#Property sale cancellation

[gregdotorg]

Nothing says "the property of a consumer" quite like the 555th Gerhard Richter print in an edition of 739.

This Christie's phrasing is the best thing since Amazon addressing me as just "Prime Member," in an email.

[etz-ashashiyot]

Okay I haven't yet commented on the whole Adas Torah protest/brawl, because from what I'm seeing in the news, it looks very much like an "everyone sucks here" situation.

The event that they were hosting that attracted the protesters to begin with was sponsored by a group called "My Home in Israel" and literally sells property in the West Bank in addition to Israel proper.

Honestly? That's worth being upset about, and if the protests were actually targeted at discouraging people from buying property in occupied areas, I would support them. A peaceful, respectful protest, especially one that very intentionally included liberal Jews and/or people willing to do education on this issue and meet people where they're at? Or better yet: reaching out to that community ahead of time and encouraging them to cancel the event rather than a protest? That might actually make a difference.

But of course they didn't take that tack. Why do the hard work of actual real advocacy when you could just show up to a house of worship with bear spray and aggressively block doors and verbally escalate? Why talk to Jews when you could just attack them?

So. Good job guys. Way to show up for Palestine. I'm sure all of the Jews present for this altercation will feel so safe and loved and respected that they will definitely stay in the diaspora without an army to protect them.

Because like, not to be That Guy, but I honestly can't think of a better sales pitch for making aliyah than being physically attacked by an antisemitic mob outside your shul.

That said, they weren't exactly sitting ducks, either. People found out about this protest ahead of time and set up a counter-protest who, at a minimum, fought back physically if not escalated themselves. It's unclear to me who instigated what, and so personally I'm reserving judgment on that specific issue. But this was not a situation where totally defenseless worshippers were attacked out of the blue and I don't think it helps to try and paint this situation that way.

Please note: I wasn't there, so if I have any facts wrong, please tell me and send reliable sources. I'm open to revising this view of the situation, but want to make sure I have legitimate contrary facts on which to rely.

[hotwaterandmilk]

I'm seeing "Wedding Peach was unsuccessful" trotted out on Twitter again and it's honestly kind of funny to me. You can dislike the series, but you're rewriting history if you suggest it was a massive commercial flop/astronomical failure — it simply wasn't.

The Wedding Peach TV series maintained viewership throughout its run which is why it aired an entire year's worth of episodes (the full length it was intended to run) and didn't get cancelled like Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, for example.

I'm not going to pretend it did Sailor Moon numbers, dear god, it absolutely didn't get close hence why it wrapped as it did. I would suggest looking back now, that it was the definition of a mid-performing title for the time period. It sold toys decently but not outrageously, it got viewers but not an outstanding number, and it garnered a small but dedicated fanbase of male otaku. All of which is par for the course when it comes to a mid title in 1995.

Wedding Peach DX was produced because the TV series LD sales were decent enough to warrant it. Children were not buying LD box sets at this time, adult fans were and it was this interest that justified the creation of the four DX episodes as direct-to-video releases. If a series doesn't sell well they don't make more episodes, let alone higher quality deluxe episodes specifically for the home video market (and thus for older audiences with spending power).

It is very important to point out that Wedding Peach DX had NO INVOLVEMENT from the original creative team. Tomita Sukehiro and Yazawa Nao did not contribute to its creation, Tadano Kazuko didn't provide designs. Yuyama Kunihiko was the driving force behind the production of the DX episodes and he served as both director and writer for all four episodes (bringing on Wedding Peach animator and soon-to-be frequent Pokémon collaborator, Ichiishi Sayuri to serve as character designer).

What inspired these to be fanservice dreck to the level they ended up being is honestly beyond me. I mean the otaku market definitely wanted more episodes featuring the characters (and more songs featuring the seiyuu, if you want to see how keen otaku were for FURIL please see this post) but part of what they liked about the characters at the time was their (barfbarfbarf) perceived purity and innocence. The DX including panty shots and swimsuits kind of threw them for a loop. Even now, if you look at discussions about the DX among otaku there's a bit of a divide in opinion.

The DX episode sales were (as far as I can tell based on magazines from the time) also mid, but enough to cover four episodes. Three and four don't seem to have sold as well as one and two, but again the stats from the time aren't comprehensive. I think the fact that there weren't any after episode four says it all, honestly. OVA episodes are expensive to produce and it was extremely common for them to stop immediately if the sales weren't there. DX didn't justify its existence beyond those four episodes and Yuyama moved onto a far more successful project in Pokémon.

On that topic, I think it's important to note that Wedding Peach was OLM's first television series (albeit a coproduction with KSS). If it and the studio's adaptation of Mojacko hadn't made some level of profit it would have been quite difficult for them to adapt Pokémon. Neither Mojacko nor Wedding Peach set records with their viewership or sales numbers, but they both did "OK". It was in Pokémon however, that that OLM truly found a successful property with the series still running today. Sometimes you've got to have a few runs at producing things before you find success. Wedding Peach was one of these early runs, a project where a lot of people cut their teeth but one that didn't justify its own continuation beyond a certain point. Just a very standard media mix from the mid-90s, in other words.

Wedding Peach is a problematic title with indifference through to outright objection to representing love outside of heterosexual romance. Looking back now it feels like an absolute dinosaur on so many levels. Between the anime's fatphobic episode and Momoko dropping some gender essentialism, I'm not surprised people want to relegate it to the dustbin of history.

However, I think it is very telling that Tomita Sukehiro, when presented with the opportunity to tell a similar story in the modern day, chose to represent not just queer love, but platonic and familial love in Wedding Apple. While he can't undo the regressive and cringy elements of the original series, as a creator he has progressed and I'd like to think we can all continue to improve our outlooks and output as we grow.

Disliking Wedding Peach in the modern day is completely understandable. I'm not going to pretend anyone should watch it in 2024 without knowing that it is a camp, cheaply made relic of a time when heterosexuality was considered magic. However, just because it pandered to all the worst things trending at the time doesn't mean it didn't sell enough products or hold enough viewers to justify its production. It did, it just wasn't a strong enough property to go beyond that and that's representative of mediocrity rather than mind blowing commercial failure imho.

