#but since he provides free education to the kids and treats them well the people don't prod | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moshieldnorthsaltlake · 2 months

Text

Our Story

Get Free Quote

About Mosquito Shield of North Salt Lake City

Hi, we’re Dustin and Jennifer Schouten and we’re the owners of Mosquito Shield of North Salt Lake City. We love that we are a customer service company. Putting the customer first and letting them know how important they are is something that sold us on Mosquito Shield. We know how good it feels to be treated well and we want to give that back to the community.

Our goal, as owners, is to educate the people in our community about our company and what Mosquito Shield can do for them. Our area is a haven for mosquitoes. Many homes have been built on reclaimed marshlands, and we can provide a service that allows people to enjoy their yards again. With Mosquito Shield, we also aim to spend more time doing things we want to do as a family and to create something that we can hopefully pass down to our next generation.

Dustin and I were first attracted to Mosquito Shield due to its seasonality. We have young children and like the idea of knowing that we’ll never have to request time off to be together as a family during winter holidays. My son and I, Joe, are also extremely desirable to Utah’s mosquitoes. Our son is so miserable when he tries to play outside, so we know we can help other people like him to enjoy a pest-free outdoor experience. I grew up in Katy, Texas and am a graduate of Texas A&M University. Since marrying Dustin, we’ve lived and traveled throughout the country and world, but we’re excited to be back in Dustin’s hometown where we can see the mountains everyday. Dustin was born in Salt Lake City, but moved often when he was young. He does, however, have a lot of family ties in the great state of Utah. In fact, he has a relative that is the former mayor of Ogden!

Dustin retired from the US Navy in 2018 and after working for a few different companies decided he would like to work for himself and his family. We’re proud to be a veteran-owned business and we’re excited to start Mosquito Shield of North Salt Lake City and set down roots for our children.

Here in Salt Lake, we love J. Wong Thai and China Bistro in the downtown Salt Lake City area. Dustin’s dad has been going there for years and strongly recommended that we check it out when we moved to Utah. We love supporting a family-owned business like them and the food is beyond amazing. Dustin gets his favorite Kung Pao Chicken, I can choose from a variety of Thai or Chinese dishes, and the kids are delighted by the robots that bring the food to the tables. Every weekend we visit a different park as we enjoy spending time outdoors with our kids and our new best friend, Namaste, a Dutch Shepherd. Nami is learning how to track and has been taking service dog classes.

The leadership experience and dedication to service Dustin gained from his time in the Navy translates well into running a business that gives back to the community at large. We’re very customer-oriented and set on 100% satisfaction for each customer. Our satisfaction guarantee comes with a money-back promise. Within 7 days of spraying, if you’re not satisfied, we will do a respray. After that, if you’re still not noticing a difference, we’ll refund your money.

Mosquito Shield® was founded in 2001 as a direct answer to a major problem: mosquitoes. In the absence of an effective mosquito control service and the inadequacy of personal products, a new solution was necessary.

For the past two decades, we’ve mastered our blend of all-natural oils and select control products to become that solution. We’ve tested different blends, application methods, and frequencies of applications to perfect an effective and responsible solution. The result is Mosquito Shield.

Our numbers would demonstrate that we’ve filled the gap. 8 out of every 10 customers return year after year, and we now service tens of thousands of American households.

To hear what our clients are saying, please visit our customer reviews and testimonials section.

Corporate Information

Mosquito Shield® is a leading residential mosquito and tick control service with over 120 franchise locations across the United States. Each of Mosquito Shield’s franchises are owned and operated by independent local business men and women. With the threat of mosquito and tick-borne illnesses on the rise in the United States, Mosquito Shield Franchise Corporation was launched in 2013 and has since developed into a leading franchise opportunity in the growing pest-control industry.

What Makes Mosquito Shield Better?

Tailored Treatment Plan

We’re the only company in the industry that reacts to mosquito behavior. Without a set schedule, we can adapt to your yard's needs and the mosquitoes around it.

On average, we visit every 10-17 days to ensure a mosquito-free lifestyle.

Proprietary Mosquito Protection Blend

Our special blend began 20 years ago and we continually evolve it to maximize effectiveness.

Science created our formula, and science continues to adapt it so it remains the most effective spray in the game.

Trained Technicians

All of our technicians are trained in environmentally smart practices. They target active mosquito areas and are taught the signs to recognize them.

This means less overall spraying, more dead mosquitoes, and a healthy ecosystem in your backyard.

Money Back Guarantee

If you’re not happy with our services, let us know. We’ll work hard to make it right, including offering a service call spray if needed.

If you’re unhappy with the results after your first visit, simply notify us within 7 days and we will issue you a full refund.

You can’t put a price on peace of mind and relaxation. With our service, you can relax knowing that we are helping protect your pets, kids, friends and loved ones outside. We kill and repel mosquitoes, ticks, and therefore help keep away the diseases that come with them.

Vision

We want to help you enjoy your yard again by delivering a mosquito-free environment that allows you to spend more time outdoors.

Values

From start to finish, you’ll see we’re passionate about what we do. We don’t make you sign contracts or upsell you on services that you do not need. Our service application is tailored to your property and includes our proven mosquito proprietary blend technology. We’re here to help you and control mosquitoes, not the other way around.

Get Quote

New Mosquito Shield Technology

State-of-the-art routing software enables our Mosquito Shield of North Salt Lake City Technicians to deliver on flexible treatment schedules. We are able to map out ahead of time when treatments will be needed. This information is relayed to you to better serve and communicate the timing and details of each application.

While our sprayer equipment may look similar to others, it too has been engineered for maximum effectiveness. With it, we can apply our products more efficiently and with greater accuracy and control.

Expert Technicians

Our technicians are trained specifically on mosquito and tick control products. We’re not just another guy with a backpack and van or a lawn care provider that will “set and forget” later. This is what we do and we take it very seriously. Not only are our technicians trained on products, they’re trained on mosquito and tick behavior as well as species identification.

That knowledge is used to maximize treatments and minimize the time taken to do it.

Get started by contacting our team today! Call Now!

Get Quote

#mosquitocontrol #pest control

0 notes

goggles-mcgee · 4 years

Note

I’m the anon who asked about your other Adrien salt ideas. I would actually really like to see you describe all your ideas because I like the thought processes and concepts of salt ideas. I’m also really really interested in the high salt category.

Hohohoho boy alright High Salt Category, also known as the Dead Sea Salt Category. I hope you are ready for this list because as I recall I have stated before that I have around 12 ideas. I believe I have shared two on here already but they were kind of all over the place so I will refine them. Buckle up kiddos.

1. Double Take:

Tom and Sabine aren't dumb, they know something is going on with their little girl, but every attempt to get her to open up is met with over-enthusiastic reassurances and too big smiles. They hope that a surprise visit from her cousin Bridgette and her aunt, Sabine's sister, will help. When they were younger, Bridgette and Marinette were as thick as thieves and everyone thought the two were twins whenever they hung out. Even though they haven't seen each other in a year, the two still are close, that's why Bridgette knows that something is wrong immediately when she goes up to Marinette's room to support her.

It doesn't take long for Marinette to break and tell her everything. Everything about Lila, how she did turn everyone against her like she said, how Adrien said they were in it together yet he offered no help when he saw how her former friends were treating her, how Bustier kept lecturing her about how she had to be the example. Bridgette is furious but she convinces Marinette to tell her parents, when she does they are rightfully angry, and Tom becomes Akumatized yet again into Weredad. Bridgette and Marinette run when their mothers tell them too and in a fit of desperation Marinette tells Tikki she is sorry before telling Bridgette that she is Ladybug and she needs to transform as quick as possible.

Bridgette immediately is even more furious at her cousin's situation but understands, she comes up with the idea that the two of them switch clothes in case Tom goes searching for Marinette, he'll think Bridgette is her, Marinette agrees and they quickly do so. After Tom is defeated everyone sits down and has a long conversation about what to do. Sabine wants the school to pay for not taking action and her sister is right there with her but Marinette quickly points out they have no definitive proof to take to the board and Damocles would fight tooth and nail and would throw whoever he had to under the bus if they just opened up a case, not to mention if they went with no proof who knew how long it would take for the investigation to actually start. That's when Bridgette gets the idea that they collect proof themselves over a period of time and then go to the board. Marinette is on board the idea but Sabine really doesn't want Marinette to go back to that class or school, that's when Bridgette gets the idea for the two of them to swap places. It gives Marinette a break from the chaos and Bridgette can collect the proof.

Everyone is a little hesitant but after a longer talk everyone agrees. They wait two weeks before switching. That way Bridgette can cut her hair and have everyone get used to it before Marinette comes in, she let's her friends know what's going on because she knows they'll be able to tell that Marinette is not her so she tells them to make her feel welcome and help her come across as 'Bridgette.' They agree of course after she explains the situation. Then the switch happens. While Marinette is finally able to have a break and starts to enjoy her life once more, Bridgette is getting angrier as the days go on, horrified by what her cousin has to go through but she is dutifully collecting evidence and boy it wasn't hard at all. It's a wonder that the school is still open. It's hard not to call off the whole thing but she's going to be strong for Marinette.

Meanwhile Adrien doesn't understand why Marinette is acting so differently but he doesn't like it. Felix is intrigued by Bridgette's cousin and it seems like his friends share that sentiment as they are all trying to convince her to transfer after the whole investigation and whatnot.

[Includes New Chat Bridgette and Quantic Kids as the new heroes and Felinette, Felix Culpa not Felix Graham de Vanily]

2. Moving On, Finding Home:

Out of everything Felix expected his mother to do while in the stages of her grief, he never thought moving would be one of them. Now he is in Paris and hoping beyond all hope that he will not run into his cousin. Thankfully he is at a different school than his cousin, on the other hand his mother is all to eager to throw herself into work again and start on a new movie, and so are her employees. Felix is dreading the time when they will have to get costumes, since his uncle was always the one to provide them, and he is fairly certain his uncle would not be pleased to see him. It would seem that his mother shares the same thoughts as him and is also not wanting to ask Gabriel for help. That's when he gets an idea.

After his last visit to Paris and his...encounter with Adrien's friends, he had been keeping an eye on one of them, purely because they had piqued his interest. Marinette Dupain Cheng, the girl who professed her love to her cousin, though he never got to see it, also the very talented designer MDC. It wasn't hard to put two and two together, sure she posted on two different accounts but really the signatures on each commissioned piece were basically the same. Then he thinks about how thrilled his mother would he to work with her...the only problem is how will he convince the girl to help them out?

All the while Amelie decides to play matchmaker for her boy and Marinette while she commissions the young artist. It's great because it double as a big middle finger to Gabriel who is wracking his brain trying to figure out who this MDC is while simultaneously trying to steal Mlle Dupain Cheng from his sister-in-law. Adrien is just upset about his very close friend getting too close to his mischievous cousin. He will stop at nothing till he makes Marinette understand what a bad person Felix is.

[Contains new Chat Felix, as well as Felix redemption, school transfer for Mari, Quantic Kids, Lila Rossi's Lies Exposed]

3. Marinette, The Rolling Stone:

She didn't know how, but Lila had done it, she had successfully turned Marinette's friends against her. Not only that, but her lies had somehow made their way to and infected, Marinette's parents, making them lose their faith in their "once sweet daughter." They decide they no longer can care for her, seeing as she deceived them, they want to send her away or give up guardianship. Marinette tries to get Adrien to help her out but he is still on his high-road-horse and won't come don't even if it means she loses her parents. So she collects all her evidence and does her best to talk to them.

But Tom and Sabine don't want her to "take advantage" of their family members so they decide the best course of action is to have Marinette legally emancipated. Marinette tried, she tried so hard to get them to see her evidence and just hear her out but they think she is nothing more than a liar and manipulator. Before they have her emancipated, Jagged crashes back into her life and when he hears what Tom and Sabine are planning he is outraged and immediately offers to adopt Marinette. For Tom and Sabine, it's the out they needed, but they worry about Jagged, seeing as he obviously doesn't know the truth about their wicked daughter. But he stands strong and does not take no for an answer, and Marinette...she is hurt, yet happy that Jagged loves her enough to adopt her.

When all is said and done, Jagged and Penny get to work on being the best parents they can be. First things first. Getting their little Rolling Stone out of that hell-hole of a school and finding one better suited to her tastes. Or better yet, why not leave Paris as a whole?

[Includes class salt so much of it, Lila Rossi getting outed as the liar she is, Chat Noir aka Adrien salt and him losing his miraculous, new school, new friends, Tom and Sabine salt, some Master Fu salt, slight Tikki salt but so slight like a grain of salt, Marinette being loved, Jagged getting to be a dotting father, I don't know what ship I want this to be fyi]

4. Everyday Ladybug

After the events of Ladybug, Sabine and Tom have had enough. Marinette said she could handle it but she shouldn't have to, not to this extent, not to almost getting akumatized, so they decide to pull her from that problematic school and they reinstate her, and transfer her to a new school that would help cultivate her skills and passions. Marinette fully agreed, the expulsion had been the last straw for her, she couldn't take it anymore. She was ready for a change, but was Collège Françoise Dupont?

Once their little girl is free from the Akuma School, Tom and Sabine take their case to Board of Education. Because even though they got Marinette out of there, there was bound to be other students like her who thought they could and should stick it out and that just won't do. They hoped Principal Damocles was ready, because they were prepared to go to war.

[Includes the pairing Felinette, Quantic Kids, Uncle Jagged, Damocles Salt, Bustier Salt, Adrien and Gabriel Agreste salt, Adrien losing the Cat Miraculous, Class salt, Lila Rossi Salt, etc]

5. All The World's A Stage:

She had so many roles to fulfill, and at this point she couldn't keep track of them all. Marinette was being pulled thin and she felt as though there was nothing she could do to stop it. Lila knew this, had seen it coming, maybe even had been a small devil on people's shoulders to help it along, and she decides to take advantage of the situation to help Hawkmoth finally akumatize Marinette. The liar plans a party with the class, or well suggests they should throw a party. The class jumps on the idea and adds just that much more work onto Marinette.

She can't hold on and she needs help, but it seems like the only help she will get is from herself...many of them actually.

[My spin on the Many-nette akuma idea! Includes the pairing Lukanette, akumanette, Adrien realizing that actions and inactions have consequences, new Chat Noir, new Miraculous Holders, class salt, Lila salt, Adrien salt, Hawkmoth salt, happy ending]

6. Wish Me Away:

Chat Noir betrayed her. He took her earrings at the peak of the battle, she never even saw it coming, but she did see his look of surprise and his look of awe and love, and yet...not one apologetic look was given. She watched from where she was pinned under Mayura as Chat detransformed, she watched as he became Adrien, and she cried. She begged Gabriel Agreste not to make the wish, she didn't expect the slap from Adrien or the venom he spit out telling her he expected better from her, he thought she wanted him to be happy.

She watched in horror as Gabriel detransformed and told Natalie to do the same but not before tying Marinette to a chair. She watched as Gabriel happily took her earrings from his son and Adrien's ring before transforming into a being of Chaos and Order, she forced herself to watch as he made his wish and as the light swallowed her she finally closed her eyes.

Tikki and Plagg were furious, Adrien betrayed them and all of Paris, all of the Miraculi. But as they were joined to make the wish they realized that Gabriel hadn't been specific in his wish, which meant they could create something together, a loophole of sorts, all they wanted was to give Marinette a better life. One where no one from her past life would find her, and they wished that she would be placed somewhere she would be loved and cared for like she deserved.

Well...it worked...what they didn't understand was why their Guardian was currently transported to Gotham of all places, and why she was barely a year old!? At least she was transported to what seemed like a nice place. Wayne Manor huh? Well no matter they would make sure their little kit was cared for and make sure that no one from her past life found her.

[Includes Batfam! With Babynette! Marinette gets adopted into the Wayne family! Yes she is still the Guardian of the Miraculous. Karma is being served and it is delicious! No one is skipped, everyone gets a serving!]

7. Tattle-Tail:

When an Akuma catches the class off-guard and makes them tattle their truths on themselves nothing is the same. Marinette still had hope that her friends could return to their senses and come back to her side but after hearing what they think of her, really think, that hope dies. It turns to ash and ignites a fire she didn't know she had. She was done holding out for them. She was done being nice for the sake of being nice. And most importantly, she was done being the example.

Her class started the fire, and they were going to get burned.

