreliable, has never considered betting any money on anything or anything like that in her life, choosing to live life her own way. She likes it when people think she’s delicate, when she’s perfectly able of disembowelling whoever she hates enough. She’s always said when she fights is when she’s calmest, having never known real calmness.

EXTRA INFORMATION :

xi. Emmeline’s star sign is Leo and her paired element is Fire. “Fire is your paired element, and as a Leo, you have the most fundamental relationship with fire of all the zodiac signs. Fire’s influence burns within you, usually materializing in the passionate way you deal with life. If there is a cause or challenge that sparks your interest, your flame does not falter as you push to conquer it. Fire’s influence can become one of your greatest assets in life, but be careful to avoid the impatience and impulsiveness that are amongst its negative qualities.”

xii. Emmeline’s Amortentia is vanilla, freshly brewed hot chocolate, the underpinning of a light cologne, the scent of daisies and red roses and orchids in a bouquet and another persons hair. Emmeline discovered this during her seventh year, when Slughorn made them all brew it, making sure to keep an eye on them so they came and checked on it on a daily basis. She wasn’t surprised to smell hot chocolate or vanilla, and it’s one of the few secrets she keeps, one of the few things she’s never told anyone else.

xiii. Emmeline’s Boggart is death. The idea of dying before she’s done is the only thing that she can actually say she’s scared of. Whenever she sees her Boggart, it’s so often just her corpse, laying in the middle of a back-lit street, an unnamed body, forgotten by the rest of the world. For someone so comfortable with the thought of blood and the idea of others dying, her own fear of death is the only thing that she’ll crumble to, in her last moments. She fears next to nothing, and it’s that attitude that’s left her unable to deal with it.

xiv. Emmeline’s Patronus is a Buffalo. “The buffalo is full of many feelings, the strong stature of them showing through a person in this way. They try to appear stoic, but it often backfires and they wear their hearts on their sleeves. They are passionate about everything they do and headstrong. They make sure their opinions are known by all that they concern, because they want to show that they are not weak. They feel as though their emotion and lack of control over it does in a way give them weakness, and it angers them greatly.“

xv. Emmeline’s favorite spell is Lacarnum Inflamare. “It is pronounced as la-CAR-num in-fla-MA-ray, and it sends a ball of fire from the wand. Latin inflammo, or the verb inflammatio meaning "to set on fire”. Lacarnum, from the Latin “lacerna”, meaning “cloak.”.”

BIOGRAPHY

Irena Wilkinson and Roscoe Vance had never planned on children. They were barely married six months before they fell pregnant, living without a clue about it until the five month mark when Irena was well into her second trimester, of course. Neither were upset, yet neither were overjoyed. The following four months of pregnancy - forgiving the fact that Emmeline was three weeks early - weren’t easy, by any stretch of the imagination. The constant cravings, rapid weight gain, sudden hatred of beloved foods, the blasted snoring and bouts of insomnia, sent both Irena and Roscoe, newlyweds, up the wall. By three weeks before the due date, the two were both exhausted and sat in sweltering heat in their bedroom.

On the evening of August 19th, Emmeline Betty Vance was brought into the world, thoroughly displeased by the world she came into, fits and bursts of wails falling from her lips until the afternoon of August 20th. Each toe and finger was counted as present and the midwife from the nearest muggle Hospital was the only witness of the natural birth of Emmeline Vance. From there, Emmeline’s life began. She reached every milestone she was supposed to, with the smallest hint of magic seeping through her first year, the slight jolts people would get when holding her, the momentary flashes of movement from perfectly stationary objects. By the time she was a year old, she was happy, the ebb and flow of magic.

There were no traditional views in the Vance household - no you-must-stand-up-straight rule, no you-have-to-wear-a-dress rule, and no every-year-we-go-to-the-pureblood-galas rule. They were lenient, allowing Emmeline to learn for herself. Of course, this was something that had been used to bring up both Irena and Roscoe, who had grown up just fine. She would share her toys on the playground, never run in front of the swings at the park and knew the perfect place in the village that let you survey everything at once. For years, Emmeline grew up without knowing she was any different to any other child she knew, apart from the strange events that occurred in the safety of the Vance’s own home, apart from the magic in her veins.