[i-am-aprl]

The “Great israeli Real Estate Sale,” an expo selling stolen Palestinian land, scheduled on 3/13 in Flatbush was cancelled. The group, instead, held a Zoom webinar hosted by real estate agent Simcha Lustig, who has made a fortune off of selling illegally built properties (some of which sell for millions of shekels) on stolen Palestinian land. Protesters infiltrated the webinar and disrupted the event by flooding the chat, annotating the Zoom screenshare, and making verbal statements against the sale, amongst other forms of disruption. An email campaign ahead of the event resulted in Lustig’s inbox being flooded with hundreds of instances of “hate mail” (as he calls it). Simcha, we will not tolerate your continued sale of stolen Palestinian land, not in the wake of a genocide that has claimed over 40,000 lives and not ever.

[kylanfedje]

Disney Star Wars Retrospective - Episode I: The Phantom Mouse

A long time ago, in a conference room far, far away....

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Or is it the lightsaber? On October 30, 2012, a few strokes of ink were all it took for one of the most lucrative media enterprises of all time to be subsumed into arguably the largest entertainment empire in history. I am talking of course about the $4.5 billion sale of Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company, which brought iconic film franchises like Indiana Jones and Star Wars under the ever-expanding Disney umbrella of intellectual properties.

While Indiana Jones has been no box-office slouch, George Lucas’ epic space fantasy saga was the real prize in the transaction. And the new regime at Lucasfilm, headed by Kathleen Kennedy, longtime movie producer and frequent collaborator of Steven Spielberg’s, could hardly wait for the dust to settle before greenlighting a series of moves that would define the franchise for the decade to come.

Shortly after the purchase was announced, so too were a new trio of Star Wars films set after the Original Trilogy, which would pick up the stories of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, and a host of new characters as they sought to protect the galaxy against a resurgent evil, seeking to destroy the peace brought by the establishment of a New Galactic Republic. Additionally, the company also announced plans for a series of anthology films, which were to release between the latest installments in the Sequel Trilogy. However, to compensate for the number of resources devoted to such an ambitious film schedule, the fan-favorite Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, which had aired five seasons on Cartoon Network since 2008, would come to an end. Alongside these announcements was also the confirmation that the Expanded Universe (EU) material, the books and comics that had filled out so much of the galaxy’s lore before, between, and after the films, was no longer considered canon for the purposes of new Star Wars projects and would be reclassified as “Legends.”

Many of the creatives behind The Clone Wars continued onto Rebels, including showrunner Dave Filoni, and as a result, many storylines and characters from the former were brought into the latter in one way or another. Fan favorites like Captain Rex and Hondo Ohnaka would return, as well as lesser-known ones like Saw Gerrera and Bo-Katan Kryze would appear, though rarely for more than a few episodes at a time at most. But easily the most prevalent of The Clone Wars originals to join the cast of Rebels was the one and only Ahsoka Tano, the former Padawan of Anakin Skywalker who, after being falsely accused of bombing the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and murdering a witness to cover it up, decided to walk away from the Order, even after she was exonerated on all charges. Since The Clone Wars hadn���t reached its natural endpoint of the Jedi Purge (commonly known as Order 66) before its untimely cancellation, fans were left wondering what fate may have befallen their favorite ex-Jedi at that critical moment in Star Wars lore. Now, they would at least know she had survived Emperor Palpatine’s directive to rid the galaxy of the greatest threat to his power, even if the specifics of how she’d done so were left unsaid at the time.

However, Rebels was hardly a direct successor to The Clone Wars in terms of its general tone and art direction, both of which were noticeably altered from the relatively mature and moody atmosphere of its predecessor, particularly its later seasons — though Rebels would eventually reach similar levels of emotional and thematic intensity as The Clone Wars had by the end of its run. But while the lighter tone of Rebels can be easily attributed to a desire by the franchise’s new overlords to keep the franchise more in line with Disney’s “family friendly” brand ethos, the change in art direction is more indicative of a broader trend within the franchise that began in this time and arguably persists to this day, which is an almost compulsive reverence for the Original Trilogy and its iconography.

It’s no secret to anyone familiar with the history of cinema that the Star Wars prequels were not very well-received upon their initial release, though they have received a critical reappraisal by fans in recent years. Either way, when Lucasfilm went to work on their new slate of Star Wars projects in 2013, the general consensus was still that the Prequel Trilogy was a collection of overly ambitious and poorly executed disasterpieces, a fact they were like well aware of and would make them want to avoid whatever associations with it they could when developing new material. This might also help to explain why The Clone Wars, a series set in the midst of the trilogy, was cancelled so unceremoniously at the time, with only a 13-episode sixth season released straight to Netflix, a handful of unfinished animatics dumped on the Star Wars website, and other unproduced story arcs being adapted into quasicanonical books and comics to fill the void left in its wake.

What this represents is a desire among the creative minds behind the franchise towards inserting Original Trilogy “fan service” into their work. The style of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art, while critical in shaping the visual language of Star Wars, is in truth only recognizable as such to the most die-hard of fans and thus provides no more — or less — value to the average viewer, and therefore can be seen as a decision made primarily to cater towards the superfans while not alienating newer or less knowledgeable ones. Likewise, the series’ (re)introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the third season can easily be understood as yet another case of this phenomenon, albeit in a slightly different manner.

The character of Thrawn was first created for Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy of novels, a core component of the EU/Legends canon written in the early 90s during that time when Star Wars was mostly seen as “uncool nerd shit” to the general public. But for the fans who grew up reading and loving these books, they may have felt hurt and betrayed when Disney came in and told them these stories were no longer canon. So, when Thrawn reappeared in Rebels with the same character design and personality as he had in the novels, it signaled to them that the franchise was still willing to look to the EU/Legends for inspiration and would even draw directly from them, thus rewarding their continued devotion to the franchise’s extended lore.

That’s not to say that casual fans were necessarily turned off by this either. If anything, because the Heir to the Empire novels were no longer canon, it was easier for them to only see Thrawn as the version that appeared in Rebels and therefore discard the ancillary material as unnecessary to understanding who he was, where he came from, and what he wanted. Those novels still existed if they wanted to dive deeper, but it was ultimately inessential to following the show’s plot, and thus wouldn’t make newer or more casual fans feel like they had “homework” to do before they could start enjoying the franchise’s current marquee offerings.