[Includes class change for Marinette, Truth Akuma, Lila Rossi's lies exposed, consequences being learned, new friends for Marinette, class salt, no ship for Marinette or if there is it may be Kagaminette, New Chat Noir]

8. The Haunted Bride:

Marinette didn't know why, but ever since she was a little girl she was always fascinated with the famous Culpa Mansion in London. If she asked her parents where her fascination came from they always claimed it had to be from her Grandma Gina when she had given Marinette a book about the mansion. Gina claimed it came from her parents and that's why she bought her little fairy the book. All Marinette remembers is dreaming of the mansion, of living there, and when she found out the tragic history, she started to dream about being the Master of the Mansion's bride-to-be, Bridgette Chang. She dreamed that she might be the reincarnated bride and one day she would go to Culpa Mansion and be reunited with her love, but as she grew, that dream grew to be just that, a dream.

But fate works in weird ways and Marinette finds the chance to go visit like her heart has always yearned to, when she wins her class the opportunity to stay in the mansion. It should be the perfect trip, but between her friends believing the liar over her and her boyfriend, Adrien, still telling her to just take the high road and being everything else but her boyfriend, Marinette is finding it hard to be happy.

Then she meets the staff of Culpa Mansion and she can't help but feel right at home.

[My take on the Haunted Mansion AU made by @merry-madness I believe! Includes class salt, Lila salt, supernatural elements, ghosts!, Adrien salt, Felinette, Quantic Kids, Marinette being loved like she deserves, Guardian Marinette, Hawkmoth has been defeated]

9. Ivy's Sapling:

Pamela didn't mean for it to happen, she didn't mean to stumble upon a robbery gone wrong but she did. She was fully prepared to go about her business but then she heard a baby cry and saw the man with the gun point it at the bundle in pink and next thing she knew her vines and her lashed out and strangled the man. She was fully prepared to take the child to the orphanage but when she saw the child wrap a small chubby hand around one of her vines and give her a gummy smile, she made a decision that would change a lot.

Poison Ivy became a mother, and she loved her little Marigold so much, so when things became a little too much, a little too dangerous in Gotham she sent her little Marigold away with a dear friend who said her son and his wife would take care of her daughter.

Now her and Harley are getting married and she wants her daughter there, when she calls her to tell her the news she wasn't expecting to hear her daughter crying and asking to move back home.

[Includes Mama Ivy and Harley! Daminette pairing, class salt, of course Adrien Salt, new Chat Noir, Lila salt and her lies exposed, Mari moving to Gotham! Uncle Jagged! Batfam]

10. The Commission

Marinette had many noteworthy commissions, but she never bragged, and it's not like she had many people to brag to. So when she opened her business email and saw it full of requests she merely smiled excitedly at the promise of work and the opportunity to work with new people. She clicked the top email and nearly fainted, she read it once, twice, five times before she asked Tikki to read it for her, and after that yelling for her mom and dad to also read it for her. When they confirmed that she had actually gotten a commission from who she had read from she gave out an excited squeal. She had the opportunity to design a formal suit for Tony Stark and a wedding dress for Pepper Potts! Yeah no she was going to faint.

Tony had been a little reluctant to commission this MDC for his and Pepper's wedding attire but he couldn't say no to Pepper who had been a fan of the designers for a long time, so when he finally got his hands on the designers email he didn't hesitate to send an email for the designer to fly over to New York for a consultation and have them stay until their outfits were done. Was it over the top? Maybe a bit much? Was he more than willing to pay for their rooming and materials just to make Pepper happy? Hell yeah! Oh and maybe he could ask if they could make a suit for Peter, he loved the kid, really he did, but he wouldn't know a nice suit if it wrestled itself onto his scrawny body.

Adrien didn't know what Marinette's problem was, he told her to take the high road and she had been doing anything but! Their friends started to call her a bully and well Adrien could tell them that Lila was lying about the bullying but she wouldn't be lying about it if Marinette had just done as he said so he saw it as fine punishment. Well school was over and it was summer and he was planning on helping Marinette go back to the way she was. It was for the best really.

[Includes Spiderbug ship aka Marinette and Peter Parker, I also like to call them Lovebugs! Adrien salt and a new chat! Lila salt and her lies exposed, class salt, Uncle Jagged, the Avengers, the Avengers loving Marinette]

11. The Not-So Phantom of the Théâtre du Châtelet:

Marinette couldn't be more thrilled! She was hired to design and make the costumes for the Théâtre du Châtelet's performance of The Phantom of the Opera. She was less than thrilled at the fact that she would be working with Lila Rossi, her old bully from collège, and Adrien Agreste her ex-boyfriend. But this was a great opportunity for her and her company, Lady Luck Designs. When her and her team arrive to the theatre, she was expecting a little drama, what she wasn't expecting was the whole cast and crew to be on edge. Then she heard the whispers, the rumors, the show was haunted.

At first she thought it was just a little PR stunt, but then she realized that everyone was doing their best not to let the information get out. Then the whispers and rumors were more than just about little things going wrong, people were actually meeting the ghost,, the phantom they were calling him. Marinette didn't believe in it,, didn't want to believe in it, that is until she came face to...er mask? with the phantom.

She hoped Lady Luck shined on her for the duration of this project, she had a feeling she would need it.

[Includes: No Miraculous AU, Felinette pairing, big Lila Rossi salt and her lies finally being exposed as well as her facing consequences, Adrien salt big time too, Marinette's former friends salt, Quantic Kids, the Kwami as Marinette's design team, theatre kid shenanigans.]

12. Silence Can Be The Loudest Thing:

Marinette was fully prepared to find a place to transform in the studio, it shouldn't be hard, it was a big place, and she wasn't Luka's target, but she hadn't counted on Bob Ross. He kept using her as a human shield so it seemed like Luka...er...Silencer took it upon himself to be her protector, and apparently that meant carrying her around Paris as he hunted down Bob Ross so he could keep her safe. She just hoped Chat Noir would get there soon and distract Silencer long enough so that she could transform.

Once he does though she can't help but notice how reckless he is in the fight and how he reacts when he finds out Ladybug isn't there yet. Silencer doesn't take it well and seemed more determined than ever to guard her.

What's a bug to do.

[Includes a Silencer rewrite, lukanette, Adrien/Chat salt, new Chat Noir, new heroes, class salt, class picking sides, Kitty Section opening their eyes to Lila's lies, LIla salt, Alya salt]

853 notes · View notes

blackradandmad · 3 years

Text

why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

#lil rambles #long post t #idk why it's formatted like this ig cos i copy pasted from my fb?#whatever anyway idk why i waste my writing skills on shit literally nobody else but me cares abt #blippi #children's television

52 notes · View notes

logicalbookthief · 4 years

Text

Class Disparity and Narrative Framing

Since a bunch of people liked my tags on this post, I thought I’d expand on this this topic.

I’m hoping we delve more into this once we get a proper backstory for Mr. Compress / Oji Harima, as it seems to be the basis for Harima’s actions in his era.

This was originally going to be just an analysis of how similar characters of different classes are treated by the narrative (specifically in regards to Ch 299) but want to first establish the role that class plays in the story overall.

Let’s start with the Peerless Thief (Oji Harima) and what we know of his ideology.

And his criticism isn’t unfounded. Heroes make a lot of money. And that’s in addition to the benefits they receive, such as medical care, education, internships. All free of charge. Once you become a hero, you’re pretty much set financially. That’s the main reason Ochako enrolls in UA, because she wants to help her struggling, working-class family.

But why did Harima find this system so unfair? If everyone has an equal opportunity to become a hero, where’s the harm in it being so profitable?

Except. Not everyone can become a hero. That is a fact Izuku had to contend with his entire childhood. For one thing, they need to have a quirk. So this eliminates the quirkless portion of the population automatically.

You need to also have a quirk that is useful in rescue & combat situations (eliminating more mundane quirks / quirks that have drawbacks that outweigh its ability) and a quirk that is marketable to the public (eliminating any quirks that are off-putting or unpalatable to people, such as Toga drinking blood or mutation quirks that aren’t “cute” or “aesthetically pleasing” enough to tolerate).

Essentially, you need to win the genetic lottery to get a quirk that qualifies you for heroism, an opportunity that offers a large degree of wealth and influence. And that’s where we get into the issue of class.

Class is defined as a group of people who share a socioeconomic status; and in BNHA, this is determined not only by birth, but also can be tied to quirks. The socio part is non-explanatory, as Izuku begins the manga showing how not having a quirk caused him to be treated differently by his peers.

The economic aspect of this is more subtle, but it’s started to come into focus with characters like Twice, Hawks and Compress.

Probably the reason Harima called for reform is this: Children inherit their quirks from their parents. Just as they inherit their socioeconomic status. Someone with a quirk that enables them to become a hero will not only pass on this wealth to their child, but also will likely pass on a quirk that would allow the child to pursue a hero career. This is why you see legacy heroes like Tenya, Shouto, etc.

This ensures that wealth remains in the family, generation after generation. Likewise, it can ensure that another family remains in poverty without any chance for mobility. In a sense, it’s the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

Obviously, you have examples of mobility — Hawks and Ochako are the first that come to mind — but they had/have this opportunity because of their quirks.

Yes, you can still be a hero without the permission of the Hero Commission. Without a license, though, you will a) not be paid and b) be labeled a vigilante, which is the same as a criminal.

As an side-note, because I’m a nerd for words and history— in English, the origin for villain comes from the Medieval Latin villanus, or villa, a dwelling where poor farmers in the village would live. Yeah, that’s right: Villain used to just refer to a person of lower class. If you look at the etymology, many words with these connotations began as words associated with the poor. And in the hands of the aristocracy, they were effectively used to criminalize the poor.

And with that, we’ve circled back to the analysis of characters I promised at the beginning: Thief Takami and Enji Todoroki. Many have pointed out their similarity since Ch 299 was released. Rightfully so!

Both abused their children.

Both isolated their children.

Both of their wives (idk if it’s confirmed Tomie was married to Takami but that’s essentially how they lived) viewed their children through the lens of their fathers due to the unhealthy relationships they had with their husbands.

Both of the mothers were driven to a point where they couldn’t take care of their children, due to either the father’s presence/absence in the family.

What strikes me most in this comparison is how you can’t separate these characters from the issue of class. It permeates every panel and informs our understanding of their situations.

Takami is a piece of shit who blames his child for existing, something this poor kid had no control over. He views Keigo as a burden to him and his freedom and resents him for it.

The glimpses we get of the house show they live in squalor. A child is an extra mouth to feed, an extra person to provide for. You can’t examine the abuse without acknowledging the role of their nonexistent finances: Thief Takami was literally a criminal so he could get money.

Meanwhile, you have Endeavor, who is also a piece of shit, wrapped in a shinier package. He bought his wife with the intention of making children -- as many as needed -- so he could create the perfect combination quirk. Money was no object.

Expenses for Rei’s decade-long hospital stay, the nanny/housekeeper to care for the neglected kids, the fact he can so casually decide to build a new house for his family... It is never addressed by anyone in the story, because it doesn’t need to be. Money is no object.

I’m curious as to what class Rei’s family was (and I’m not exactly hopeful we’ll get this info, based on she’s been treated so far) that they agreed to this arrangement. If they were poor, the idea that their daughter would be taken care of financially might’ve enticed them. Hell, the idea that her family would be taken care of financially might’ve enticed Rei.

Through this analysis, I’ve also realized just how paranoid / concerned the Takamis act in comparison. Thief Takami isolates his whole family out of fear they will sell him out. Tomie is afraid she will be criminalized by mere association and chooses a life on the streets over the risk of going to the police.

Contrast this to how Shouto has revealed his father’s abuse to classmates he barely knew. How Fuyumi mentions in front of his friends who are interning under Endeavor that Natsuo blames their father for Touya’s death; later, Enji admits he is responsible. Remember when Endeavor flat-out told All Might, who was the most influential hero in the country at the time, that he created his son for the sole purpose of surpassing the Number One??

Yet the narrative gives this none of the weight it deserves. Because there are no stakes for Endeavor and everybody knows he will face no consequences for his crimes. The difference is that Takami & Tomie were well-aware that they would be punished if they were caught; while Endeavor & the Torodorkis are well-aware that he would not.

Suffice to say, it is telling that while the narrative has no qualms with condemning Thief Takami for his crimes and abuse of his family -- as it should -- it gives Endeavor the benefit of the doubt and chance after chance to prove he is “worthy” of redemption, even though his victims have never once denied his guilt and they certainly hold him accountable. And the only difference is that one man is from poverty while the other is from privilege.

Anyway, I could say more on this subject -- I would like to touch on how Ochako fits into the class discussion but this got longer than anticipated, so I may have to make a separate post for her -- but I’ll leave it at that for now.

#bnha #bnha meta #bnha 299 #thief takami #enji todoroki #oji harima #mr. compress

233 notes · View notes

girlactionfigure · 4 years

Photo

“I give my child in your care, raise my child as if it were yours.”

These words were written by the mother of a six year old Jewish girl Rami, who was smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland, during the Second World War. Little Rami was placed into foster care with her mother’s Polish friends on the Aryan side of the city and, unlike her mother, ultimately survived the war. The person who was instrumental in making Rami’s survival possible was a woman named Irena Sendler, a social worker and Polish resistance operative who helped save 2,500 Jewish children like Rami during the Holocaust.

Beginnings

Irena was born in 1910 in Warsaw into a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Stanislaw Krzyzanowski was a physician and a researcher in infectious diseases. He was a humanitarian and an idealist, who helped found the Polish Socialist Party. He believed in democracy, equal rights, universal health care, and an end to child labor, and was even expelled from university in Poland for leading strikes and protests advocating for those goals.

When Irena was two, the family moved outside of Warsaw, to the village of Otwock, where Stanislaw set up his practice for the treatment of tuberculosis. The village was fifty percent Jewish, and that percentage included the poorest of residents. Unlike other doctors in the area, Stanislaw treated everyone, the rich and poor alike, despite the poor not being able to pay. “If someone else is drowning, you have to give a hand,” he would often say.

Irena grew up in close contact with the Jewish villagers. She played with their children, and by age six even spoke fluent Yiddish. At home Irena’s family life was warm and nurturing. Stanislaw loved his little girl very much and hugged and kissed her so often that Irena’s aunts would warn him not to spoil her. “We don’t know what her life will be like,” he’d reply. “Maybe my hugs will be her best memory.”

In 1916 an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through the village and Stanislaw chose to be on the front lines. Typhoid, a bacterial disease spread through food, water, and close contact with infected persons, was especially prevalent in poor communities with bad sanitation. Unlike other well off villagers who isolated themselves to avoid contact with the sick, Stanislaw continued caring for patients and later that year succumbed to the disease himself. He died shortly after.

But Stanislaw’s spirit lived on in his daughter, and as Irena matured she resembled her father more and more in her beliefs and actions. She majored in social welfare at the University of Warsaw, and interned in charitable welfare clinics where the poor could get a free education and legal assistance. She also started becoming more politically involved, joining the Polish Socialist Party that her father helped start and beginning to engage in protests and activism herself.

In 1935 anti-Semitic sentiment was on the rise in Poland, and at Polish universities an informal rule nicknamed the “bench ghetto” was introduced. “A rule was established at the University segregating the Catholics from the Jewish students,” Irena recalled. “The Catholics were to sit on the chairs to the right and Jews on the chairs to the left. I always sat with Jews and, therefore, I was beaten by anti-Semites together with Jewish students.”

Later, like her father, Irena was suspended from university for boycotting the labeling of campus identity cards with the word “Aryan” to differentiate non-Jewish students from Jewish ones. “I was taught since my earliest years that people are either good or bad. Their race, nationality, and religion do not matter — what matters is the person.”

The War

On September 1, 1939, after the signing of a non-aggression pact between themselves, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The country was split in half, with the eastern side going to Soviet Union and the western to the Nazis. Warsaw fell to the Nazis.

Overnight Jews became second class citizens in Warsaw. They couldn’t hold state or government positions, couldn’t own businesses, they had to register ownership of property, and lost access to their bank accounts.

Barred from offering social services to the Jewish population officially, Irena with a few friends began to circumvent the rules by faking paperwork in order to do so. This was the beginning of Irena’s resistance operations. Soon Irena and her resistance cell were providing money, food, and clothing to thousands of Jews in Warsaw.

A year after the invasion, moving forward with their ultimate goal of Jewish genocide, the Nazis established a ghetto for Warsaw’s Jews. 350,000 Jews, nearly 30% of the city’s entire population, were imprisoned in a 1.3 square mile ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a ten foot tall brick wall crowned with ribbons of barbed wire.

Irena sprang into action looking for blank documents that could give Aryan identities to Jewish friends destined for the ghetto. And once the ghettoization of Jews was complete, she continued helping in any way she could.