Emmeline treated everyone as equal, growing up as the one who threw herself in front of the bully’s fists to stop another from facing harm, as the one who could wheedle a promise out of them that they’d stop bullying others, as the one who was friends with as many people who weren’t the norm. She didn’t learn, until she was nine, that muggles and wizards were not the same, nor alike in any particular way, only different in a multitude of ways that left so much room for a sweeping hatred. Irena had sat her down to tell her something when they got a long winded letter from another pureblood family, stating the inevitability of the Vance’s being branded as blood traitors for their open affiliation with muggles.

When she got her letter at eleven, there was a fight that nearly broke the Vance family in three. Emmeline refused to go, refused to leave a life she was so comfortable in, where Irena was insistent that she had to go, that it was the only god damned tradition her family had kept and she would be damned if Emmeline didn’t follow, and where Roscoe was insistent that she could go to another wizarding school, possibly Uagadou, if they could only get an Owl there. Eventually, the fight reconciled with a visit to Diagon Alley where Emmeline realised that the rift between wizards and muggles also afflicted muggleborns and purebloods and halfbloods. It hurt everyone, even the girl who was so resolute and strong.

On the train to Hogwarts, she picked a carriage with an amalgamation of people in. She was her usual loud, domineering self, taking their troubles into her hands and compacting them into small bubbles that refuted their own ability to burst. She hid the bruise forming on her thigh, the grazed knees on show for the world and a dull ache in her hands from when she had punched her way into a fight, changing into her new robes without a complaint. She could barely contain her excitement as they clambered down the steps, feeling perfectly at home with what others would have perceived as a band of misfits. She watched the half-giant with a quiet understanding in her gaze, after learning the world wasn’t what she expected it to be.

After the five minute long Hat Stall that left people bored and near dribbling into their empty bowls, Emmeline was sorted into Gryffindor and didn’t look back. She nursed her own logic, tested her own limits, bettered herself and worsened herself until she was comfortable with herself. For seven years, Emmeline used the Owls from the school Owlery to send letters back to her parents, would think clearly in situations where others were paralysed by fear or stress or any number of other things. She discovered who she was - that girls were just as attractive as guys, that she hated pumpkin juice, that she loved whiskey and that muggle liquor was just better than wizarding liquor, the opposite of what she had heard.

By the time she graduated, she had become Hogwarts duelling champion four years in a row, was known for her inability to run away from any proposition of a fight, and was the girl who would make friends with anyone as long as they were trustworthy. She had all her Owls, passed all of them with flying colours, not stumbling once with her NEWTs, either, and was utterly clueless about the life she wanted to lead after her time at Hogwarts was over. She took a job at a muggle manual labour firm, working hard to earn any scrap of money she could, without muggle qualifications. After losing that job, she worked in Diagon Alley, and after that, tried her luck at Hogsmeade. Eventually, she signed up for Auror training.

Emmeline was hellbent on being remembered, by anyone, even if said person didn’t really know her name and just thought of her as the girl who would fight more than she would speak, if given the chance. She was accepted to Auror training, knowing the studying would take time and that it wouldn’t be easy, given the fact that nobody had been accepted to Auror training in three years. Training was intense and it didn’t come as much of a surprise when she came home one day to find that Dumbledore wanted to meet with her. She was as smart as she was intimidating, and that was a dangerous equation when you brought the idea of joining a secret organisation to the table, even for someone as wise as Dumbledore.

It took him seven minutes to convince her, before she interrupted him and blurted out a ‘yes,’ and a ‘fuck pureblood society.’ The next morning, she went back to Auror training and carried on, the prospect of being a soldier in what was sure to become a glorified war was heavy in her mind as she studied, with both her mind and her muscle memory. She passed every Auror exam, did everything the other Aurors wanted, watching Kingsley with bright eyes, and worked hard to complete every task set before her. She worked for the Order on nights, even though she was famous for her recklessness and ability to be fickle. She feels like a soldier, feels the pain of other people wrestling with her own in her mind and is determined to do something good.

PARA SAMPLE

Emmeline glares around her, catching the bench and the streetlight in her wake, with a light frown on her face. She might be 42, might be just another ‘old person,’ to everyone else but she’d fought in the first Wizarding war and she would be damned before she stopped fighting for what was right. With the return of Lord Voldemort had come the bizarre refusal to believe from the Ministry, to which Kingsley, herself and Tonks could only laugh at. In recent months, the Ministry had seen his return and Cornelius Fudge had folded, like a house of cards, in on himself. The world was a completely different place and nothing seemed clear or easy in the face of such terrible power, rising from the ashes again.