In a similar vein to Thrawn’s role in the series is that of Darth Maul, the failed apprentice to Darth Sidious who somehow survived being sliced in half by Obi-wan Kenobi during a duel on Naboo in The Phantom Menace. It could have — and probably should have — been a disaster class in fan service when he was brought back in The Clone Wars, but to the show’s credit, it went to great lengths to make it work both narratively and thematically. It presented his miraculous survival as the product of pure hatred, channeled through the Force, and directed towards the man who nearly killed him and the master who abandoned him. Through much of his screentime both shows, he is motivated almost singularly by a desire for revenge against both Kenobi and Sidious, eventually culminating in a final rematch between him and Kenobi in the Tatooine desert that ends with him being slain and set free at last from his eternal torment.

For Rebels viewers who had perhaps seen the main saga films — Episodes I-VI at the time — but missed The Clone Wars, Maul’s return would come as an utter shock. The last they had seen of this man he had been falling down a reactor shaft in two pieces; now he was alive and well and menacing the galaxy yet again. When did this happen? How did this happen? They would have to watch The Clone Wars or read a Wookiepedia article to learn for themselves, since the show mostly assumed you were already aware of his return. Thankfully, the entire show was available on a popular streaming service and came highly regarded by much of the fandom, so the reward for “doing their homework” might be seen as worthwhile. Not to mention its arc-based structure lent well to isolating a few specific episodes as “essential,” instead of needing to view the entire show to understand how and why Maul had come back from the dead. And yet, the prospect of there being “homework” at all for an animated show geared towards children and teens might have also turned away some of those who had been lured in by the stormtroopers and lightsabers they once knew and loved.

All told, the first few years of Star Wars under its new management indicated a great deal of how the next decade of Star Wars media would play out. Anything the fans didn’t like — the prequels, mainly — could be mostly ignored. Aspects of the franchise beloved by fans but unknown to broader audiences — The Clone Wars and the EU /Legends— may continue to appear, but only when it can contribute positively to the story already being told. And above all, stick to what everyone knows and loves as much as you can — the aesthetics and iconography of the Original Trilogy: X-Wings and TIE Fighters, Rebels and Empire. These were as good as gospel in Disney’s new church of Star Wars, a fact which was only proved truer when the highly anticipated Episode VII hit theaters in December 2015, the first theatrical live-action Star Wars movie in a decade, and the first since the Disney buyout.

[infamousbrad]

Somebody other than me cares!

For only the second time in the last decade or more, my personal obsession is in the news and I'm incredibly excited. "Below the fold," in old newspaper jargon, but at least somebody's trying to do something and some newspapers noticed. When you're as starved for validation as I am, it only takes that much attention to excite me.

Amudalat Ajasa and Carolyn Van Houten, "Lead paint upended this boy’s life. Now the EPA is trying to eliminate the threat. The Environmental Protection Agency is about to issue strict limits on lead dust, which poses a threat to millions of children across the United States," Washington Post. Oct 19, 2024 (non-paywall link)

Lead was used as a paint additive from Victorian times up until the late 1970s for a couple of reasons. It made a bright white pigment that didn't fade quickly, it was shiny, and most importantly to the Victorians, it tolerated harsh cleaning chemicals well, which they thought was important to reducing the spread of disease.

(On a local note for here in St. Louis MO USA, it also almost single-handedly propped up the local economy in this town for that whole century, thanks to the huge lead mines south of town and our ability to export products to the whole world via our port on the Mississippi river. Almost all of the abandoned factory and warehouse buildings down here in South St. Louis are contaminated former lead-paint businesses.)

Lead paint though has an even bigger problem than lead pipes, though: over time, it starts shedding lead dust, and children are incredibly vulnerable to lead dust, breathing it in and/or swallowing it. And it takes very little lead dust to permanently damage a growing mind, destroying the parts of the brain that control impulses and the ones that down-regulate emotions.

This is why lead paint was outlawed in the late 1970s. But there was no law requiring it to be removed from (frankly, nearly all) surfaces. Instead, there was a voluntary lead abatement program, and even it only applied to residential property. Homeowners and apartment owners could borrow money from the nearest S&L, pay contractors to rip out and replace all the lead-dust tainted windows, carpets, plaster walls, and so forth and replace them with clean new vinyl-clad or latex-painted bits. They could then submit the receipts with their taxes and get a 100% refundable tax credit.

But they weren't able to make it mandatory because of intense lobbying by openly-racist slumlords, who didn't want to lead abate their properties even it was free because that's telling them what to do with their property, who didn't think their black tenants "deserved" refurbished apartments. That's also why it's illegal to disclose, in sales or in rental contracts, that your property has been through lead abatement; doing so is "unfair" to those '70s slumlords.

And besides, Reagan canceled the whole program halfway though his first term. To bend over backwards to be fair to Reagan, they weren't still getting many applications; everybody who was going to do so voluntarily already had. (Free money for home improvements has that effect.)

About a decade ago, a Reuters reporter used FOIA to demand state health departments turn over their records on childhood lead testing. Almost half of them don't keep any. Most only track it at the state level or maybe county level. Missouri's one of the only states that tracks it to the census-tract level, tracks where kids who are lead poisoned live to within a couple of blocks. And the map of apartments that didn't go through lead abatement, here in Missouri, perfectly maps onto the homicide data.

As someone who was pretty badly lead poisoned as a teenager myself, and as someone who's spent most of his life living in or near lead-poisoned apartments, I'm obsessed with this and ever since the Reuters article came out I've been begging every politician or candidate I interact with to bring back the late '70s lead abatement tax credit and this time make it mandatory to test before selling or leasing a home. Even when St. Louis, with its nominally, mostly progressive mayor got huge uncommitted funds dumped on her, from ARPA and from the Rams-relocation-fraud settlement, I couldn't get any politician to care about this. Their constituents weren't demanding it, so it couldn't be done.

The Washington Post reported, today, that the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a rule to do just that. No tax credit provision, so they're being fought tooth and nail by people who don't want to make property sellers and landlords pay for it out of pocket, but the proposed rule is on the docket, potentially to take effect mid next year. Somebody other than me noticed. Somebody other than me cares.