Life in the ghetto was miserable. The Nazis rationed roughly 200 calories of food per person per day. Death by starvation was common. Sanitation was terrible with refuse and human corpses littering the streets. There was a shortage of soap, clothing, and the means to heat living spaces. Many people froze to death. Disease was everywhere, including tuberculosis, dysentery, spotted fever, and typhoid fever, the same disease that claimed Irena’s father’s life.

But Irena was undaunted. Because of her work with Warsaw’s Department of Health and Social Services, she received a pass from the Epidemic Control Department that allowed her official passage in and out of the ghetto. She immediately began making daily visits, sometimes multiple per day, to smuggle food, money, and doses of typhus vaccine into the ghetto. She would hide items in the false bottom of her bag, or in small pockets sewn into a padded bra. Many women had their bras altered with padding and pockets. “It was a joke in wartime Warsaw that women’s breasts had grown dramatically everywhere in the city since the arrival of the Germans.”

Children

Sometimes Irena would smuggle candy or dolls for the ghetto’s children. Children were particularly vulnerable in the ghetto, succumbing faster to malnutrition, freezing, and to more varied diseases than adults. Some families facing starvation relied on their children to obtain food by smuggling it from the Aryan side of the city. Other families sent children across the wall hoping they would fare better as orphans on the Aryan side than inside the ghetto. In the beginning of 1942, about 4,000 children lived on the streets of the Aryan side. 2,000 of them were Jewish.

That year, fearing Nazi soldiers’ contamination with typhus and other diseases from children living on the street, the chief of the Nazi police ordered for Warsaw’s social services to get all homeless children on the Aryan side of the city off the streets and into orphanages and other local institutions. The roundups yielded a number of Jewish children, many of whom Irena and her network helped disappear into private homes and orphanages under false Polish identities. But there were thirty two Jewish kids that could not be placed, and so, in order to save them from execution, Irena had to smuggle them back into the ghetto. Knowing what was awaiting them there, Irena was devastated at not having an alternative solution. She vowed to never again return a single child to the ghetto, and started, along with her associates, an operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto and to provide them with false Polish identities and caring homes on the Aryan side of the city.

The price for helping a Jewish child in wartime Warsaw was execution, and Irena and her core group of twenty to twenty five mostly women operatives, risked their lives daily to save each and every child. Children were smuggled out of the ghetto in a variety of ways. There were secret routes to the Aryan side of the city via sewers and underground corridors. Children were able to get across by sneaking through an old courthouse and a Catholic church that stood on the border of the ghetto. Irena’s epidemic control pass allowed her to officially bring a child out of the ghetto for treatment if they were ill with tuberculosis. Children with or without the disease were brought out this way. Some kids were hidden in ambulances, under floorboards or dirty rags, or in coffins along with dead bodies. The Nazis were terrified of disease and performed only cursory checks before waving ambulances through. The youngest, including babies, had to be sedated with tranquilizers and hidden in trucks in toolboxes, in sacks masquerading as laundry or potatoes, or under vegetable boxes. Some were left in briefcases on early morning streetcars that ran in and out of the ghetto and later picked up by a friend.

Once out of the ghetto, children had to take on new identities in order to integrate into Polish society. Sometimes documents were faked, other times legitimate blanks could be found. If children looked too Jewish, they had makeovers to make them look more Polish. Sometimes it was as easy as dying a child’s hair, other times Jewish boys had to become girls in order to prevent the Nazi authorities from checking for circumcisions.

Escaped children went on to live in homes of friends, in convents, in group homes, orphanages, or religious institutions, and Irena kept a list of each and every child placed with the hope of reuniting them with families after the war. She encoded and recorded only the most essential information such as names, addresses, and an account of any money that parents gave to help with caretaking on cigarette paper that nightly she prepared to throw out of her kitchen window in case the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, ever came looking for her. Eventually, when it became too dangerous to keep the list at home, she buried it in glass bottles under an apple tree in a friend’s garden.

By this time Irena was already having nightmares on a regular basis. Not only did she worry about the children who would certainly be killed if they were ever discovered, she also worried about the families that were risking their lives to hide them. On top of everything, Irena was the sole person who knew the detailed histories of all the smuggled children. If anything were to happen to her, that information would be irretrievable.

Capture

In the fall of 1943, the Gestapo found and arrested a woman who ran a laundrette that the resistance used as a drop-off point for messages and packages. Charged with conspiring with the resistance, the woman was tortured and ultimately broke, giving up names of resistance operatives. One of those names was Irena Sendler’s. Days after, the Gestapo pounded on Irena’s door in the middle of the night. She was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and sent to Pawiak, a secret prison for intelligentsia and those politically involved. Most prisoners interned at Pawiak never left alive.

The Gestapo repeatedly tortured Irena for information, breaking her legs and feet, and permanently scarring her body. Despite the agony, Irena never said a word. She knew what divulging information would mean, a death sentence for thousands of children, friends and families. As luck would have it, the Gestapo thought they had captured only a fringe resistance operative, not the head of children’s division of the resistance movement, which meant Irena received no special treatment. Certainly if they realized who they were dealing with, they would have taken extra measures.

Irena lived at the prison for four months until her execution date was set for January 20, 1944. During the days, when she was not being tortured for information, Irena worked as a washerwoman cleaning soiled Nazi underwear. One day, when the Nazis found the laundry work not to their satisfaction, they lined up all the washerwomen against a wall and shot in the head every other one. Irena was one of the ones who survived.

On the morning of January 20th, a Nazi officer came to take Irena to the courtyard where she was to be shot. She was led down a corridor, but instead of being taken into the waiting room where she was to await her execution, the officer led her out of the prison and into the street. He released her and told her to run. As Irena later found out her friends in the resistance had bribed the Nazi with what today amounts to $100,000 to secure her escape.

End of the war and legacy

Once free, Irena went into hiding, and soon resumed her operations with the resistance. She continued rising in ranks until she was running meetings and setting agendas. In the summer of 1944, with the Soviets advancing, and the Nazis retreating, the Polish resistance army attempted to liberate Warsaw. They fought for two months, but were ultimately defeated by the Nazis. In response to the uprising, Heinrich Himmler, a most high ranking SS officer and the person responsible for forming and operating Nazi death camps, gave the order to kill all Polish residents of Warsaw and to level the entire city. “The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth…,” he ordered. “No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.” Ultimately more than 400,000 people were killed and eighty percent of Warsaw was destroyed by the retreating Nazi army. Irena miraculously survived the destruction.

After the Nazis were driven out of Warsaw, Irena and a friend went to dig up the list of children they had hidden in bottles. They searched and searched for the tree under which the list was buried, but found only rubble. Irena then set out, along with her friends, to recreate the list from memory. She continued working for decades helping reunite children with their families, and even adopted two orphaned Jewish girls herself.

Irena lived until 98, and passed away in Warsaw in 2008. Until the very end of her life she felt that she did not do enough to help children during the war.

Five years before her death Irena received Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, but she never enjoyed being called a hero.

“Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes… Indeed, that term irritates me greatly.”

“Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.”

The children Irena saved during the war continued to call and visit her until the end of her life.

Historical Snapshots

108 notes · View notes

argyle-s · 3 years

Link

Hello,

My name is Molly Bragg. I’m a bi trans gender author who has writing for almost three decades. I’m passionate about creating the kind of content I enjoy, which means stories that center around queer women, I’ve recently completed a original queer genre romance novel and I’m looking for help covering the cost of having it professionally edited.

To give you a preview of what you would be supporting, here’s Chapter 1:

***

Beth watched the buildings pass as the air cab carried her over Los Angeles taking in the changes the last ten years had wrought on the city. Most of the low-income areas had been bulldozed, and those areas were now filled with alien arcologies. Massive buildings that stretched kilometers into the sky, each one a city unto itself, and in their shadows, the skyscrapers that had once been incredible achievements of human architecture and engineering. The buildings which had been hubs of human industry and centers of financial empires were now reduced to little more than playhouses for the backwards primitives who had the misfortune to be born natives of the Galactic Hegemony’s latest colony world. If they’d had another century or two things might have been different. Humanity had been advancing quickly. They wouldn’t have been on par with the technology of the Hegemony by any stretch, but they might have been able to dictate better terms. The Gatekeepers hadn’t cared. The gate had drifted into a stable orbit in the outer system, and the Gatekeepers had announced that, like it or not, the Sol system was being added to their vast network of space fold gates. The first ships from the Hegemony had arrived just a month later, and ever since, Earth had been on the road to becoming the galactic equivalent of a banana republic. So far, her job and her savings had let her avoid the worst of what was happening, but unemployment was at a record high as alien automation systems replaced human labor in almost every sector. The company she worked for had shifted gears from research and development to reverse engineering alien tech and had seen a short windfall in profits, but that was starting to vanish as the inevitable inflation drove prices up and the people they had been selling reverse engineered tech could no longer afford it. Beth wasn’t really that worried for herself. She’d been poor before, and however much she might hate the idea she could survive being poor again. What brought her to LA today was Sam. Sam was getting close to graduation, and she had acceptance letters from every college that could afford postage. A 4.0 unweighted GPA, high SAT scores, and a couple of impressive summer internships meant that schools were falling all over themselves to offer her full rides. Ten years ago, that would have all but ensured her a bright future. These days a PhD from Harvard, Yale, or MIT wasn’t worth the cost of paper to print the degree. People still made noise about human exceptionalism and about taking humanity’s place in the larger galactic community, but Beth had spent a lot of time over the last decade studying the history of colonization on Earth, and it never once ended well for the people being colonized.Regardless of what happened to the colonized peoples as a whole, there were always individual exceptions... people who avoided the fate of their brethren. It was her determination to ensure her daughter’s future that brought her to LA today. While billionaires had started buying their kids spots in alien schools the moment they were allowed out of the Sol System, Beth didn’t have that option. She was well off enough that she and Sam weren’t feeling the effects of the colonization yet, but nowhere near rich enough to buy a ticket off-world for Sam, much less pay for an off-world education. Instead, she’d spent years looking into other options. So far, none of her work had paid off, but she hadn’t given up hope. She was headed to a meeting with a broker who helped place kids into programs that offered grants, scholarships and all expenses paid exchange programs. She was going to find a way to offer her daughter a better future than most of Earth’s children could look forward to. No matter what it took. *** “Ms. Murray, it’s so nice to meet you,” the man said as he held out his hand. Beth took it and gave it a quick shake while trying her best not to let on that he reminded her of a used car salesman. She needed his help, and it wouldn’t do to offend him. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Cooper.” “Please, call me Owen,” he said. “Right this way.” He led her out of the small, brightly decorated waiting room and into a small, neat office. He gestured to a chair in front of his desk as he walked around behind it and took his seat. “So, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page here Ms. Murray. You are looking for an opportunity for your daughter to continue her education off-world, is that correct?” “Yes,” Beth said. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we’re both looking for the same outcome. Now, I’ve gone through Samantha’s records. Academically, she’s in great shape, and the extra-curriculars are good too. I’ve been able to find at least twenty different programs that will accept her.” “That’s great,” Beth said, though she didn’t believe it. She’d heard the exact same thing from more than a dozen other brokers, and she suspected she wasn’t going to hear anything new. “What are the terms?” “It varies from program to program. All of them require a period of indenture, but some are as low as eight years.” Beth tried to hide her disappointment. She wanted to give her daughter a better future, not sell her into virtual slavery for almost a decade. “Owen, I’m looking for a program without any period of indenture. I know they exist, but you’re the fifteenth broker I’ve talked to and none of them have offered even an application to an indenture free program.” “They do exist, but Ms. Murray, you must understand. There are a lot of people who want their children to receive an off-world education, and slots which don’t require a period of indentured service are in especially high demand.” “I understand that, but I haven’t gotten high demand, I’ve gotten completely unavailable. I’d like to know why no one will even consider letting her apply.” Owen looked at her for almost a minute, not saying anything, before he finally leaned back in his chair and let out a weary sigh. “Honestly, Ms. Murray?” “Please.” “Those slots go to the kids of billionaires, presidents, CEO’s, ambassadors, kings and other high level government types. Each year, a handful will go to some poor kids from the ghetto so that they can parade them around as part of a puff piece about how generous the aliens are, but that’s just window dressing. The truth is, your daughter is neither rich enough, nor poor enough to ever get one of those slots.” Beth had to bite her tongue to keep from swearing. She wasn’t surprised at all, but she was angry and frustrated. She’d half suspected something like that was going on, but hearing it spelled out so clearly was still enough to make her blood boil. “Isn’t there anything, any way that I can get her off-world without selling her into slavery?” “Ms. Murray, Indentured Service is hardly slavery.” “It’s close enough.” Owen stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head. “What?” “It’s nothing.” “It’s something,” she said. “Please.” He sighed. “It’s not something I would normally offer to someone of your background.” “What does that mean?” “It means that some aliens have cultural practices that people of Western European descent find unpalatable, while those from other cultures would find those practices perfectly normal.” “I’m not sure I follow.” “Ms. Murray, you are aware that, much to the surprise of every biologist on the planet, there are a number of species with whom humanity shares a degree of reproductive compatibility?” “I am,” she said. “Well, there is a species called the Sionnach. They’re native to a planet called Talamh in the Grian system, and they bear a rather striking resemblance to humans. There are differences of course, but the basic morphology is the same. The reason I bring this up is that about eighty years ago, Talamh suffered an environmental catastrophe that wiped out nearly ninety-five percent of their population in the span of a few weeks. Because of their reproductive practices prior to the incident, the Sionnach found themselves facing a sort of genetic bottleneck, and they decided that the best way to alleviate this was to seek an outside infusion of genetic material.” “They’re looking for breeding stock,” Beth said. “Yes.” “You can’t be serious.” “And this is why I don’t offer this option to white people,” Owen said. “Ms. Murray, I’m not suggesting you sell your daughter off as some kind of brood mare. The Sionnach take selection of their mates very, very seriously. They gather applications from a number of candidates, and the Sionnach in question reviews them, and selects the ones they like. Then, their family reviews their choices, and select a candidate. The candidate is then brought to the house of their prospective spouse, and they spend a period of time together. Roughly five hours. During that time they talk, get to know each other, and decide if they want to proceed. If both parties agree, they enter a five year engagement. During those five years, the candidate is treated as a member of the house. They are given a stipend, they’re educated, they’re housed, fed, provided with medical care, and they undergo medical procedures which allow them to survive on Talamh without special equipment.” “What sort of medical procedures?” “Talamh is a high gravity world with a higher-than-normal concentration of heavy metals in the environment. Your daughter would need procedures to be able to stand up to the local gravity, and to be able to filter out metals she would not normally be able to purge from her system. She would also undergo a type of gene therapy which would make her more resistant to radiation and give her the ability to see parts of the infrared spectrum and hear sounds normally outside of the range of human hearing.” “That sounds dangerous.” “The Sionnach are one of the founding species of the Hegemony. Their technology is thousands of years more advanced than ours, and they’ve been doing these procedures since before humans built their first cities.” Beth shook her head. “An arranged marriage… I don’t know.” “If I’m honest, it’s a long shot. You would have to take your daughter for a screening. She’d have to pass the screening for any sort of genetic issues that would eliminate her, then she would have to be selected by one of the Sionnach. If that happens, you and your family would have to travel to Talamh at the expense of the Sionnach house that selected her, and your daughter would have to get through the initial interview. But if she does, she would get the education you want for her.” “And what happens at the end of the five years if she decides she doesn’t want to marry the person who selected her.” “Then she’s free to walk away. She’d be given a small amount of money, and passage to anywhere within the Hegemony, but she’d be free to do what she wants.” “No indenture? No repayment of expenses?” Beth asked. “No,” Owen said. “But again, it’s a long shot, and I take my normal fee just to put you through the application process, whether she gets selected or not.” “How many humans get selected?” Beth asked. “She’d be the first,” Owen said. “What’s your fee?” Beth asked. “Five hundred Hegemony credits.” Beth winced. Given current exchange rates, that was almost ten thousand dollars. “How quickly would we know?” Beth asked. Owen turned and woke up his computer. She watched as he pulled up a page and scrolled through before clicking on a link. “There’s only one family looking right now. Applications are due by the end of next week. You’d know in a month, tops.” Beth thought about it for a moment. It was a longshot, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea, but it was better than an indenture, so she reached for her credit card. *** Sam looked up from her homework at the sound of a light knock on her bedroom door. The door was wide open, and her mother was standing there looking at her. Sam couldn’t quite place the expression on her face but given the appointment she had earlier, Sam didn’t have any doubt about what it meant. “No luck, huh?” she asked, trying not to let the relief she felt creep into her voice. She knew an off-world education would open a lot of doors for her and give her opportunities that she wouldn’t have otherwise, and she really did want to go off-world, travel in space and see other planets someday, but the idea of living on another planet for four or more years was both frightening and overwhelming. “Not much,” her mom said. “He did have one program you could apply for that doesn’t include an indenture period. I emailed you the link to the application. I need you to fill it out today, because I made an appointment for tomorrow for you to go for the physical and psych scan that’s required.” “Tomorrow? Mom, tomorrow’s Jenny’s birthday party.” “I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to the party, but you might have to miss it. I’ve already got us portal tokens, and tomorrow is the only day we can go before the deadline without you missing school. I made the appointment for as early as I could, so you should get home in time to go.” Sam wanted to argue, but she already knew it was useless. She hadn’t missed a day of school since halfway through the eighth grade, and she knew her mom wasn’t going to let her start less than a month before graduation. She also knew her mom wasn’t going to let her pass up a chance at an off-world scholarship just to go to a birthday party. Even if the birthday girl was her best friend who she’d been crushing on since Kindergarten. Of course, her mom didn’t exactly know that last part because she hadn’t told her she liked girls. She’d considered telling her a few times, but she’d always changed her mind at the last minute, because if her mom knew she liked girls, she might decide that Jenny was a distraction that Sam didn’t need in her life and that wasn’t a battle she wanted to fight. “Fine,” she said, reaching for her laptop. “I’ll do the application now.” “Thank you. And Sam, I love you.” “I love you too, mom,” she said. Her mom left and Sam opened up the email link, which took her to a form that asked her for an invite code. She checked the email and sure enough, there was a code for her. She copied it and pasted it into the form, and when she did, it took her to the next page, and a lot of the information was prepopulated, including her latest ID card photo, name and age, along with her school transcripts and medical records. The stuff that was left for her to fill out read more like a dating profile than a college application. The first section was hobbies and interests and activities. She thought about it for a minute and decided to just be honest instead of going through all the BS she usually did for the college apps. She put down soccer, swimming, surfing, electronics, robotics, reading, martial arts, camping and motocross. She attached pictures of herself in her soccer uniform, along with a couple of video clips from some of the team’s games, then she added a few videos of her swim meets, and a couple of pictures and some videos of her surfing. She pulled up her YouTube folder and attached a few build videos for some of her robotics projects, along with the parts lists, schematics, models for the 3D printed parts, and the source code for the micro-controllers she’d written. She added a picture of her holding two trophies from a local Karate tournament where she’d placed second in sparring, and third in bo staff, and added a few videos of her matches. She also added a few pictures from her camping trips and a picture of her sitting on a dirt bike, along with a video Jenny had taken of her running one of the beginner courses, then pulled up her ebook library and dumped the list of all her books, listed her favorite movies and attached all her playlists from her music library. The next section was a little weird. It asked about what sort of foods she liked, so she gave a list. Then is asked whether she enjoyed various activities. Most of them were fairly common things. Theater, music, art. A couple she had to check the cultural database link. She was surprised and excited when she found out that whoever was sponsoring this program apparently considered dragon racing important enough to put on the questionnaire. All in all, she spent about two hours filling out the application, and once she was done, she hit submit, and then pulled out her cell phone and opened up her text messages with Jenny. Sam: ‘Bad news. I might miss your party.’ Jenny: ‘What?!!!’ Sam: ‘Mom’s dragging me to New York in the morning for a physical and a psych scan for a scholarship.’ Jenny: ‘She’s still on that off-world college kick?’ Sam: ‘Yeah.’ Jenny: ‘Girl, you don’t want to go to college with ET’s’ Sam: ‘I’ve got to get accepted before I have to worry about it.’ Jenny: ‘Come by my place when you’re done. Even if you miss the party, I want to see you.’ Sam: ‘Will do. See you tomorrow.’ Jenny; ‘Night.’ Sam sat down her phone and looked at her homework. She’d wanted to finish before dinner, but there was no way that was happening now. She grabbed it anyway and went back to work, trying to get as much done as possible before her mom called her downstairs.