“Who’s there? Who’s fucking there?” Emmeline swung her wand around, brandishing it in every direction before she hears a cold ringing of laughter. She had heard that laughter before, she knew why they were there, and stiffened her shoulders as she stepped beneath the streetlight. She’d been assigned to patrol the street outside the Prime Minister’s home, which was now strangely deserted, as if it had been cordoned off by a force that only wizards could explain. She had seen the world be pinned down by Voldemort’s grasp once and had seen remarkable wizards and witches put themselves through hell to stop him. Her voice is cold, rage seeping into the edges as she spat out her words. “Show yourself.”

Her knock-off muggle shirt, scuffed boots and jeans catch the Death Eaters attention, a snarl curling on their face underneath their mask. It had, once upon a few years earlier, been so easy to recall their name, but, now it fails as her as she flicks her wand, watching a beam of fire hit a protection spell before she can react. “Talk, then, asshole. Or does a cat have your tongue?” She seethed, the familiar rattle of anger shaking her lungs as she breathed out, utterly calm under the light of the distant moon, determined that they wouldn’t catch her. She knew she was a target - she was an outspoken Auror who refused to let the people who knew other Order members forget their names and why they died. It was inevitable that they’d come for her.

“Crucio!” The spell bursts forth from the others wand and she barely dodged it, sending a “Reducto!” back that shatters the bollard beside them. The duel isn’t back and forth, and at some point, she was knocked back into a wall and the other ended up with a cut slicing through their chest, blood seeping through. She sent a bunch of spells forward and they counter, stepping through the dancing of light against the building. There’s no recollection in her mind of another, of another parading the street behind her, shooting a spell over her shoulder, before it’s too late. As one steps away, the other steps forward - a yell of ‘Avada Kedavra!’ countered by ‘Alarte Ascendare!’ before there’s a ripping sensation through her skin.

There were two people in masks now, almost seeming to mock her as they stand above her when she sinks to the ground, wound gaping and growing until it seems like her innards are falling, and she breathes out a “Well, fuck it.” before flicking her wrist and sending them straight into a wall. Everything aches and she quickly loses her strength, her nature slipping from her reach as she breathed out shakily, the sound seeming to echo in her chest as she began to cry. There were many things Emmeline danced in the face of and death had been one of those things - death had been one of those things that she had never said she was terrified of. She wasn’t done yet; there was so much to do.

She had to get a Patronus to Kingsley, had to tell them someone had told the Death Eaters their schedule, had to tell Tonks that every life may end but there is a beautiful beginning at the end, too, had to live to win the war, to watch the people who had sworn to rule over them fall. Her t-shirt, a knock-off Fresh Prince of Bel-Air design, was beginning to soak in her own blood. She couldn’t speak anymore, lips parting but no sound coming out but a low moan, a low noise of pain, before she lost consciousness and slipped away. The lights of 10 Downing Street remain off, the night going on as she dies, the world seeming to stagnate around her as she grapples with her own inescapable fate.

As she blinks her eyes open to a white light, she chokes on her own disbelief. This wasn’t supposed to happen - there was a system, something she had designed, that would notify the others when the worst came to be. Nobody had heard her calls and she had died alone, returning to being in the bright canvas of the afterlife. She hadn’t been there when many people had needed her and it was as if the world was repaying the favour, something she registers, before she sits up and takes in the brightness around her, the faces who come into view to help her up. There was no fighting anymore, no need for aggression. Her time was done and all she could do was watch. She licks her lips, breathes in, calm settling in her bones and parts her lips. “Hi.”

[kenyajobs-blog]

WE Charity Economic Empowerment Coordinator Job in Narok

WE Charity Economic Empowerment Coordinator Job in Narok

December 2018 WE Charity Economic Empowerment Coordinator Job Vacancy in Narok County Kenya Career Opportunity : WE Charity Job Description

Employment Vacancy : Economic Empowerment Coordinator Job Recruitment

WE Charity

Job Title: Economic Empowerment Coordinator

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