If you are like the average person (to my distress) the main thing you want to know is "what can I do to protect myself or my kids?"

This is a shitty way to think because let me tell you, if your kid grows up on the same block as a lead-poisoned kid, your kid is going to grow up with C-PTSD from the resulting violence. Your kids aren't safe until everybody's kids are safe.

I didn't convince you? You've given up on keeping everybody else's kids safe, too?

If you have a painted surface anywhere on your property that existed prior to 1976, you should assume that there is lead paint on it. Older chain-link fences almost certainly. Wooden single-pane windows, 100% likely. If you have plaster, instead of drywall, interior walls in your house, then neither the walls nor the floorboards nor the carpets are safe. They will tell you these surfaces can be rendered safe by painting over them with latex paint; anybody who tells you this is whistling past the graveyard.

Do not have or raise kids in a house or apartment like that. Either abate the lead or move. Yes, even if it's more expensive; the alternative is to raise a child who may never work and has a high likelihood of spending most of their life in and out of jail.

If it's too late for that, and your child is already lead poisoned, don't give up hope entirely, but understand that the interventions that show promise for such kids are hard to find and aren't 100% reliable.

The most important thing you can do is investigate the concept of "trauma-informed schools," and demand, as part of your child's IEP, that his teacher and any associated staff get trauma-informed schooling trained. (Your kid will not be the only one who benefits.)

Children with profoundly impaired impulse control and/or profoundly impaired emotional down-regulation skills can be taught to do better, but that requires that they be given the extra time it will take them to do so, and the privacy, and the calm quiet space, especially when they're very young and just learning. Their brains don't do this naturally, so they don't do them quickly; hold them to the same standard of behavior as everybody else but until they spend a decade or more practicing and grow up more, after you remind them, give them enough time to obey.

But believe me when I tell you this: lead abatement and behavioral education are cheaper and better than prison.

[galvanizedfriend]

Both Christmas fics!

Oh nonnie 😂 I love a Christmas AU. Come November (!!!), all I do, all day long, is leave my TV on Hallmark channel and watch the same crappy Christmas movies (full of TVD/TO actors btw lol) over and over. So naturally, I end up with intrusive thoughts about getting Klaroline into Christmas romcoms where Klaus is alwats a Scrooge or Grinch sort of creature and Caroline is the ray of sunshine that melts some of the ice around his heart. 😂 Could it be any more cliche? No. Do I care? Also no.

So the first Xmas AU was Caroline getting invited to spend Christmas in the UK with Enzo (her bestie) at his new husband's (lololol) family's ancestral home, Mikaelson House. But she was promised that Klaus wouldn't be there, because they're Christmassy people and he always spends the Holidays skiing. Except there's a snow storm and his flight got cancelled and so he's stranded. Caroline and Klaus have some beef from Enzo's wedding (which I can't remember what exactly what it was about, but I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere 😂). And so it would be a very Mikaelson family situation with Klaus and Caroline getting over their beef in the process.

The second one is more uhm *controversial*😂 But I think I like the execution of it more. Klaus inherits a property from his biological father whom he's had no contact with his entire life. He doesn't want anything to do with it because he obviously holds a giant grudge over the fact he was abandoned to suffer at the hands of Mikael his whole life while his father knew of his existence (he finds out about that when he's older). But Elijah (who also doubles as his lawyer because he's a hotshot one) pushes him to go check it out and put it in the market to at the very least get the money (not that he needs it, but anyway). So he goes and finds out the place is actually a Christmas Tree farm that doubles as a holiday theme park (or used to, before it was closed down years before when Ansel got sick), and Caroline is the person in charge of it (she's also a lawyer). He means to just get rid of the whole thing but she ends up convincing him to sell it to someone interested in keeping the business open because the small town where it's located has been suffering greately since the park shut down and it could create a lot of jobs and opportunities for local business owners and while Klaus couldn't care less, he finds out very soon that it's very hard for him personally to say no to Caroline. 😂 Then a lot of things happen (Elijah gets in the middle of it to expedite the sale and ruins everything, Klaus finds out the truth about why his father never contacted him, De Martels appear, etc).

Both sound silly af but that's the spirit of these holiday romcoms and honestly I love them, so whatever 🙆‍♀️

[thegayer-thebetter]

Learning to Heal - Chapter 1

Alpha Bakugo x Alpha Kirishima x Beta Todoroki x Omega Izuku (It's a polycule because why tf not)

Summary: Izuku is not like the other omegas at the Omegan Sale Facility. He was raised to be the ‘perfect omega’, the obedient alpha fantasy. His whole life he was taught to put his wants last, to listen to an alpha no matter what. When he’s of age he’s sold to an Omegean Sale Facility, others were kidnapped to be trained and broken into the ‘perfect omega’, to be auctioned off to the highest bidding alpha. He’s been brainwashed and manipulated his whole life to believe this is what he wants. That by doing so he’s fulfilling his duties as a good omega should. 

   However, when pro heroes take down the omega trafficking ring and Izuku realizes that he was lied to his whole life. He has to unlearn everything he was taught and listen to his inner omega. With the help of the pack of pros that made his freedom possible Izuku has a lot to learn.

I wake up to the alarm, as always. I make my way to the shared bathrooms and begin my morning hygiene routine, as always. The rules at this Omegan Sale Facility are strict but simple.

Rule 1: Hygiene and maintaining my appearance is my priority. That means I brush my teeth twice a day; eat only the food given to me during mealtime; I must participate in active time; shower every day; shave every week at least; and do my skin care every morning and night. My body and looks are the commodity, I am the facility’s property. The better I look, the more money I bring in.

Rule 2: I will obey any and every order. My will and my wants do not matter. No matter what the guards and trainers tell me to do, I must do it. My omegean instincts are second to the will of those above me. I do not know what is best for myself, only an alpha knows what an omega wants and needs.

Rule 3: By completing the obedience and alpha care training I will be added to the roster of the next auction and sold to the highest bidder. That alpha will be my new owner. That’s the goal. To be an alpha’s plaything, a mindless, obedient, omega. That’s how omegas were intended to be, after all, and the facility helps keep omegas in order. The facility shows us our place in the world, some take longer to accept it than others. But in the end every omega brought here succumbs to the natural order of things.