***

End Chapter 1

***

If you like what you see, please support my campaign, either by donating or reblogging this post.

If you prefer not to use go fund me, you can also help out by donating at KoFi or PayPal.me

https://ko-fi.com/themollyjay

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/mollyjbragg

#original fiction #queer fiction #lesbian characters #agender characters #non-binary characters #crowdfunding

9 notes · View notes

tortoisesshells · 3 years

Note

For the ship meme - dealer's choice please, for whichever pairing's been on your mind lately, and I'm looking forward to reading and learning about them!:)

Thank you, kind friend, and many apologies for the delay! I’m currently mired in trying to get the actual plot moving in Customs and Duties, after an unstated number of chapters wherein the Main Idiot Duo has not achieved much beyond being Emotionally Shut Down and mired in their own problems and not thinking of each other romantically in the slightest, because James Norrington is too stuck on his past and trying not to let the rapidly deteriorating situation in Boston get out of hand & Nellie Treat is the furthest thing from over her late husband’s death and also trying to keep the good Commodore from finding out about her smuggling business. In the base continuity of the 1730s, some of these questions don't really apply, so I've tried to either answer for an analogous question, or drawn from my stable of AUs of the AU.

Who reaches out to new neighbors?

Nellie's generally a friendlier face, but more importantly, Nellie thinks about community and interdependence in a far more positive, concrete way than James, who, bless his heart, is far too used to bossing people around.

Who remembers to buy healthy food?

Nellie initially, since she's spent years being a Good Mom and after getting small children to eat their greens, how hard could it be to make sure another adult eats his peas? (actually, I have no solid idea what "good food" looks like to an early 18th century Anglo-American colonist. Does she even know what broccoli is? Certainly she doesn’t think of healthy food the same way I do.) Too, providing is her love language, but I'm pretty sure after spending more than a week with Jimothy, realized the man treats food as sort of an irritating necessity of life, probably starts in on spice cakes and drinking chocolate.

Actually, on rereading the last few chapters, every time Nellie has seen James she’s been thinking /someone/ has to give that man a cup of tea that’s more sugar and cream than tea and/or a slice of cake - and she’s still at a point in her relationship with him where she intermittently thinks her life would be much easier if she’d just let him drown several months before.

Who remembers to buy junk food?

Nellie, again.

Who fixes the oven when it breaks?

Neither of them. One of them arranges for someone else to fix something like a blown-in chimney or a damaged galley-stove. Even in the 20th or 21st c. continuities, I'm pretty sure one of them would call Sears or a handyman while the other read the manual and bemoaned that two otherwise capable and intelligent adults have no idea what's going wrong. They're deeply pragmatic people, but in this instance that means knowing that they've never had to learn this, and knowing when they're beat.

Who waters the plants and/or feed the pets?

If there's cat, I imagine Nellie is very much the hardass about not feeding them off the table - which means that James would just do it when she's not looking.

In the modern AU, Nellie and her family do have a cat named Hotspurr, and I do imagine that Hotspurr very much becomes James’s responsibility. Pets just aren’t really Nellie’s cup of tea, in any continuity; James, on the other hand, I think appreciates the regimen and regularity of feeding animals or watering house plants.

Who wakes up earlier?

Hard to say. Neither of them have good sleep schedules, and both tend not to sleep when under stress; when they’re not under pressure, I actually imagine Nellie tends to get up first - she’s had many years managing children and running a household, and lucky for James, being a commissioned officer who doesn’t have to stand watch means he gets to keep relatively normal hours.

Who makes the bed?

James. Nellie's just not that neat outside of public spaces in her home. If it can’t be seen, she can’t be judged for it; plus she’s just going to get into bed again eventually, and it’s going to get mussed again, so why bother? Pull the bed curtains if it’s going to be an irritant. James, on the other hand, like order and organization in all things - even and especially if no one else is going to see it.

Who makes the coffee?

Nellie, because even in the 18th century continuity she’s incredibly dependent on caffeine & it’s the luxury she lets herself indulge in consistently. It’s not that she doesn’t trust anyone else to make it to her liking ... but it is.

She may let James make the coffee, or talk her into letting someone else, like his steward, make it. After several years of close observation, and, possibly, locking her out of the kitchen.

Who burns breakfast?

I don't imagine Nellie in any era can do much more than very basic cookery, but what she can do, she does pretty well. I'm going to have to give this one to James, though I really can't imagine him cooking; I don’t think he’d be bad (though, if pressed, I assume James Norrington is a better baker than cook, if only because I associate baking with just following the damn recipe & cooking with arcane arts and hidden rituals & just making shit up on the fly) so much as it’s not something he’d ever have had much reason to get good at in the main continuity, because yay gender roles (/s) and class expectations(/s).

How do they let each other know they're leaving the house?

This is Quite Difficult to answer in the base continuity without giving away parts of the ending that’s not the obvious “the truth is revealed & some very Hard Talks happen before they get together” so, uh, have some Modern AU - They’re both practical to a fault, so they both tend to run down the phone-keys-wallet list and ask the other if they need anything while they’re out - Nellie’s job, however, is literally in the store-front downstairs, so she doesn’t tend to leave the house as much? (also, in every era, Nellie’s just ... kind of a homebody. She finds a home and sticks to it.)

How do they greet each other when one of them gets home?

Announcing it to the house, kiss on the cheek, and probably immediately going into something that happened to them that reminded them of the other that day? Neither of them tends to say “I missed you” about day to day things, but being remembered because someone was talking about Samuel Eliot Morison in the shop or all that trivia about longitude finally came in handy at the law firm is the greatest kind of compliment?

Who brings home little gifts like flowers/chocolates more often?

Nellie - she’s very bad at saying “I love you” or even being openly affectionate, but she loves picking up books or shells or interesting curios as a means of saying “I was thinking about you” -

Who picks the movie for movie night?

No movies in the 18th century, alas - but as far as books or plays, neither of them is actually all that regularly educated, or even into their early 30s had enough free time to develop taste? Nellie went to a dame school for a few years, but irregularly; James got stuck at sea from the age of five and hard a largely practical education that didn’t include much other than seamanship & political maneuvering. Nellie’s the more openly curious of the two, so I suspect she’s the one picking up new books to read out loud. Maybe she’ll even get around to teaching herself (or hiring someone to teach her) the harpsichord one of these days?

Their favorite kind of movie to watch?

In modern continuities? I’m not wholly sure, but I feel strongly that James would have very strong feelings about Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I think Nellie would like historical dramas, honestly?

Who first suggests a pillow fort?

Nellie, I think, as a coping thing? She tends to curl up or wedge herself into the corner of chairs when she’s exhausted or beyond upset; I think she’d like or benefit from small, enclosed spaces from time to time. Both of them like /doing/ things - certainly, sitting still is not something Nellie tends to do. Ever. Unless pretty much forced to do so.

Who builds the pillow fort?

It’s a group effort, but I suspect this is mostly James’s doing. Especially if the kids/ step-kids get involved.

Who tries to distract the other one during the movie?

Nellie, probably, because ruffling his feathers is just so easy, and of the two of them, Nellie is less likely to take anything not life-threatening seriously.

Who falls asleep first?

Nellie. When not stressed beyond her limits, she can and will fall asleep standing up.

Who is big spoon/little spoon?

Nellie’s little spoon, in part because she’s just shorter (though, not to keep bringing up her late husband - Nellie’s about a foot shorter than James, but she was over a foot and a half shorter than Samuel, so it’s not so dramatic as before) - and in part because she tends to sleep curled up on herself, which she can’t very well do as the big spoon.

#fic #my fic #ask meme #polkaknox talks #customs and duties

3 notes · View notes

thejustmaiden · 4 years

Text

Fiction and Real Life Go Hand In Hand

This blog goes out to all those pro-Sessrin fans out there who refuse to acknowledge the very real effects fiction can have on our world and vice versa. I highly encourage other Inuyasha fans who defend/enable these shippers to read this, as well. I assure you, by no means are my intentions here to stir up trouble. Honestly, I just want some good healthy discourse for once if that’s not too much to ask. If you do decide to engage, please be mindful of that and treat others with respect and I will do the same in return. All in all, the goal of this blog is to exercise my right to speak out and be critical about content I believe to have very potentially detrimental repercussions. I ask that you not attack me or insult me simply for stating an opinion. Thank you!

It’s like the title says, meaning fiction does matter. Where do you think we get ideas for all the stories we tell? Where do we draw inspiration from in the first place?

Real life, that's where! And yes, always with a touch of imagination! Long story short: fiction matters because real life does.

Allow me to elaborate.

Shippers of the Sesshomaru x Rin (Sessrin) pairing say it's not fair of us to throw around serious accusations or use certain deragatory terms that suggest such awful acts like child grooming or pedophilia because of the harmful implications. One of their reasonings being that some people IRL have actually lived through these traumas, so we shouldn't dare to assume they're comparable since one is just fiction and the other is not. But this isn’t about which is worse than the other, because they’re both super problematic. All we’re literally doing is making a link between grooming in real life and grooming in fiction. They mirror each other. Same issue; different mediums. We’re not undermining any one’s past experiences with grooming or the like, nor are we prioritizing fiction to diminish real life abuse. They’re both awful in numerous ways and that’s all we’re trying to say. In fact, if anything we’re attempting to demonstrate just how crucial this correlation is between them. In order to protect past victims and prevent future ones, we must remain vigiliant of the content we consume, and yes, sometimes that means we have to challenge it too. Just because it’s widely-viewed does not make it widely-accepted or well-received. It is paramount that we educate ourselves on how to be more critical of some of the harmful tropes and images that are still way too prevalent in mainstream media. Sexualizing young and pre-pubescent girls is way more normalized than some of us even realize. It’s sad but true that Sessrin is just one of many examples. I know it feels like society has failed us in a lot of ways, but it’s never too late to re-evaluate and re-learn better and more improved ways of viewing and processing information presented to us.

Our mission: Let’s not show our kids that grooming or any other form of abuse are acceptable if they may ever come to experience or encounter it themselves. Be it the real world or on screen. Deal?

There have been a number of occasions where real life victims do speak up against the Sessrin ship and express how extremely uncomfortable it makes them feel by what it represents. The problem is that it’s becoming more evident now that many of their fans will dismiss anything purely on the basis that we pose a threat to their ship and nothing more. What it comes down to is they have no real leg to stand on and cannot possibly top any of what we have to say so instead they simply disregard it. Our inconvenient truths don't fit into their ideal *cough* OOC *cough* narrative so they just choose to be willfully ignorant. It conflicts with their fantasy, so rather than present a sound argument of their own, they flat-out reject it and offer no plausible back-up behind their reasoning besides "I don't interpret it that way." GUYS, CHILD GROOMING IS NOT UP FOR INTERPRETATION.

Just because you so desperately want your ship to come true does not mean you can up and decide to redefine a word so that it caters to your stance. Remind yourself that these are complex AND objective terms that we have no right to fiddle with to serve our own selfish purposes. This is why we can conclude that there's no debate about Sesshomaru's actions towards Rin embodying child grooming.

I apologize if any of my words are triggering by the way, so please feel free to take a break and return later if that’s more suitable for you. it's just really important that everyone in this fandom comprehends the extent in which Sessrin going canon is catastrophic. And no, I'm not exaggerating; I'm simply speaking the truth. Shippers justifying these horrible acts- yes, even in fiction- is usually due to the stubborn refusal to hear us out. No offense to anyone (just stating facts), but more times than not antis like myself feel as if we’re talking to a brick wall when we interact with Sessrin peeps. They go in circles and never expand on their perspectives.

Just a head’s up: THIS GETS LONG. Stick with me. :p

Just look at their take on the Inukag vs. Sessrin relationships for example. This isn't a question of age gaps, this is a question of physical/emotional compatibility. Inukag are the same age mentally wise regardless of one being demon and the other not, whereas Sessrin is not and never will be, and yes, even once she's an adult. The thing is we have debunked this time and time again, because they’re not the same and therefore not comparable, but for some reason these fans won’t drop it. Nothing has changed in their argument, yet they’re persistent in bringing it up. I choose to not go into more detail, since like I said, you can find it around everywhere. I just wanted to touch upon it briefly to prove a point. Maybe it will come up again later in my blog though!

Where was I earlier? Right, child grooming! Haven't you guys realized that what you’re doing is precisely what child groomers do to make excuses or deny any grooming took place at all? (FYI: I’m not accusing you of being child groomers yourselves.) “They reciprocated so the feelings are mutual" is a typical groomer response, but of course it varies. More often than not, victims of grooming aren't even aware they've been groomed until much later. That's how manipulative groomers are that they can legitmately convince you that maybe you're wrong in questioning their motives. Perhaps in the victim’s mind that because one huge indicator of grooming never actually took place it technically cannot constitute as grooming. They start to doubt themselves even though their intuition is telling them something’s off. They should just ignore it then since it can’t possibly be grooming if that one particular thing never happened, right? Wrong, grooming isn’t strictly this or strictly that. It's much more complicated and multi-faceted. This is why the “but Sesshomaru left Rin in the village” point upsets me greatly. HE WAS STILL INVOLVED IN HER LIFE, Y’ALL.

On top of that, are you aware that this is the exact same kind of predatory mindset pedophiles use to describe their infatuation with children? They'll say things like, "I don't see them as an adult and a child. I see them as two people with a soul connection." Okay no joke, I wish I was lying, but that is literally a point one pro-sessrin fan on here recently used to defend this ship. It both astounds me and terrifies me that they don't see the glaring similarities they share in common with actual pedos.

Alright, I want to quickly return to what I was saying earlier about fiction's impact on real life. (Sorry, I’m a bit of a scatterbrain!)

The characters and their worlds in our stories that we dream up and bring to life are nothing short of awe-inspiring and magnificent if we so choose them to be. If it wasn't for our imaginations, stories like Inuyasha would have never come to exist. Fiction provides us an amazing outlet where we are given the opportunity to express ourselves and explore its infinite creative possibilities.

But strip away all the demons and magical components of this show we all love so dearly and what are we left with?

At the very core, Inuyasha is a story that's very reminiscent of the human experience: love, camaraderie, a sense of purpose, and much more!

So perhaps we got a full-fledged dog demon like Sesshomaru, but does that necessarily mean we can't relate to him or understand him simply because dog demons don't exist in the real world? Well, I hope that's not how you view it or else you're missing the whole point of why humans create stories to begin with. We create them to make better sense of and thus connect with the world we live in. And when you really think about it, our stories are just a celebration of life- both our struggles and our triumphs. Now I'm no philosophy professor, but I'm pretty sure they'd say I hit that nail right smack on the head. ;)

All shitty jokes aside, the whole reason I’m mentioning this specific example in the first place is because this recently came up with another Sessrin supporter. That supporter tried to defend the ship by stating that we aren't allowed to use Sesshomaru as an example to judge by since his kind don't exist in the real world.

Now if it isn't evident already, this "it's just fiction" argument is a popular go-to stance many Sessrin fans will resort to once they've run out of ideas and are metaphorically backed into a corner. The funny/sad thing is that they seem to sincerely believe this is strong enough evidence to defend their ship with, but per usual, they fail to see how hypocritical that would be. I’ll clarify soon down below.

Seriously, since when did we decide that fantasy- or any story genre for that matter- stopped reflecting the real world we live in? I mean, we humans are the ones writing these stories. Our human influence is bound to make an impact in some capacity. In fact, we want it to!

Obviously none of us have ever met a dog demon like Sesshomaru, because how could we? Let me tell ya, this is gaslighting at its finest! This is a fictional story with fantasy elements, so of course there will be beings and creatures in their world that don't exist in our own. Does that somehow translate to the fact that nothing from the story of Inuyasha can be applied to our own personal stories or that there aren't meaningful messages to be taught and learned?

So on the flipside, if they're not screaming at us "it's just fiction" for the hundred billionth time, then they are, believe it or not, doing the reverse and comparing it to real world history. One instance of this is how they tell us we're making a big deal about something that isn't real, but go right ahead and use the history of feudal Japan to support Sesshomaru's decision to court (aka GROOM) a young girl because that's how it was done back then. And so, your point being?? It wasn't right then just because it was legal, and it's most certainly not right now. This is how all of their arguments go by the way, where you'll constantly witness a cherry-picking approach. It's agonizing to endure contradiction after contradiction in their arguments filled with nothing but holes in their logic.

I'd just like to add that if we're overreacting to this fictional ship like they love to say we are then technically so are they. They tell us things like "grow up" or "nobody is telling you to keep watching," yet fail to realize they're reacting just as fervently as we are but just on the opposing side of the same damn argument. I find it interesting how they're as invested in this show but pretend they aren't then STILL have the audacity to say it's only us who care this much!? So thank you Sessrin shippers for further proving our point that fiction is more than capable of affecting reality and the people- YES, US- who reside in it.

It's insane that people act like pedophiles and other creeps don't enjoy entertainment too like the rest of us. Believe it or not, they look just like you and me most of the time. Yes, that means they can easily pass as a “regular guy” if they so wished to. My question to you is how do you think pedophiles will take it when they discover others- underage fans more specifically- who dig the same kinda media they get off to? Maybe not in the exact same way, mind you, but there's a thin line between them when you really think about it. I mean, what other explanation is there for why literal pedos on the internet have been known to sneak into pro-sessrin group chats here on Tumblr before? (Thankfully, they were later kicked.) I know that for a fact! It's almost as if the universe is trying to tell them something they refuse to listen to elsewhere. Hhmmm I wonder what that may be.

I imagine it’s possibly one of the hardest things to admit out loud and to themselves, but I can almost guarantee you that most of these Sessrin shippers who are victims of CSA and who still see no issue with Sessrin must be living with some sort of unresolved trauma caused by the very abuse they claimed to have undergone. It's been proven that victims who do not seek or properly receive the help and treatment they need in order to address and live with a traumatic experience such as this are more likely to perpetuate that very same abuse themselves in some way, shape or form. What if in this case fiction is enough for them, but who's to say it won’t eventually manifest itself in other more dire and far-reaching ways? It's not like we haven't seen this vicious cycle before, and I can promise you that Sessrin won't be the last. LET'S STOP NORMALIZING & GLORIFYING THE ROMANTIZATION & SEXUALIZATION OF CHILDREN. Fictional example: Usagi Drop. Need I say more? Real world example: Woody Allen. Again, need I say more?

Bottom line is that Sessrin shippers don't want us to think too critically about this ship of theirs, because if we dig too deep then they're forced to face the very troubling implications this pairing really stands for. Of course they'll never admit to them, because instead they rather double down and grasp at the same old straws as long as it means their precious ship is protected at all costs. Screw everyone else if that's what it takes, because they'll threaten to burn down legit buildings in real life if that ensures Sessrin goes canon! (True story, this happened on Twitter.) They’ll taunt and bully anyone who disagrees. Even if all you literally say is that you don’t like the ship, they’ll gang up on you. Tell them about your past experience with being groomed? They’ll laugh in your face. I wish I was kidding, but I assure you I am not. And they say we're ridiculous and taking this way too seriously? Yeah...

The typical behavior of a Sessrin shipper demonstrates an overly aggressive front since they're usually on defense mode anyway. They only want to ship their sick ship in peace in other words. But just because neo-nazis have a right to spew their bigoted ideology, doesn't mean we don't got the right to punch them! Freedom of speech doesn't equate to freedom from consequences. And Sessrin shippers wonder why they got so many haters. Just sayin'.

Their presence on other platforms like Twitter and Reddit are some examples of how delusional and unstable some Sessrin fans are capable of becoming. Even recently, an anon here on Tumblr sent Richard Ian Cox (English VA for Inuyasha) a totally uncalled for ask telling him that "sessrin is love and there's nothing he can do about it." (That's not verbatim, but if you're interested I'll link you to it.) It appears they discovered that he didn't like Sessrin based on how he had been replying to asks, and just for that reason alone they thought they had the right to harass him. For simply stating his opinion, y'all. They didn't even have the decency to show their face either. Talk about immature and cowardly!

Just yesterday (or was it the day before?) a fanatic Sessrin user on Tumblr- who’s also been known for hateful remarks on Twitter but those tweets have of course been deleted since then- went out of their way to not only lurk in a group chat they don’t belong to on here but to then proceed to harass a few of us in there. They had the guts to take screenshots from that group chat, tag us in posts on their page regarding what they read in there, and without our knowledge or permission went ahead and actually blogged them?? I mean, who calls out people behind their backs while they're just minding their own business?? It worries me how unhinged and out of touch with reality some Sessriners are. Not all of them, but a whole lot of them.

It seems all they are doing is looking for trouble, as they just can't stand how much we hate this ship. So it's more than okay if they love on their ship but it's not okay if we don't and we should just keep our mouths shut. But since when do Sessrin fans have authority over our opinions? Even if they were officially canon, nothing is ever gonna change our opinion. Now when they actually do decide to participate in discourse with antis, you'll see them fishing for excuses to bow out. How they normally go about this is by fabricating a way to blame us antis for their exiting a conversation as if we're being the irrational ones here.

There’s no denying that some antis can also be overly blunt or aggressive (nobody is saying we’re perfect here), but speaking for myself, I know I would never make such nasty comments about other fans and their personal lives. And honestly? It would make me feel like shit talking bad about someone I don't actually know. Nah, I won't stoop to that level or give haters that satisfaction. I may not attack them as people, but that doesn't mean I can't attack some of their messed up ideas that threaten to distort how we should or shouldn’t perceive certain dangerous situations and events. Seeing as how for me this is more than just a matter of opinion- it's a moral responsibility and even an obligation.

I know it's difficult to remain civil when things get heated and people start taking things personally- yet more proof that fiction impacts our lives- but that's the only way any of us will ever have constructive discussions about serious topics like this. Unfortunately, Sessrin shippers, from what I can tell, are incapable of engaging in real discourse for the most part. They may be vocal but that doesn't mean they can pack a punch. I’d really love to be proven wrong someday.

Okay, moving on! If they're not involved in some big-time gaslighting then they're using their infamous strawman argument approach.

Sessrin fans’ sole purpose isn't really to defend their ship, per se, but rather to deflect and antagonize. They like to mislead in order to shift the focus/blame onto their opponent or something else that's not related so that they can stray from the main point.

Take the drama CD for example. It's officially NOT considered canon, right? But that hasn't stopped many fans from referencing it anyway so let’s too consider it for a moment. The point is that they use its "existence" whenever convenient then deny it or downplay it whenever it’s not. So on one hand, it's plain as day that they celebrate it as proof of a romantic future for Sessrin. But then later once we point out to them that Sesshomaru is essentially confessing to Rin that he will wait for her until she's of age, they'll brush it off and quickly add that they didn't interpret the scene that way and leave it at that. I mean how else would you interpret it? And if it's not a proposal of sorts then why exactly are you bouncing off the walls about it to begin with?? If that's all it means is nothing then why are we even talking about this?! You see what I mean here??! And somehow we're the crazy ones?

Let me to be frank with you. If you haven’t listened to it already, this proposal he offered her sounded like a declaration of love in a multitude of ways, which is wildly inappropriate since Rin was only 12 at the time. Signifying that Sesshomaru was/is indeed grooming her. Well, that is if you choose to recognize the drama CD. Nevertheless, whether you do or not, I personally hate that this non-canon satire is even associated with the Inuyasha name to begin with. Ugh.

Intentional or not, Sesshomaru made a deliberate decision in that moment to tell a little girl- and not just any little girl mind you but a girl he's taken in under his care for a good year- that he would wait for her if she so chooses once she's old enough.

The issue is that it isn’t only age of consent we’re concerned about regarding this pairing. What Sessriners fail to see is that this grown male authority- her vassal, her guardian, her adoptive father, or whatever you wanna refer to him as- is basically making a move on this girl he had in his company for quite some time. There's no sugarcoating that. Us antis call it how it is, and I'm sure as fucking day other people who don't watch the show would most certainly agree that the Sesshomaru/Rin bond is filial. Set aside those rose-tinted glasses of yours, and going by everything we’ve been delivered in the manga and parts of the anime (and NOT the drama cd), there are literally no hints that indicate a blossoming romance between this adult male demon and this small human girl he’s taken under his wing. You can imagine them all you want if it pleases you, but that doesn’t mean they’re there. Adult!Rin is a figment of your imagination, nothing more. The idolization of this pairing is pretty disturbing seeing as all we have to go off of in canon is Child!Rin. There have only ever been sweet and innocent moments passed between the two, which is why I’m positive that an unbiased viewer or an outsider would state their dynamic resembled something akin to a father-daugther relationship. I would bet a shit ton of money on that, believe you me!

Rin's inhibitions are low because children are naturally naive and don't know any better. Remember, she adores and trust this man with all her heart, so why would she think any of this so-called grooming is not normal behavior. (I only say “so-called grooming” because I don’t think Sesshomaru bringing her gifts in the village has to be a romantic thing.) Or how would she ever be able to understand that she’s being taken advantage of if she has no previous experience with it? Maybe if she was present for that time Inuyasha and the gang scolded Miroku when they had learned that years previous he had supposedly proposed to this young girl in the village they were visiting, then Rin would. And he didn’t even assist in helping raise her but look at how they reacted! How is this any different than Sesshomaru hooking up with Rin later? It’s actually worse in Sessrin's case. Do you honestly believe that Inuyasha and the others would take kindly to this?

It's not uncommon and considered harmless for young children to have crushes on adults, after all, but the adults in these scenarios should never resort to using and abusing the position of power they held or continue to hold over this child for any reason whatsoever.

What I'm trying to get across here is that no matter how you spin it, Sessrin can NEVER be deemed a morally acceptable pairing. Like ship what you want, we're not saying you can't ship Sessrin. What we're saying is this:

STOP referring to their bond as "pure" and not expect backlash for your grossly inaccurate statements. Just admit it's toxic, because it's extremely harmful to many viewers- and not just victims- to pretend and suggest otherwise.

Please remind yourself of the very real canon fact that Rin traveled with Sesshomaru and they established a bond all while she was just a girl. Oh, and he saved her life too many times to count, not to mention brought her back from the dead TWICE. This is why I don't care much for your counter argument "that dynamics can change over time," because although that's true, like with everything in life there must be standards we adhere to. Exceptions to rules, if you will. Our own basic morals demand it.

For instance, it’s normal that some childhood friends begin to like each other as more than friends years down the road. Nothing wrong with that, because that's a natural and healthy occurrence. Now you cannot apply this to an adult and a child for obvious reasons, but what you also cannot do is apply this to an adult who met and knew another adult while they were still just a child. Why? Well, because it'd be like betraying and perverting that former child's view of you. They were never your equal because your established dynamic resembles that of one an adult posesses with a child even once they've grown up. Think about it this way: it's in the same bracket of family members or family friends who've watched you grow up and mature into an adult. Then later just because they're all grown up, does that mean that those children "are not off bounds" - that's quoting a Sessrin shipper by the way- to these certain family members and family friends?

If you're still struggling to grasp this, I urge you to take a moment (or all the time you need!) to really put yourself in that child's shoes and self-reflect. Would you truly be alright with a family friend you haven't seen in years (but sorely missed because they used to occasionally babysit you) just someday coming back into your life and then very inappropriately flirting with you or even making sexual advances on you? (Sorry for the run-on!) Or even worse, can you picture this happening to one of your own children??! Seriously, ask yourself that and sit with that for a while and really take it all in. It’s not fun, I know, but if that’s what it takes to help you finally understand then please try and practice more ways to utilize your self-awareness in the future. It’s for everyone’s benefit, not only yours, I promise! You'll also find it makes it tremendously easier to empathize with others.

I got news for those fans who don’t view Sesshomaru as a father figure to Rin. The title we give him doesn’t hold as much weight as a lot of us are making it out to be. Let’s try to be neutral here and stick to the hard facts, shall we?

*Sesshomaru is an adult male authority whose protection Rin is under*

*It’s safe to assume that Rin has grown attached to him and maybe even looks up to him*

*They care about each other and the other's well-being*

*He has has played a crucial part in her supervision and care for a significant period of time (yes, even if it’s just passing a message along to Jaken)*

Not so random anecdote: In an Inuyasha episode I recently revisited, Sesshomaru had just rescued Rin from Kohaku who had been possessed by Naraku and was ordered to kill Rin. Anyway, at the end of their scene you can hear Jaken ask out loud, “what should we do for dinner, Lord Sesshomaru?” And that’s about the most domestic thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth. They’re such a family dammit and nothing will ever change that!! <3

This is precisely why I could never in a million years view those past students of mine in a romantic light. I don't care how many years have passed, it's just not possible for me. Just the idea of pursuing a romantic and/or sexual relationship absolutely repels me.