It’s only three rules! It’s far simpler than I had imagined it would be. Some omegas here were taken off the streets, targeted for their looks and/or scents. While others had no choice than to give themselves over because of a large amount of debt. I do not fall into either of those categories. I am one of the very few omegas specially trained since birth to be the perfect omega. The rules of the facility have been taught to me since birth, I knew my place from a very early age.

The second I was eligible, my original trainers sold me to this facility. Omegas like me are highly sought after, an omega who knows nothing but obedience. I passed my obedience and alpha care training faster than any other omega. I did not need to be broken in, like the newer omegas. As there was no learning curve for me. I did not need to be punished in order to follow my rules, they had been drilled into me my whole life. This is what I’m meant to do.

After I do my skin care, I and the other omegas line up at the bathroom door and are escorted by some guards to the dining hall. I eat some oatmeal and have some water and wait patiently for the guards to signal that breakfast is complete. After this I would usually be brought to training. Where we practice a variety of useful omegean skills.

Like being able to stay in a cage for hours on end; remaining in a room blindfolded with noise canceling headphones for as long as the trainers wish; learning the correct way to respond to an alpha; practicing pleasing an alpha sexually, learning all the correct positions and techniques; and not speaking unless I am allowed to do so. All very necessary in order to make an alpha happy and be a good omega for them.

But training is not on my schedule for today. I, and six other omegas, have completed our training and are scheduled to be auctioned off tonight. And, from what I understand, there will be some important alphas in attendance tonight. Tonight, all my training pays off, tonight I get what I’ve been working for my entire life. I get to belong to an alpha. And maybe, maybe if they like me enough, they might mate and mark me. To be pupped by an alpha is the highest honor an alpha can give to an omega. If everything goes to plan tonight, I can finally put all of my skills into practice and make myself useful!

On my auction day most of the day is spent in my room. I read some of the books I received as a reward for my obedience. Reading is pretty much the only thing the facility allows obedient omegas to do in their free time, which is rare to have. I am grateful to them for allowing me such a privilege and I always enjoy reading the books I’m allowed.

Around 5 pm I am escorted down a long hallway and to a door labeled ‘Dressing Room’. The guard opens the door and I walk in, with my head down in respect, inside the room are two trainers. This is where I will be dressed and prepared for my auction.

“Undress, omega, let us see what we have to work with.” One of the trainers' orders. I take off my shorts and tank top and neatly fold them, setting them on the table in front of me, as instructed. Panties are a privilege omegas are not entitled to. Our owner will decide what they deem is appropriate for us to wear underneath our clothes, if anything.

I stand still as the trainers take in my naked body and watch as they go to the racks of clothes and lingerie, deciding what will suit my body best.

“He’s definitely gonna bring in the highest auction tonight. We decided to put you on last, Izuku, we wanted to end this auction with a bang. The prettiest little omega that all the alphas out there have been waiting for. They can barely sit still,” The tallest and most muscular trainer says as he begins to dress me in the outfit they picked out, a dark green lace bodysuit that has sheer flower embroidery on it and shows off my thighs and butt perfectly. I look up into the mirror before me and see myself in the prettiest outfit I have ever been allowed. I feel tears come to my eyes as I look at myself. I want to remember how my future owner will first see me. Tonight is the night I will meet the alpha that I have been dreaming about my whole life, my owner.

“Look at him. Someone’s definitely gonna wreck him tonight.” The other, slimmer trainer says to the first trainer as she puts a touch of makeup on me. Just some mascara and lipgloss. “Those freckles of his are so precious.”

The trainers step back, motioning for me to spin and nod to each other.

“Perfe-” Before the muscular trainer can finish his thought, a siren blares. The emergency siren indicates someone has infiltrated the facility, an attack of some sort. This hasn’t happened before, not since I’ve been here. I start to panic and look at the two guards.

“Goddamnit. Ben probably set it off again,” The lady trainer says as she looks at the other trainer.

“He’s a fucking idiot.” he responds, and his attention turns to me, “Stay in here until we get back. You are not to move a single muscle while we’re gone. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes sir.” I say as they leave the dressing room.

And suddenly I’m alone. Of course something would go wrong on my auction day. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy for me. I should’ve expected something like this. I whine to myself as I wait for this mess to be over. My auction will probably be rescheduled for next week, there’s no way any of the buyers will stick around tonight if they expect a raid or attack, even if it is a false alarm.

I keep still, like the obedient omega I am. Patiently waiting for the trainers to return, I feel myself growing more anxious as time passes. The alarm keeps blaring then, suddenly, I hear an explosion and yelling over the alarm. My heart stops. I hadn’t, even for a second, expected this to be a real attack. An inconvenience at most, a mistake. But an attack? An attack is not something I had ever anticipated.

I look around the room, weighing my options. Eventually, I decide hiding is my best option. I go behind the clothing rack, sit in the corner and pull my knees to my chest as I try to make as little noise as possible. I have no idea what will happen after this. But I can’t think about that right now, I just have to stay safe. I have to stay hidden.

I’m not sure how much time has passed, I’m not sure when I can get out of here. Where would I even go? I don’t know where anything is. Eventually the alarm quiets down but I don’t move. I wait for the trainers to come and get me. I can hear people walking around, which I’m going to assume is a good sign. Maybe everything’s gonna be ok after all. Maybe it was just a false alarm and I was panicking over nothing.

Then, I hear voices, “Yeah, I’ll clear this hall! Shitty hair you take the northern one! I’ll radio if I find anybody.” The voice in the hall says. His voice is low and gravely, not a voice I’ve heard before. That’s not a good sign. None of this is. My life is over.

It’s only a matter of time until I’m discovered. This is one thing I was not trained for. This is the one thing I’ve never planned for. I’ll probably be held prisoner or sold to another alpha, which wouldn’t be so bad. But what if their intention is to hurt me or worse? Maybe it’s someone trying to get revenge on the facility- I need to stop. Spiraling like this won’t help. Right now, all I can do is hide and keep myself safe.

Then, the door of the dressing room opens and my breath hitches, they won’t see me. They won’t see me. They can’t see me. I hold my breath and close my eyes hoping they just skim over the room and do not notice me.

They stomp through the room and just when I think they’re gone I hear, “Riot, I’ve got another one.” It’s the gravelly voice from the hall. I cover my ears and shake my head as I feel it becoming harder to breathe. I force my eyes closed, he can’t be talking about me, he’s talking about someone else. I feel myself start to cry; this wasn’t how today was supposed to go.

Then I realize I can smell him giving off a calming scent, he’s definitely an alpha all right. His scent smells like smoke and caramel. I’m not used to being able to smell an alpha, all the trainers and guards here wear scent patches. And, somehow, I can feel myself actually start to breathe deeper again, his scent is actually calming me down, though I hate to admit it. I didn’t know an alphas scent could have such a strong effect on my omega.

I uncover my ears and finally open my eyes, crouching in front of me is a blonde haired, sweaty alpha wearing some sort of hero costume, he must be a pro hero. But that doesn’t make sense. Why would they attack the facility? They’re supposed to stop crime- Oh! He’s probably here to help with the attack that happened. Of course. That makes sense. I start to take deep breaths and look up at him. He’s just staring at me, I can smell worry on him.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” He says, in a voice far softer than the growl he had earlier, he stands up. I keep looking at him, somewhat skeptical given the current situation. Is he a pro or a villain or maybe someone disguised as a pro? Even though I’m not fully convinced, he is the alpha here and I must listen to him.

He puts his hand out to try and help me up and, against my better judgment, I take it. As I stand and see his eyes widen and a faint blush covers his cheeks. I look down, suddenly remembering the outfit I’m wearing and feeling self-conscious and exposed. He pulls off the black jacket with an orange X down the center of it and holds it out for me.

I look up at him, confused. “For you to… um, cover up a bit?” I stare at him and then at the jacket that reeks of him. It’s covered in soot and sweat but at the same time it looks comfortable? I’m not liking the way the omega side of me is reacting to him. I can’t accept this. More importantly, why has he offered it to me? It’s his jacke- my brain short circuits when I finally register that this alpha is now standing before me in a black tank top. A black tank top that hugs his very apparent abs and shows off his extremely muscular and mouth watering build.

“Are you gonna take it or just keep staring?” He questions, catching me stare at him. I take the jacket and pull it over the lingerie. It looks way bigger on me than it did on him. The sleeves are too long on me and it falls down to my mid thighs. So I am pretty much covered.

“I know this is all shocking. You probably have a lot of questions, but right now I need to get you out of here.” I look into his red eyes as he talks to me, taking in the alpha before me. He’s unlike any alpha I’ve ever seen or interacted with. He’s far bigger than any alpha I’ve ever seen. All the alpha trainers and guards here pale in comparison to the sheer domination his alpha seems to command.

He opens the door and I hear the ground crunch as his black boots step into the hall. I move to the doorway and see the floor is covered in broken glass and some pieces of the wall that have been broken, forming a huge hole in the side of the facility. Debris and rocks cake the floor before me and I look up at the alpha who sighs and looks back at me, clearly frustrated that I haven't followed him.

Before he can say anything, I motion to my bare feet, his eyes widen and he nods slightly in understanding. “Shit, right, I’m going to have to carry you out of here, is that okay?” He asks, looking at me, clearly trying to read whether I’ll have another panic attack over this or not. I nod.

He swoops me up into his arms, bridal style may I add, and pulls me close to his chest as he carries me. I find my anxiety decreasing and for the first time since the alarm went off I actually feel safe. Maybe it’s the alphas relaxing scent, maybe it’s the way he stood by me as I cried and soothed me with his scent, not touching me or pushing me, the way he asked for permission to touch me, as if he actually cares about what an omega wants. This is not how I thought alphas acted. Not at all. But something about this seems to soothe my inner omega as he walks out of the rubble and through the broken hole in the wall and to a parking lot full of omegas, ambulances, police, and other people I’m assuming are pro heroes.

I don’t see any of the trainers or guards. He sets me down on the pavement, and goes back inside the building, as he leaves, so does that feeling of calmness and safety. I am now hyperaware of the fact that I am surrounded by police officers yelling and pointing, omegas crying and seemingly happy, sirens blaring. It’s too much. It’s all too much. I can feel myself begin to breathe faster, heart rate increasing, the fear inside me growing.

An officer rushes me into an ambulance and tells me I’m safe now. That they can’t hurt me anymore. But that doesn’t give me any relief. Safe from what? I was safe! They are the ones taking me away from the facility, from my life, and not giving me any answers!

Is taking me away and leaving me in the dark their version of ‘saving’ me! Before I realize it’s happening, I begin to scream and fight the officer in the ambulance, trying to reach the handle and get out of here. The cop says something, screams something, he’s trying to calm me down, I cry and I feel him grab my arm tightly and try and force me back into submission, but I kick and scream and I bite him. I bit him. Another person grabs me from behind and I feel a sharp pain in my neck and everything goes black.

Here's the AO3 link for the full fic:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48611197/chapters/122617891

[ericaportfolio]

Disney's The Gremlins Over the Years

Chapter 1: Gremlins (Part 2)

This is Part 2 to Chapter 1. If you want to read Part 1 first, it's in the link below.

Due to the recent events with Epic Mickey Rebrushed, I thought of making a series of posts dedicated to Disney's infamous characters from the canceled WWII movie The Gremlins. The character designs of these guys have changed many times during the concept art process and over the years. Today, this is a collection of male Gremlin designs. The female Gremlins were called the Fifinellas, which I will get to them in the next post. For those discovering this, in summary, Disney was making WWII movies and shorts for the war effort. They were going to adapt Roald Dahl's first book about these guys, and several things like people getting tired of war movies and figuring out how to make the movie, which was canceled. I'm making these posts for fun and to help give artists ideas for their OCs and fanart. I would post some sample pictures and a minor breakdown in each post. I might miss some because there is so much, so this is just a handful of pictures and photos I collected over the years. We really need to make a Disney Gremlin's Wiki.

Anyways, let's jump into THE FUTURE!

Canceled Live Action/Animated Project (1992): Jumping forward into the future, Jerry Rees, director of The Brave Little Toaster, and Steve Leiva were trying to make a feature based on the original story with live action with animated gremlins like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The illustrators for the project were Steve Moore and Frans Vischer. Again, GLAD they didn't we didn't get this style of the characters since they're far from the original designs. Here are two samples by Steve Moore.