Speaking as a former teacher, you don't need to be a parental figure who's around all the time in order to have great love and affection for a child. I would've done absolutely anything in my power to protect them even though they weren't my own. Then again, I did consider them my children in a way even if wasn't in a familial sense. Does that make my love for them any less unique? No, it's just different but not inferior. When you stop to think about, it really doesn't take as long as you may think to establish rapport with a person, particularly children. Connecting with a child is almost instant (but of course some are more receptive than others), and once you do make that special connection one can only make with a child, a strong and overwhelming need to guide and protect them kicks in almost automatically. The unconditional love an adult feels for a child is powerful and constant, and nothing should ever change that. As much as some of you really want to believe otherwise, that feeling doesn’t just go away because they turned 18. In your eyes, they’ll always be that kid.

I get it, sometimes when we escape into these fictional worlds of ours, it's difficult not to project our own wishes and desires onto certain characters. I don't blame fans for picturing themselves with Sesshomaru- I know I did haha- but never once did I self-insert myself as Rin. I know she's one of the biggest catalysts for his character growth- if not THE biggest- but how and why does that need to turn romantic? There are other antis who I have spoken with on this. They informed me that they used to live vicariously through Rin and ship them together, as well. As they got older, they later learned how weird and twisted this ship actually was. That's what's supposed to happen, y'all, you're supposed to grow out of that fixation.

Now take your mind out of the Inuyasha universe for a second and hypothetically (or not hypothetically if you have kids) answer me this: if and/or when you ever have a child, would you genuinely be comfortable with the idea of them dating and eventually marrying their father’s best friend who was also there to witness them grow up? Be honest please.

I highly doubt you would want that- or at least I hope not. You see, that's another MAJOR point I've made a few times already and yet you Sessrin shippers continue to avoid the question. It's pretty obvious it hasn't been rhetorical either. Ignorance is bliss?

Finally, I’d like to address one more point. It seems there is a HUGE misconception and I'd like to clear it up real quick. That is Sessrin shippers misinterpret one of the issues we have with this ship. They chalk up our complaints of Sessrin being canon (which is a LIE, nothing has been confirmed yet) to us just being salty because that somehow means our ships aren't or won’t be. I assure you, readers, other antis and I will attest that this ain't about dumb shipping wars, this is so much bigger than that!!!

I noticed recently that some Sessrin fans have even begun calling us Karens lolol like if anybody is a Karen it's them! This ain't about some mere difference in taste, this is very likely to have LONG-LASTING NEGATIVE EFFECTS. Sessrin going canon is a very harmful message to send viewers and children/teens especially. So if anything, it’s these shippers who are being the entitled ones here thinking that the fact we don’t support their ship is the worst thing in the world. NO, THE REAL PROBLEM IS CHILD GROOMING. GET OVER YOURSELF.

Out of nowhere, some of them even started assuming all us antis were white, which in their books is also equivalent to Karens or even white supremacists somehow?? Those aren't one in the same, but it's easy to make it appear that way when the US is currently tackling major systems of oppression and racial injustice. Because to them, all antis must be from over here. (Yes, I'm American. But no, I'm not white.) How else can anyone explain not shipping Sessrin, right?! Somehow they have it in their heads that ALL of Japan and surrounding places are super approving of this ship, and that everyone else isn’t because of their upbringing and “Western way of thinking.”

To give you an idea of what I mean, look back at what I talked about earlier with their incessant mention of Sessrin vs. Inukag. Because THIS is another popular example of how these shippers present their side and then ignore all the facts. Many fans have already proven how fucked up and inaccurate it is to label whole countries and cultures. It’s like they simply think mentioning it makes it count even though we’ve discredited their points over and over. Nah, you got to back it up with good reasons that support your side of the argument. That’s How To Have An Argument: 101. So at the end of the day, all they're actually achieving in doing is making dumb and entirely unrelated accusations based on nothing just to lead to deductions that are equally unfounded. Nothing at all is accomplished but more gaslighting and hurling of insults on their part = a complete waste of time for antis = an excuse for them to peace out early from the conversation & that’s what they wanted all along

We’ve reached the end (finally! sorry for all the rambling!), and I hope those of you who stayed till the end or read enough can take something positive out of this. As many Inuyasha fans are aware, there will be a livestream with the VAs for Sesshomaru and Rin coming out within the next few hours. We don’t have all the details yet, and afterwards we probably still won’t. I’m not just talking about Sessrin here but about the sequel in general. Whatever happens, please just remember to be kind to one another. If you don’t think you’re capable of doing that, then it’s best you vent and fume elsewhere. Easier said than done, I know, but just try. Throughout this blog, I admit there were moments where I got frustrated and took some jabs at Sessrin shippers. Please believe me when I say that I do not and would not ever wish any of you ill will.

Inuyasha was such a huge part of my childhood, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m anxious as hell that Sunrise will ruin one of the best things I loved about this show. So pardon me if my reactions are too visceral for your liking. haha Also, like the movies and the drama cd, this sequel is not in fact canon. Therefore, for those of you who disagree or who still plan to enjoy this new series, respect the fact that some of us fans will definitely “cancel” it if we feel that’s what we have to do to come to terms with it and move on. Fans have that right, after all. Why should we get on board with something if it’s so uncharacteristic of and unrecognizable from the original source material? If all this is some sort of cash grab of Sunrise’s doing, then count me out. I truly hope that this sequel turn outs being a lot more promising than a lot of us are expecting. I’m begging you, Sunrise, I wanna believe you’re better than this. Please and thank you!

By the way, if you’re interested, feel free to check out my two other blogs on this same subject. Click here and here. The last two screenshots do not come from something I’ve written myself. If you’d like to read more from where those came from, let me know and I’d be more than happy to send you the links. Okay, bye for now. Peace out and stay safe, everyone!

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #anti sessrin #sesshomaru #rin

66 notes · View notes

ghoztlinkblot · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2 - Hero Schools

The Government-Hired Heroes, shortened simply as the GHH for convenience, was a specific branch of the police born around the 12430s as an answer to the growing rise of superpowered crime; if the future of felony was in individual personalities with outstanding traits more so than in large organisations of nameless, faceless crooks, as it had appeared back then, authorities would adapt and follow suit. Originally rather small, it soon imposed itself as a signature part of the police force. As the years passed, and the GHH solidified its political importance and cultural impact, one would have expected more and more abilitied folk to flock to its doors every year; and, though, in some regards, that wasn’t inaccurate, the truth was a bit more complicated.

While back in the first few months of 12417, abilities were brand new, flashy and rare, assuring anyone who had them to be put into the spotlight, advantaged regardless of what the ability actually was, the First Supervillain crisis just half a year later proved how unstable the status of abilitied people was. Even after the abilitied revolt, Scarlet Maylis’ government and reforms, and abilities becoming an everyday thing, over the following century, this trend only worsened. The GHH had more stories wherein everything went wrong than of normal, successful heroes, it seemed. The truth was, the media simply made more noise for those trashy tales, but that was enough to stain te GHH’s reputation. And it all had started with its inception.

Scarlet Maylis, or the iconic “magical girl” Bleeding Heart, generally seen as the de facto leader of the First District, a movement spawned in response to the First Supervillain discourse to offer the discriminated abilitied an outlet, and that had eventually grown to carry out a full-on coup d’état, defending the rights of her kin all throughout the country, had gradually grown more and more extreme in her views once put in charge of the government. While many still remembered Bleeding Heart, and that cute little cheerleader chant - “B, L, E! E, D, I! N, G, ♡!” - fondly, her role as a quasi-dictatorial leader was controversial, splitting the public opinion to this day. And the Government-Hired Heroes, born under her jurisdiction, were stained with a similar reputation. One of the first big GHH controversies was that of Adrian and Luna Maylis, Scarlet’s own children and some of the first-ever GHH heroes, enrolled in their youth and who’d both run away from that responsibility before they’d even hit their coming of age - sixteen years old. Though they both eventually returned and enrolled back into the force after all just a few years later, the damage was done.

But besides the GHH and its leaders’ own faults, heroism just didn’t have as favourable an image as many other jobs. As a result of Maylis’ politics, abilitied folk had become the majority; it was no longer a standout category that ensured you an edge others didn’t have on the job market. Plus, heroism didn’t pay all that well, and the interviews were infamous for being especially harsh. Many parents therefore advised their offspring against pursuing such a career, and even if many GHH-philes still enrolled by dozens into the GHH, it found itself short on staff by the turn of the century.

The government needed to find a way to solve this. While heroism itself was in deficit, the capital’s culture, tourism and advertising depended on its theatrics. They had to make heroism more appealing, to stop abilitied people from picking other careers, or worse, using their abilities for crime and further overworking the GHH. Investing remarkably high amounts of money, they came up with an eccentric solution : hero schools.

Entirely government-funded, they were free, well-furnished schools who, on top of teaching typical subjects, promised to raise children into the GHH-compliant heroes they were always meant to be. In other words, they were free schools that ensured a stable, guaranteed job to anyone who passed with decent honours, right upon graduation. Heroes, vigilantes and villains had always been most popular amongst children; to them, there was a certain prestige to attending such a school, which made them brag about it to their friends and peers, who in turn whined to their parents to let them attend as well. Add in a few meaningless advantages and coupons, and the formula was complete; not only that, it was successful.

The GHH went from accepting any old resume that still dared come their way to reaffirming its cutthroat reputation as a prestigious organisation; it seemed nearly impossible to be hired for one who hadn’t graduated from a hero school. The two institutions grew almost indissociable over time; The hero-school grading system - C, B, A, S - became a standard of the GHH itself, which now categorised its numerous employees in the same way; C rank, B rank, et cetera. These ranks were made public as well, as fans loved to tier and compete, and reflected a difference in workload, work ethic and efficiency expected from different heroes, as well as the way they were treated. Salary, leniency of their superiors, general authority within the workplace; a bonafide hierarchy formed between employees that, on paper, shared the same contracts and jobs.

The rankings became more and more central to the GHH’s inner workings over time, and would determine things such as which heroes were paired up together; Bs with Bs, As with Cs, and Ss by themselves. In other words; As got to boss Cs around, Ss had private offices, and Bs did most of the work on their own. There were exceptions - the Golden Trio was allowed to work together, thanks to the influence of Bonnie’ family - but they were few, and didn’t change the overall situation.

The inequalities leaked out of the GHH’s walls, spreading to the capital as a whole. Non-abilitied folk, who had already become a minority, were now further disadvantaged; while, technically, one was not required to have an ability in order to be hired by the GHH, as that would’ve legally counted as discrimination, it was indeed a requirement in order to be enrolled into hero school, as that legally counted as a necessary credit. Thus, non-abilitied kids would often be shunned by their classmates, or even their own parents.

Still, it wasn’t as though every kid wanted to pursue that career path, nor like every parent was willing to support such a choice. Many abilitied people still led typical studies; such was Neville Elire Schifozzo. Born to a lower middle-class family, he had no interest in heroism; he’d attended public education, been taught plumbing, and worked as a plumber from age sixteen to age thirty-two, married and divorced. Somewhere along the way, he’d longed for something else. Something more. Anything, maybe. Or something specific. Either way, that desire had led him to the GHH. But how could he hope to be hired given his education? Simple: His ability.

Though it looked like simple teleportation at first, it was completely different, and unlike anything that had ever been seen before. Manipulating space was as close to reality warping as abilities had gotten since the death of Providence, a sister-in-arms of Scarlet and the rest of the First District, who had the ability to manipulate events, people, probabilities and their consequences themselves. While nothing as all-encompassing as that, Spatial Plumber’s ability was still leagues above average, with endless potential for defense, offense, sneaking, information-gathering and all other purposes. And yet… his unwillingness to speak up about it and lack of proper experience in the heroism field landed Neville at a solid B. Thus, he ended up teamed up with another B ranking hero: Bubblegum.

She was what Neville had been looking for. Not in any romantic sense, but more generally, in his life. She had the spunk, the energy, the optimism that he had lost, if he ever had it. She quite simply lit up his life. She liked his company too; he was entertaining, honest, simple, and polite. Their friendship was clear to see in how they worked together. Something tied that quiet, unassuming man and that loud charismatic girl together, whatever it was. Maybe that was why they would both, separately, end up quitting the GHH to do their own thing.

Tapas / < previous // next >

#superhero #capepunk #thriller #ongoing series #novel #online novel #oc #original character #writer #independent #writting #creative writing #character drama

3 notes · View notes

9hwa9joong · 4 years

Text

My Top Songs [2020]

Hi all!

As 2020 comes to an end (thank whatever higher power there is), I wanted to share a list of my favorite songs! (the following are songs RELEASED this year) (I’ve included a list of songs that I heard this year, but weren’t released in 2020, after it). These are mostly korean/chinese.

Alright, this is in NO particular order, just my favorites. I’ve mostly included one song from a group/solo act and added their other great releases in description. It is mostly music that I listened to, so if your favs are not here, feel free to rec me good music! ENJOY!

(the list ended up becoming quite long, so read under the cut)

Black swan(orchestral version) by BTS

BTS had a great year musically. 2 korean albums, 1 japanese and lots of solo stuff. My most played songs are Dynamite (listen, she did what she had to do), Stay Gold (if gold had a sound, this would be it), Black Swan, Blue and Grey (i live for melancholy), Life Goes On (spring day’s successor), Filter(park jimin is a threat), Friends (my feels!), Louder than bombs (TROYE SIVAN), UGH (murder music), 00:00, Moon (jin solos are beautiful always) and Your Eyes Tell (honestly, show me one bad japanese single, i dare you).

Ghosting by TXT

I got into TXT a lot more this year, as opposed to being a casual listener that I was last year. Many people say they have a no-skip discography and I believe it’s true. My most played songs were Blue Hour (i ADORE this song), We Lost the summer, Wishlist, Can’t you see me (the song that made me a stan), Fairy of Shampoo (ethereal), PUMA (choi yeonjun is a threat), Eternally (an ATTACKK!) and their f2020 cover.

Answer by ATEEZ

Ateez is another group i really got into this year, mesmerized by their performance abilities. My most played : Star 1117 (i’m very soft for this song), To the Beat (a true bop), Inception (holy jongho vocals), One day at a time and Good Lil Boy (does hongjoong ever have a bad rap verse?). Their Black Cat Nero cover also blew me away!! (i’m lowkey obsessed).

God’s menu by Stray Kids

I’ve been keeping an eye on Stray Kids ever since hellevator came out and this is my favourite song by them, so far (yes, i had a heart attack when i first saw Hyunjin). Most Played : Back Door (the beat drop gives me life, the choreo is probably my fav), All in, Easy (do they ever have a bad chorus?), GO LIVE (the beat??!! killer), Another Day (i am a slow jam hoe) and My Universe.

Pacman by eaJ

I didn’t think it was possible to love him more after day6 but Jae’s solo music has proved me wrong. Yes, i love Pillows (with Keshi) to bits but pacman is my first love. Most Played : It just is (Seori and their golden vocals), LA TRAINS (vocals!!!), Pinocchio (the mv is adorable, the beat is so fun), 50 proof (the vibes man, it's the VIBES) and TRUMAN.

Left & Right by Seventeen

Another group with amazing releases this year, I’m slowly getting into Seventeen more these days. Most Played : Fallin’ Flower (so beautiful, the vocals), 24H (the beat change?!!???), 17 (Joshua, DK and Pink Sweats) and HOME;RUN (this is a brand of fun that is entirely their own).

Not by the moon by GOT7

I am no stranger to GOT7, i’ve liked their music for years now but this is one of their more lyrical releases this year and i adore when GOT7 does this type of music. Most Played : Poison (jackson opens it and the vibes are immaculate), Last Piece (the way the vocals flow into the rap) and Thank You, Sorry.

So Beautiful by DPR IAN

This is literally the first song i’ve heard from this artist, please rec me more. I also adore No Blueberries with DPR LIVE and CL.

Eight by IU, Prod. SUGA

IU is an indisputable vocal queen, and her music always comforts me greatly so when i heard she was having a song produced by Yoongi, i promptly lost my shit. It was everything I expected and more and embodies sorrow and pain with great grace. Give you My Heart from the ‘Crash Landing on you OST’ was also a loved song this year.

Cry for me by TWICE

How do i talk about the queens? TWICE is the group i go to when I want fun music with good vibes but this song has such bad b*tch vibes that i am in love. Most played : More & More (a bop), Don’t call me again, I can’t stop me (i love the way it flows), Handle It (the vocals??? How pretty this song is???) and Say Something (seriously, eyes wide open is an amazing album).

Criminal by Teamin

Where do i start with Lee Taemin? I love almost all his solo stuff. He grabbed me by the neck ever since ‘Move’ and hasn't let go. Criminal is SO taemin that i don't think anyone else could have delivered the concept with such grace and grit. Most Played : 2 Kids (the chorus is so good), Clockwork, Idea (i love the vibe) and Pansy (i'm a ballad hoe).