Return of the Gremlins (2008): When Disney made those terrible DVD sequels, Dark Horse and Disney made a deal to reprint the original book, make merchandise, and release a three-part comic sequel in 2008. The first cartoonist was Dean Yeagle, but he could not finish, so DreamWorks artist Fabio Laguna came in to do the final issue. In this story, Old Pilot Gus's grandson, Young Gus, goes to Old Gus's home in Brittan to handle the property sale. But SURPRISE! It's inhabited by the Gremlins that Old Gus befriended during WWII. Chaos ensues...

Epic Mickey (2010): Now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the game that introduced most of us to Disney’s Gremlins. Here are the variants we remember split into two groups: 3D Gameplay and 2D Cutscenes. Going forward, some of these pictures are from the Epic Mickey Wiki.

3D Gameplay

2D Cutscenes

Epic Mickey Comic (2010): In the 64 page-long graphic novel, the only Gremlin character who appeared in the comic was Gremlin Gus.

Epic Mickey (2012): In the sequel, we get more variants of the Gremlins and a Gremlin Prescott redesign.

3D Gameplay

2D Cutscenes

Epic Mickey Comic (2012): Gremlin Gus was joined by Gremlin Prescott and Gremlin Jamface.

Donald Duck #18 Comic (2015 IDW): This is the crossover we have wanted since the Comic Cover. In a translated European Swedish comic of 'Rue Brittania!', Donald and Fethry get a new assignment: travel back in time to WWII and face the Gremlins to de-gremlin the airfield. Artists: Pencils and Ink by Flemming Andersen and Colors by Digikore Studios.

There's a lot more I could add, but we would be here all day. If this post gets popular enough, I will do more on the side before the game comes out. If there are changes to the Gremlins in the Reboot, I'll make a Part 3. Hope this post is a helpful source for old and new Gremlin and Epic Mickey fans alike!

[maleyanderecafe]

Lucky Day! (Visual Novel)

Created by: JORDAN

Genre: Horror

Phew, really going with these yanjam games. Lucky Day! is the prequel to Dr. Morgan’s Counseling Session and I think that it is a major improvement in a lot of different aspects. What is really nice is that true ending into the events of the next game, which I really liked. If you are interested in more information on these games, you can find them at @verinefan for more information.

In total there are nine different endings you can get- one for discovering what Oliver is doing in every strange thing that happens, one for ignoring him, one for being completely oblivious, one neutral ending and one true ending that feeds into the next game. I'll be splicing the other endings between each day while writing the summary portion.

The story starts with the MC going to the pet store to buy somethings for their friend's pet. After grumbling to find the items, they bump into a strange man who seems to need help. The MC offers his their help to find where the hamsters are located before leaving and giving the items to their friend. They have a tough following week and hopes for a better following week.

Rejecting to help this man will lead to it's own ending where the MC just continues on with life.

The MC ends up going to a garage sale and finding one of their favorite plushes in the sale for a cheap price. The MC brings it home only to find a strange beeping noise coming from it.

Opening the plushie will reveal a camera inside of it and the MC removes the SD card on it to inspect it. They notice that the person was the same one they met in the pet store and that they planted the plushie in the yard sale. Oliver knocks on the door, and the MC escapes via car and runs him over.

The next day the MC is excited for a package they ordered. Opening the package reveals not what they bought but rather a USB. Within the USB are folders of different shows, games, music and other things that the MC likes. The MC notices a hidden unnamed folder.

Opening it will reveal countless photos and videos of things related to the MC. Scared, the MC tries to figure out what to do and if they should turn it to the police but instead decides to investigate it themselves. Looking through the photo properties, the MC is able to find the location of where it was taken. As it's close by, the MC decides to go to the location and finds a box to find some of the things that they had lost. Oliver ends up drugging the MC and taking them away.

The MC has a day off and decides to cancel some subscriptions to save some money. While going to cancel one of them, but realizes that something is weird and that all of the payment dates are off by a month.

Investigating further finds that all of the subscription have a Paypal connected underneath the MC's credit card. The MC is confused since if it was a hacker, why would they pay for all of them? The MC emails Oliver and Oliver response that they paid for them all because he likes them and hat they've been watching them. The MC cancels and blocks Oliver, locking the windows as well. At night, someone comes to knock on the door and runs into Oliver. The MC freaks out that he's broken in and the MC knocks him out and calls the police.

The next day the MC goes biking with a friend. You two enjoy the outdoors and then take a rest- only for the MC's friend to realize that they were being tracked. Checking on the bike, they find the tag on the bike.

Contacting the owner will have the MC and the friend call at a nearby cafe only to hear the ringtone nearby. Oliver responds stating that he didn't lose the tag, and that he was tracking the MC on purpose wanting to make sure they were okay. Your friend offers to hold onto the tag for you and the MC goes home only to find Oliver there who declares happily that he had come to pick them up. The MC gets knocked out due to the drugged food they were eating and Oliver takes them away.

The MC finishes a project for work the next day and a coworker apologizes for the bad last week and offers to treat them out for food. The MC agrees, but upon reaching the location, the coworkers apologizes for ditching at the last second and sends them money for a meal.

Looking for the coworker, the MC walks around and tries to call them only to hear the phone ring in an alleyway. The MC picks up a metal pipe for protection and finds a bloodied coworker with a Oliver standing on top of him. Oliver attempts to apologize to the MC before attacking them to prevent him from going to the police. The MC strikes back knocking Oliver out and calling the police/ambulance.

Ignoring or being mostly oblivious will lead to the MC having a nice week with one ending wishing every week were this lucky or wondering if they should have looked more into other things.

The true ending occurs if you build the MC's anxieties up but never catch Oliver. The MC has a bit of a panic attack and gets an ad about going to therapy which is what leads to the event of the next game.

Like I mentioned before, I honestly do think that the creator has improved a lot since their last game in terms of story, UI, artwork and everything. This game feels a lot more full (if that's the right word) and more colorful- it's really nice to see creator's improvements as they move onto another project or game.