Maria by Hwasa

Listen, i loved Twit when it came out but i love Maria as her sound so much more. Most Played : I’m bad too (feat. DPR LIVE) (i love the beat, the vibe and the flavor), LMM and Orbit from ‘The King: Eternal Monarch OST’ (as soon as her voice comes in, i loved the song).

Breath by DEAN, Rad Museum, Mokyo

I’m not aware of many DEAN releases this year, please feel free to rec me if I missed any.

Dear my friend by Agust D ft. Kim Jong Wan (NELL)

D-2 was everything expected from the second mixtape off Agust D and yet it brought a fresh wave of singing and melodies, once again proving the man’s production genius. This song is so reminiscent in it’s lyrics and still so real, its my favorite off the record.Other songs I loved : People, Deachwita and What do you think? (i DID love the complete mixtape though).

Given - Taken by Enhypen

Yes, I watched I-LAND. Given-Taken was a better debut then I expected at first. 10 months (the chorus and beat) and Flicker off their debut album were also played a lot.

I just want to stay with you by Zion.T

The King: Eternal Monarch was a much awaited drama for a lot of people and it’s OST is one of the best ones this year. Zion.T’s amazing vocals really did an amazing job of expressing the love in the story. Other songs I really liked from this album were Gravity by Kim Jong Wan and the Hydrangea Instrumental by Lee Geon Yeong.

The purge by Jay Park, pH-1, Woodie Gochild, Sik-K, and others.

H1GHER: RED TAPE is my hype album of the year. All artists involved did an amazing job. Seriously, get yourself some bomb ass beats, as a treat. Other loved tracks : Telefono Remix (Woodie Gochild is great at his flavour of delivery), Closed Case and The Arrival.

Soul by Lay (zhang yixing)

Yixing’s album LIT was his best project till date, no arguments. He’s really evolved into such a refined musician, especially with how well he merges traditional chinese instruments into Hip Hop/RnB beats and I adore the vibe of this album. Although the album is great entirely, Soul is my favourite for how softly and prettily it flows. Other loved tracks: Eagle (the BEAT), Fly, Boom (bops on bops on BOPS) and Call My Name.

100 ways by Jackson Wang

It is astounding how well Jackson has formed his own style of music ever since starting off with Papillon. He’s also sort of come into himself as an artist and it has birthed some great music. Other loved tracks : Pretty Please (i love the vibe of the song!) and Should’ve Let Go (ft. JJ Lin).

SUGA’s interlude by Halsey

Idk how else to explain it but Halsey and Yoongi have great music synergy. There’s something about their song/lyric writing that matches very well and needless to say, I adore the song. Blueberry eyes by MAX is also another great Yoongi collab.

In Your Time by Lee Suhyun

It’s Okay to not be Okay had an OST that was dreamy, gritty and very fairytale-esque, much like the drama itself. Among a bunch of great songs, this one is my favourite. Other loved songs: You’re Cold by Heize (always delivers!), Breath by Sam Kim (OST angel), Hallelujah by Kim Feel (chills!), In Silence by Janet Suhh (literally how angelic is her tone??), I’m your Psycho by Janet Suhh (it’s creepy in a dreamy way) and Brother | Her World | Through the dark Tunnel of time | Butterfly - all amazing instrumentals by Nam Hye Seung and Park Sang Hee (seriously, go listen to the album).

By my side by Junny

Another great discovery towards the end of the Year, Junny has vocals for DAYS and admirable delivery. Other loved songs: AURA ft. pH-1, edge (this is so hypnotising in it’s beauty) and I will. Please feel welcome to educate me more about this artist!!

Make a Wish by NCT

NCT always provides bops and NCT U is my favourite sub-unit, for their unique style of music, so when they came out with this song I was ready and they delivered! Most Played : 90’s Love (the old boy band theme was so well done), From Home (i’m a sucker for slow songs), Nectar (yes, i adore WayV’s music), MAD DOG by NCT 127 and Kick It by NCT 127 (this is the flavour of NCT i LOVE).

Zombie by Day6

Day6 has always been in my daily otations and as always, they put out good music after good music. I loved both the original Korean and the English versions of this song (they do rock well, what else is there to say?). Other loved songs : Tick Tock (oh the vocals, the way the beat moves!), Love me or Leave me, Day and Night... actually the whole Album is great, go listen to ‘The Book of us: The Demon’.

Fearless by Ma Di [other chinese songs]

Chinese songs have been a surprisingly pleasant addition to my daily rotation. Fearless from the “Go Ahead” OST takes the top stop because of how well it embodies the struggles of stepping into adulthood, the melody and MaDi’s amazing vocals. Other Chinese songs I loved: Praise for Red Plum Blossoms by Xiao Zhan (the perfect welcoming of spring paired with such expressive vocals), Remaining Years by Xiao Zhan (Joy of Life OST) and his OST for the Oath of Love.

____________________________________________

The following is the list of songs I heard in 2020, but were not released in 2020. Please let me know if you like them, or if you know other similar music! (I know, I know, I’m late to the game) Enjoy!

DEAN - Sometimes I hear Howlin' in my head

Zhang Jie/Zhang Bichen - Simple Wish

Li Ronghao - If I were Young

JJ Lin - What I Miss

Ateez - Mist | Twilight | Wonderland | Say my name | Thank you

Stray Kids - voices

Seventeen - Trauma

Loona - Hi High

Day6 - Shoot me

GOT7 - You calling my Name

RADWIMPS - Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?

Baekhyun - UN Village

Taemin - Goodbye | want

Aquillo - Silhouette

Talos - To Each His Own

Cigarettes after sex (literally everything)

__________________________________________________

I know this was long, if you read it till the end, I hope you all enjoyed it still.

Have a smooth year in 2021,

-love, c.

9 notes · View notes

whatisthiscontentyouspeakof · 4 years

Text

A Cold Days Night that Changes Everything

A03 | Previous | Next

Chapter 1: The Hogwarts Express

Harry ran his hands through Vulpa’s hair, detangling it and spreading the curls out into a bigger poof of hair then it normally was. Professor McGonagall had taken them to the train that would take them to Hogwarts early in the day, before any of the other students arrived as a way not to overwhelm them. Neither he nor his sisters mentioned that they were prepared their whole lives for when they would leave Azkaban and end up in a whole new world falloff stimuli and thus weren’t as easily overwhelmed as the adults thought they'd be.

Harry had to admit, even if it was just himself, that he was enamoured by the bright bright red that the Hogwarts Express was mainly coloured and a part of him debated using his limited Metamorphmagus abilities to colour his hair the same red colour but ultimately decided against it, knowing it would bring him too much unwanted attention. The inside of the train was mainly neutral colours that Harry was most familiar with, with pops of colour representing the four house even spread throughout the compartments, mainly in the hallway between the different cabins. The seats were plush and soft and comfortable, covered in a faded medium pale blue fabric that was similar to the colour of the sky on some of the less stormy days in Azkaban, bringing Harry a sense of comfort he hadn’t expected.

Vulpa and Delphi had settled down across from each other, pulling down the table attached to the wall and quickly set up a chess game, a favourite of Vulpa’s and started trying to out maneuver each other. Harry had a few books he wanted to read, mainly about different gaps he had in his education that had happened in the magical world in the last ten years, but for now was content to play with his sisters hair.

Draco and Narcissa Malfoy had been helping them catch up, educating them on law changes that their parents and uncles hadn’t been free to know about and teach them, and who they’d be going to school with that was of importance. Lucius Malfoy had mainly just interacted with them to make sure they were presentable, buying them clothing and bringing in a tailor to make sure their clothing fit and had room to grow since they were still growing. He had tried to get Harry to replace his glasses with ones that were more fashionable but Harry had refused, liking the idea that his glasses were the same circular shape that his birth fathers had been, even if they were oversized, and he also hadn’t wanted to give up his first piece of successful transfiguration that he had down when he was seven.

The first students started trickling in around 9:30, mostly older students with badges on their clothing, some of whom where in robes and some in Muggle clothing. Harry realized that they were probably different house prefects and had arrived early so they could help out other student, probably focusing on first years and making sure everyone made it on the train fine.

By 10:30 the platform was starting to fill up with students all trying to get around each other, putting their baggage on the train and say good-bye to their family. There were also a number of students, all of whom Harry considered to be quiet inconsiderate, forming groups with their friends, catching up on what they had done over the summer. They were acting as if they wouldn’t be sitting together on the train, or about to spend the next several months living together before going home for winter break. He had noticed several smaller kids, likely first years, getting trapped behind some of these groups or trying to squeeze by to get on the train and not being able to.

Ten minutes before the train as set to leave the station, most the students started to board the train, saying their final goodbyes and making sure they had all their belongings. Harry was grateful that any of his and his sisters stuff were already at Hogwarts in the private chamber they were going to share, though of course Harry would have a place in whatever house he was sorted in. It seemed like such a hassle to move around with a large chest and any other personal belongings. Why didn’t people shrink their luggage down to a more manageable size? A majority fo the students would have at least one magical parent if they weren’t old enough to do magic outside of school. It didn’t make sense to him.

Minutes before the train was set to leave, a large group of red heads made their way through the platform from the Muggle entrance. There was only one adult in the group of red heads, a plump woman who was herding what appeared to be her four sons towards the train, her hand grasping her daughter, which judging by the grumpy sad look on her face, she wasn’t yet old enough to be attending Hogwarts. The eldest of the children had a badge on his outfit, another prefect and likely the last to arrive, how irresponsible. He instantly moved away from his family, dragging his chest behind him. The next boys in age, a set of twins judging by appearance, left not long after, abandoning their youngest brother and sister to their mothers attention.

The mother was interesting, fusing over her two youngest children in a way that Bellatrix never did. Curios to see how else she different, after all Harry knew people out in the world didn’t consider Bellatrix to be a good mom even if he and his sisters thought differently, Harry lowered the compartments window just enough to hear what was happening on the platform.

“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.” The mother reached out and grabbed the boy who had tried to jerk out of the way, and began rubbing the end of his nose. The entire motion was strange to Harry who grew up surrounded by dirt and filth and general lack of cleanliness that no one bother trying to clean off any weird marks or dirt spots, it was pointless after all.

“Mum- geroff,” The boy said, his voice whiny as he wiggled free from his mothers tight grasp.

“Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie? said one fo the twins, whom had rejoined his family.

“Shut up,” Ron hissed. At least that was familiar to Harry. Some days ‘shut up’ was a favourite saying of his family members.

“Where’s Percy?” The mother demanded.

“He’s coming now.” The same twin said.

The oldest became striding into sight, walking with a confidence and a grace that his other family members lacked. He had changed into his school robes at some point, transferring his prefect badge over, the red and gold badge, identifying him as a Gryffindor, standing out more on the black fabric of the robes then his ratty warm toned clothing that he’d been wearing before.

“Can’t stay long, Mother,” he said. “I’m up front, the pRefects have got two compartments to themselves-“

“Oh, are you a Prefect, Percy?” said the other twin, with mock surprise. “You should have said something, we had no idea.”

“Hang on,” the other twin added on, “I think I remember him saying something about it. Once-“

“Or twice-“

“A minutes-“

‘All summer-“

“Oh, shut up,” said Prefect Percy of Gryffindor. Harry couldn’t help but agree with him. These red headed twins came off as people who spoke like this often, which Harry found annoying. Then again, his sisters only ever did it when they were trying to be annoying which may be why he found it so annoying.

“how come Percy gets new robes, anyway?” said one of the twins.

“Because he’s a Prefect,” said their mother fondly. Harry thought nothing of the show of favouritism, his dad being the only person he knew who treated he and the girls equally all the time instead of treating them depending on how they were acting that day and if they did anything exceptionally well. “All right, dear, well, have a good term-send me an owl when you get there.”

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned her attention to the twins, looking reading to start scolding them. Harry and the girls had had enough of those in their lives, mainly about visiting prisoners in other wings or getting too close to where guards were stationed, to know the look.

“Now, you two-this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve-you’ve blown up a toilet or-“

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”

Harry felt like his dad may enjoy hearing a few stories about what these kids got up to at school. He had a feeling it was a lot like what his dad, this birth father and their friends got up to.

“It’s not funny. And look after Ron.”

“Don’t worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us.”

“Shut up,” Ron said again, glaring at his twin brothers, almost tall enough to look them right in the eye.

A loud noise sounded. If Harry had been raised by anyone else or raised anywhere else, he might have been startled, as it was, he realized the sound was that of the trains horn and memorized the sound for future reference. The girls chess pieces startled before complaining about the sound, causing Vulpa to laugh and Dephi and him to smile.

“Hurry up!” the mother outside yelled, causing all three boys to clamber on to the train, turning to lean out for her to kiss them goodbye and their younger sister began to cry.

“Don’t, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls.” One of the twins commented.

“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.” The other twin said.

“George!”

“Only joking, Mum.”

The train started to move and Harry found himself distracted from the red haired family at he looked at his own. So far since leaving Azkaban the three them had travelled by boat, though they’d been unconscious, by carriage and by floo. They had never travelled by train before and Harry found himself enjoying all the new experiences, though he couldn’t help but make sure that his sisters were both fine. They were just as prepared mentally for the outside world as he had been, but there was only so much their imagination and the descriptions their family had given them could provide and there was the chance that all the new experiences became too much. If they were to be overwhelmed, it would be best for it to happen in privacy then around those who could one day turn into enemies.

Both the girls looked up from their chess game to look out the window and the landscape passing them by. At first it was clusters of houses that flashed past the window, before they started to flicker out, appearing less and less as they headed towards the Scottish countryside.

It was an hour into the ride before a student tried to interrupt them. The door to their compartment rattled as someone tried to open the door. Harry glanced at his sisters, who both instantly laid down to pretend to sleep as a tactic to prevent anyone from guessing at how young them were. Pleased that they were convincing enough, Harry went to the door, reaching out with his magic, before opening the door as if it was never locked to begin with.

“Malfoy,” he said pleasantly as he saw Draco Malfoy standing before him with a group of other students behind him.

“Black,” Malfoy greeted back at him, one fo the few people who didn’t stumble over his preferred last name. “May I introduce you to some of our year mates?”

Harry studied him and his friends before stepping aside with a hum, letting Malfoy and his friends in and letting his sisters know they could sit back up and stop pretending to be asleep. Vulpa moved from her side of the compartment to sit beside Delphi as Harry took her spot, allowing the other students to sit down.

Harry studied the other children as they made themselves comfortable, knowing his sisters were doing the same. Two of Malfoy’s friends were male like him, while the other was female.

The girl was tiny, almost as tall as Harry himself, who was aware that he was short for his age, Azkaban not having provided him with enough nutrition to grow as big and tall as his peers. She had deep brown pin straight hair that was cut straight across at chin level and across her forehead, not a single hair out of place or messy. Her cheeks still held some baby fat, rounding it out a bit, but the general shape seemed to be more oval then round. She had dark browns eyes that verged on black at stared back at him almost defiantly, her thin pink lips pressed together in a scowl, obviously not pleased to no longer being in her carriage and in Harry’s.

The two boys that had joined Malfoy, sitting on either side of the boy in question, were large, larger then any other child Harry had met, their build making it questionable whether they were overweight or muscular. Out of the corner of his eyes, Harry could see Delphi eyeing the one closet to her with interest, as if debating different ways to experiment on the other child and see how the kids build altered how his body reacted compared to her and the rest of her siblings tiny frames.

“Blacks,” Malfoy said, leading the introduction once everyone was settled. “these are my companions,” he gestured towards the girl, “Pansy Parkinson of the Most Ancient and Noble house of Parkinson. Her brother, Heir Parkinson, graduated last year.” Harry nodded politely at the girl who nodded back, her scowl softening to something not quiet a scowl. His sisters didn’t bother doing or saying anything knowing that the second they did, attention would undeniably be put on them and it would be best to get introduction over with first so they knew who they were dealing with.

Malfoy guested towards the boy to his left, the one closest to the girls. “This is heir Vincent Crabbe, of the ancient house of Crabbe. He and his family have been assets to the Malfoy house for generations.” Harry realized that that meant that Crabbe was under the Malfoy’s family protection and as Harry and his sisters would be staying with the Malfoy’s int eh summer, it would be best if they looked out for him as well.

Crabbe, as Harry had already noticed, was quiet large, slighter shorter then the other large boy and defiantly rounder. His dark brown hair was cut close to his head, leaving it looking like a giant sphere then anything else. He had brown eyes that had a mean looking squint to them, though that was mostly the fat in his cheeks pushing up agains his eyes then him actually trying to look threatening at the moment. Tiny scars littered across his knuckles, barely noticeable but suggesting that the boy was already used to the odd fist fight.

Malfoy gestured to the last boy. “This is heir Gregory Goyle of the ancient house of Goyle. like the Crabbe family, he and his family have been assets to the Malfoy house for generations.” Much like with the other two, Harry nodded politely as he studied the last boy.

Goyle was the largest boy in the compartment, taller then Crabbe, though just as thick and large otherwise. His face was more rectangular then round and his hair was a lighter brown, one that one could even refer to as a dark blond in the right lighting. His eyes were a lighter brown with specs of green in them and his hair, while short, had a curl to it. While he didn’t look overly angry or intimidating the way Crabbe naturally looked, Harry knew that they boy was likely a lot meaner then Crabbe when push came to shove.

Malfoy turned towards his companions. “Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson, may I introduce you to my new companions and foster siblings, Hardwin, Vulpecula and Cassiopeia Black. Hardwin Black will be joining us as first years while the Black twins will be staying at Hogwarts until as family to Hardwin, but won’t be joining us as students for another two years.”

“Merry meet,” they all muttered as introductions were done and conversation could start.

Delphi spoke up first. “As there are three of us Blacks, I am fine with being refereed to as Cassiopeia to try and avoid confusion.” she said politely but firmly. “Do not mistake it as me being overly familiar or allowing you to do so, I prefer my middle name over my first.”

The other children nodded at what his sister said, understanding that she was still to be treated in a formal respect and wasn’t inviting any of them in for friendship.

Vulpa, not one to go far without her sister, even in conversations, decided to add her two knuts. “As I do prefer to go by first name, I can’t say the same to help alleviate confusion, but I am will to go by Little Black if it makes things easier when all of us are together or I am just with my brother, otherwise just Black will be fine.”

Again the other children agreed easily enough. Before any of them could give out any name preference a toad jumped through the tiny opening that Malfoy’s friends left in the compartments door.

There was silence as everyone stared at the toad before Vulpa spoke. “Trevor!” she said happily, getting up and picking the toad up.

The second the name left his sisters lips, Harry realized she was right. The toad was the one Neville Longbottom’s great uncle got him for getting acceptance into Hogwarts. Neville hadn’t been able to bring the toad to St. Mugo’s to show them but he did bring a photo of him receiving the toad that his grandmother had taken so that he could show them what a toad looked like.

“Trevor?” Malfoy asked, looking at the toad with a slight look of disgust on his face.

Harry hummed in confirmation but it was Vulpa who spoke up, generally being the most talkative out of the three of them. “We met heir Longbottom during out short stay at St. Mugo’s. His great uncle Algie Longbottom bought him for him as a gift for Hogwarts.”

“Why? It’s useless. It’s not like it’s a magical breed.” Malfoy commented, the look of disgust still on his face.

He wasn’t wrong. Toads had no used in the magical world in this day and age. Normal toads like Trevor were really only good to experiment on or as a potion ingredient. Magical breeds like the dragon toad could light tiny fires but so could a simple spell. The most useful breed of toad was the Giant Purple toad but even then most people passed on raising them unless they are a potioneer. Harry and the twins had to listen to Neville go on about different toads when he announced that he got one, going on about how everyone was going to make fun of him for it, but Harry had a feeling that Neville was still happy about having received Trevor.

As if summed by his thoughts there was a timid knock on the door. Harry flicked his hand to the side connecting to his magic and forcing the door open without anyone having to get up. Neville Longbottom stood at the compartments doorway looking nervous and unsure as what to do now.

“Are you looking for Trevor?” Vulpa asked, holding said toad up for the other boy to see.

The boy nodded smiling with relief as Vulpa passed the toad off to him.

Harry made a little hum noise as to get everyone’s attention. “Everyone, this is heir Neville Longbottom of the Most Ancient and Most Noble house of Longbottom.” he said. “Neville, this is heir Draco Malfoy, of Most Ancient and Most Noble, heir Vincent Crabbe of ancient, heir Gregory Goyle of ancient and Pansy Parkinson of Most Ancient and Noble houses.”

“Merry Meet,” Neville said awkwardly as the others repeated it back to him just as unsure. Seemed like dark families and light families didn’t know how to interact with each other.

“Are you going to sit?” Delphi asked softly, speaking for the first time since the others had joined besides her polite ‘Merry Meet’ earlier.

Neville looked unsure but eventually he sat down nervously. There was a moment of silence before Vulpa, sweet, smart, awkward silence breaking Vulpa spoke up. “So who here plays chess?”

#Harry Potter #Harry Potter Fanfiction #First Chapter #Fanfiction #story #fanfic #Harry Potter fanfic #hogwarts express

3 notes · View notes

monstrouslyobsessed · 5 years

Photo

dfjsdlk well im back at it again with my cerelos sketch. super rough but initial ideas are p much there. im still struggling with his uniform/whatever yall wanted to call his kingly clothings, tho im def lending toward having his cape be also a part of his married saddle. still messing around with that idea tho. and as for his crown, theres actually two parts to it! one on his forehead and other is hanging between his antlers above the crown. im still toying w the design tho

lemme know what yall think?? maybe toss me your sketch or smth to help me with cerelos’ kingly outfit??

speaking of, lemme share some of cerelos culture w yall to make up for my lack of contents over the past few days!! under the cut~

if a centaur/equestrian is married, they’re expected to cover up their private bits in some form because ideally every inch of them belong to their spouse and no one eyes shall laid upon them. if unmarried, bacholer/ettes are free to go completely naked, showing their bits to the public (even including when males are, well, hornie af), because they’re still animals in some senses. Nudity is natural for them—and yes, kids aren’t spared from seeing such a thing, but they grew up with much better sexual education than we do irl.

what differed them from those who married a human though is that they don’t require a saddle. because cerelos married his human, you can expect to see his (horse)back having a fancy saddle—that is his wedding saddle, basically equestrians’ version of wedding rings to humans. because of equestrians’ prides they would’ve refused to be ridden by anyone else but their beloved spouse, showing the measures of their trusts toward them. meaning, in cerelos’ case, only his wife may ride on his back—and the saddle symbolized that—and her being a human.

its a bit of double edged tho. while its not rare (common enough to have wedding saddles being a thing), its not common either, because the equestrians society is laced heavily with racism toward nonequestrians—most especially humans. in other words, cerelos is ousting himself to be a ‘human lover’, something that could’ve warranted being beaten/murdered/etc. if he wasn’t the emperor. despite his laws protecting the cross species marriages/rights to marry whoever, hate crimes still unfortunately occurred.

that said, cerelos found and enjoyed a particular hobby of castrating/hunting down those involved in such hate crimes to torture them and to implement fear in those of lower morals in his people—they’d be quite lucky to be alive afterward, provided they survived any infection that followed their punishments. cerelos started doing such deeds ever since he married his precious human.

anyway, back to being naked bit, even as a bachelor cerelos wasn’t required to be naked because he, being the emperor, was expected to be treated like a god—meaning even if he wanted to show his bits (which he didn’t, he basically viewed most of those he was forced to interact with, typically those in positions of power, nobles, etc., as pure trash but unfortunately necessary to his society), people were forbid to. they had to keep their eyes down on the ground anyway, so it wasn’t uncommon to see him with his cape on even before then.

extra bits,

for equestrians’ human spouses, they were expected to always be seen riding on their equestrian spouse’s back if together regardless of their genders. so cerelos’ darling would have to stay on his back in public regardless of events—unless they were sitting down. even then the human spouses were expected to keep close contact with their equestrians. this is so to keep the humans safe if a brawl broke out near them or w/e and to maintain the status duo of being unbreakable.

for the married equestrians, itd be pretty easy to be ousted as cheaters if they were seen hiding their private bits beforehand and then caught without after which, btw, was Extremely frowned upon in their society

divorce can only occurs under the emperor’s discrete, meaning...good luck leaving the emperor if you’re married to him.

im not clear yet on what kind of symbol the human/nonequestrains spouses would’ve received to oust them to be married to equestrains yet. wedding rings are typically more for human/human thing. maybe a golden jewel collar?

anyway, thats all the tangents from me! i’ll try to finalize cerelos eventually but man character designing is not my strongest suit lol but i think ima work on red next!!

#phantom can barely draw #monster whispers #monster ocs #cerelos #emperor cerelos #my art #monster's ocs

86 notes · View notes

krisroley · 4 years

Text

February 9th, 2021

One Small Moment

Today I want to talk to some specific friends who I won't name, but I'm fairly sure that this will apply to way more of just them.

First things first, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by giving you a bunch of platitudes. In my experience, they're nothing but empty calories. Filler and no substance, they're designed to make the person giving them feel better, not the person who needs help. In some cases, people who need help end up feeling worse. I'm one of those people, so I absolutely understand the feeling. So, no bullshit from me. Cool? Moving on.

Let me describe my lack of bona fides right upfront. I'm a guy with a high school education and one year of college because I let my dick do the thinking up to the point that I ended up homeless and friendless. I tried to follow in my Dad's footsteps and join the military and washed right out after six months because I have a mouth bigger than my brain. I come from a family that describing as dysfunctional is exceedingly generous. My dad had anger issues, my mother was a narcissist manipulator, as is my brother. He's got a criminal record and is probably on his way back to prison for at least 12 years as I write this. I'm the voice of reason in my family, and as I have said repeatedly, this should scare the fuck out of you. I got married at 24, and I had three kids by the age of 30. I've been dirt poor most of that time. At this stage of my life, I believe that I am an undiagnosed case of autism from the 1970s because my kids--all of them--are on the spectrum. I didn't have a bad childhood if you looked at it from one angle, but I had a horrible one if you looked at it from the inside out. I inherited my Dad's anger issues and my mother's narcissism. I was a horrible husband for years until my wife walked out on me in 2005. It made me face myself in a way I had not seen before, and I couldn't take it. I had a nervous breakdown. My wife thought I was worth saving, and I am forever grateful for it. I promised I would work on my issues, and I have. Three times in my life, I thought I was at the end of my rope. Not from a thought of suicide ideation, just that there was nowhere else to turn. No one else to ask for help. No one else I could lean on. Just Roley.

That moment right there is the point. The entire lesson. One small moment when your brain says, "Well, you're really fucked now, aren't you?" There is only one answer to that question, and that answer is yes because if you answer no, you ain't there yet. Trust me on this. You have to answer yes. This is the moment where you're accountable to no one but you, and you cannot lie to yourself. You can TRY. It ain't gonna work. Not for long.

Let's not bullshit ourselves. There is a lot of work in repairing a life that you fucked up on your own. You climb up out of a hole for years before you ever see daylight. I was a shut-in for two years because I thought it better that the world forgets about me. I tried to make a living from home in 2006-2007, but this world we live in hadn't come to pass yet, and I was living a fantasy. It made me feel worse that I couldn't provide for my family, but I could barely function as a human at that point. So I decided to do the only work I was capable of: Working on myself. I read every self-help book and mental health book I could lay my hands on. I dug deep into myself to try to figure out why I was the person I was, how I became that way, and the answer was straightforward. First, I thought I was absolutely normal. My behavior, though abhorrent, was how I was raised. My parents treated each other and us kids horribly, but it wasn't physically abusive save for a couple of times I'll keep to myself. I grew up in the same environment I perpetuated. I was continuing a cycle. Secondly, to accept that fact and to change meant work I wasn't ready to take on. But human psychology is a lot like a car in that regard; you can do the work now, or you can do it later, but it's going to cost you a lot more. In my case, it almost cost me everything. It was the third of those three times that I faced myself in the mirror and heard that voice, and this was the time I said yes.

For two-thirds of my life, my story is a story of failure, of self-hatred, of being a bad example. But from the age of 35 to 50, it's a story of repair and redemption. I'll put my humble path to today up against anyone's and dare them to do the work I've done to heal myself and come out who I am today. I'm still married to the same woman for over 25 years now. I've got three amazing kids who I adore. Up until May of this year, I had what I consider to be a dream job until COVID ate it, but I'm still with the same company, and I'm going to bust whatever amount of ass it takes to get my job back or demonstrate the skills I learned there to someone else who's willing to take me. I have a sense of self-worth and purpose that I've never had before, and I'm not taking being a call center tech support agent for the rest of my life. It is a means to an end, and it is not my life's work. I know what that is. It's helping you in the best way I know how: By being not the example of how to fix it, but from showing you by my example, it CAN BE FIXED that you can go from being a person full of anger and self-loathing and cruel behavior to being a person of kindness and compassion and love for people. That you can go from being a person who has no prospects to a person who can go to a job every day that fulfills them personally and professionally. That you can go from being a person who hasn't got their shit together at all to a person that can get morning to night without falling apart at the seams. This is my road, and my lane, but it's big enough for you, and I want you on this road with me. Some of you are gifted and talented beyond description, but the world doesn't know it yet because you have these problems. I know. I get it. I also see who you are, and the world deserves to see you as well. I had no one else to turn to at that last moment, so I did what I had to do. Myself. I'm asking you to take a walk with me because I don't want you to have to do it on your own. I may not know your way home, but I can get you as far as Anchorhead. You can get transport there to Mos Eisley or wherever you're going.

I had to get one joke in there somehow.

Did Joe Know About This?

On the heels of the news of Joe Budden maybe-kinda-sorta-moving his show to Patreon (which is weird since it looks like it’s being hosted on Libsyn now), Spotify has announced plans for multiple business models for podcasts, possibly to include ad-supported subscriptions and a la carte options. These may be discussed at a live stream event later in February.

Asked if Spotify thought customers would be willing to pay for podcasts, Ek on the earnings call responded that he believed there were several new models that could be explored.

“I think we’re in the early days of seeing the long-term evolvement of how we can monetize audio on the internet. I’ve said this before, but I don’t believe that it’s a one-size-fits-all,” he said. “I believe, in fact, that we will have all business models, and that’s the future for all media companies — that you will have ad-supported subscriptions and à la carte sort of in the same space, of all media companies in the future.”

“And you should definitely expect Spotify to follow that strategy and that pattern,” Ek added, more definitively.

The answer seemed to indicate that Spotify is considering some of the ideas in that recent survey — of getting consumers to pay for some podcasts, instead of accessing them all for free or having them bundled into their music subscription.

I wonder if Budden was aware of this and balked. Would there be a revenue split between Spotify and the creators, and what’s the ratio? Now that I think of it, isn’t that what they’ve been crying about re: Apple?

For more than a year, Spotify has been making noise about Apple’s unchecked power over the App Store, and in March 2019, it filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission. Spotify claims Apple’s practice of taking 30 percent of an app’s revenue is unjustified, and says the company operates as a monopoly on iOS.

Suddenly, I find this Budden/Spotify deal more intriguing.

Wait, You Can Make Money Doing That?

Julie Miller from Vanity Fair writes about Hollywood coming over to the Pod Side for ‘fun and profit’:

…entertainment types began orbiting the audio space about two years ago in earnest, as the number of Americans listening to podcasts every month headed toward the 100 million it is today. It was also around 2018 that agencies like CAA began incorporating audio deals into their development packages. One insider estimates that many celebrities could get a six-figure guarantee per year, with the biggest actors receiving between $1 million and $3 million to launch an unscripted podcast. Scripted projects offer less up-front money but can be adapted into TV shows, films, books, and so on.

For the record, I am Steve Jobs, “Podcasts are Amateur Hour" Years Old. For years, podcasting was seen as less-than, so when I see stories like this, the little imp of the perverse in the back of my head tosses a bone at every true media elitist who, strangely, has a podcast now..

How About Not Doing That?

Chris Curran over at PES has a question about your thin mouth:

When I’m doing my fine-tuned editing on a podcast episode I use TwistedWave or Sound Forge because they allow me to VERY QUICKLY zoom in, highlight very small things like single mouthclicks, and delete them.

When I try to make the same kind of edit in a DAW (Reaper and others) it takes forever.

What say you?

For the most part, my workflow tends to remove mouth clicks, or at the very least minimize them. If they still show up through my noise gate, I highlight and remove them. I can’t say this happens often because I like to make sure I keep some water near me while I’m recording. The single biggest thing you can do to prevent mouth clicks is to keep hydrated. Remember, you can’t fix it in Post if it never happens in the first place.

Shot Of The Day

#Joe Budden #Spotify #Monetization #Podcasts #Hollywood #Vanity Fair #Julie Miller #Podcast Engineering School #Mouthclicks #PES

1 note · View note