Personally, I think the ways that Oliver was able to "improve" each day for the MC were all done fairly creatively. From the USB with all the things that the MC liked, to paying for their subscription services to tracking them on their bike ride, each of them have a fairly unique spin on how Oliver was able to track the MC. I think it's also nice that Oliver doesn't always win in his encounters and that the MC is generally a bit more prepared even when they do lose. I'm very used to yanderes that are able to win in all these kinds of bad endings, so it's nice to have it where it's a bit more matched. I also really like how the True ending is able to tie the prequel to the events of the next game so that it really does feel like a prequel. It was a good touch.

As a yandere, I did mention that Oliver was a bit clumsy in his methods and it continues in this as well. In each encounter, the events are generally suspicious or obviously weird in some way or another. A lot of the times, he seems to not be prepared when some things happen, like when the MC discovers that Oliver had knocked out their coworker or he comes in at a point where the MC can very easily retaliate like when he knocks on the door and the MC ends up running him over with their car. Oliver does seem to be pretty opaque when the MC does find out, stating straight out for instance when the MC asks him why he paid for his account, Oliver straight up tells the MC it's because he likes them instead of making up an excuse, or when trying to return the tag, tells them that he put it there on purpose. Even in cases where he does win like when he chloroforms the MC, the MC at least is a bit more prepared on what will happen and had to do work to track where the items were. Generally, it does seem like Oliver only purposefully interacts with the MC either because the MC finds out or he doesn't want to be sent to the police, and is happy just staying in the shadows and giving the MC different "gifts" to make their week better. Relatively harmless to the MC except when caught, which is on par with his other game.

Other than that, it seems like a pretty good prequel. If you have played Dr. Morgan’s Counseling Session but not this game, then I highly recommend you play it. It really builds on Oliver's character as a yandere and is just a fun time.

[dynared]

With Duke #2 due next week as people start to more openly debate Skybound's take on Hasbro properties vs. IDW's (this is not a debate in sales, retailers are claiming Skybound outsold IDW's comics at least 10 to 1), it's worth looking at the fandoms that developed around IDW's takes on Transformers and GI Joe (more Transformers, as GI Joe struggled with numerous reboots and attempts at making a more modern interpretation of the property before the license was yanked by Hasbro) and why they might not gel with Skybound's more casual-friendly approach. Ramble under the cut:

IDW's Transformers fanbase was one that was insular by design. Not in the "you need to understand this concept from a toy line in 1989" insular, or the "you'll be lost if you didn't read Simon'Furman's Alignment novella", way, but more insular in the concepts that they focused on. Bot-on-bot romance, usually between male robots (James Roberts flat out said he was going to write romance, and went with male/male because it was a toyline full of men). A very notable disdain for concepts that would alter that perception, hence the villainization of the Japanese characters and the Beasts, because many of the fanfic writers hailed from unironic "TRUKK NOT MUNKY" and "TRANSFORMERS SHOULD BE REALISTIC" thinking fantasy elements ruined the series (and a disdain for Japanese mecha tropes in general). However, as noted by others, there were also a lot of holes in the characterizations that were filled by fanfic writers. I'm pretty sure the writers knew this since their old fanfic spawned other fanfic to fill in holes, and they saw it as a way to keep the core audience engaged.

This in turn creates a very focused, dedicated, but ultimately narrow audience, and one more likely to influence the direction of the comics, either positively or negatively. The fanbase want more romance? They got it to the point that the comics were more about relationships than anything. They wanted representation? The writers baked it into the mythos although it has since been discarded by non-IDW-influenced work. And if anyone didn't like it, sic the dedicated fandom on them and tell them to go back to the Bay movies.

GI Joe meanwhile, from the word "Go" felt like something IDW didn't really know what to do with, with their best idea being to give Larry Hama the keys to resume his Marvel run from where it left off (and ignoring the quasi-sequel run from Devil's Due which was mostly made without his involvement). It was clear that IDW's writers and editorial cared far more about Transformers and even Jem and the Holograms (a notorious stinker in sales that went for 25 issues and a 4-issue spin-off before IDW was forced to cancel it due to low sales and never bothered to try again) than the Real American Heroes. Some of that might be because the idea of military comics didn't agree with the more liberal writers there, but I'd argue that they didn't really try, especially with the Energon Universe also going out of its way to avoid a stereotypical "MURICAN soldiers vs. terrorist army" scenario. This resulted in the eventual nadir of the brand, the 2016 relaunch where Skywarp was a member of the team because reasons.

The Energon Universe is quite the opposite of that, and I can see where the worry comes in from the IDW fandom. The soldier toys are important again in a more direct way where it's clear there's more effort put into them. Meanwhile, the robot toys are back to focusing on more universal concepts, like war, family in a platonic sense, and general action. That sense of control feels lost, and it is also introducing concepts that feel like they run counter to IDW's writers and their ethos, particularly ideas that IDW writers rejected whole-heartedly.

If I'm off-base, please let me know, but that's what this feels like to me. A group losing their perceived control over a license, and not taking it well.

[tailschannel]

Sonic series records 2.71m units in latest second quarter financial update

The Sonic the Hedgehog video game series sold 1.49 million units this second quarter, adding to a cumulative total of 2.71 million units so far into fiscal year 2024.

That number is an increase compared to the same period last fiscal year, which landed at 2.63 million. It's still enough to put the blue blur ahead of other SEGA and Atlus properties.

Two new titles contributed to Sonic's unit sales figure: early numbers from Superstars, released late into this quarter; and Origins Plus, released in the last quarter. SEGA claimed that the latter had a strong performance in sales this Q2, even though the publisher did not provide any specific number. The updated classic Sonic collection and one other title were the only new "full game" releases in Q1 - with a combined, yet-to-be-updated total of 740,000 sold copies.

Meanwhile, SEGA is proceeding with its plans for Sonic for the rest of the fiscal year, with brand licencing expected to continue. The report specifically mentioned the third movie as a "future initiative" for the franchise, with Dream Team, the Knuckles mini-series and others noticeably absent.

The unit sales were printed against a troubled backdrop at SEGA's Consumer division this quarter. A so-called structural reform at the European offices saw job cuts at Creative Assembly, and various projects under development immediately cancelled. Lower profitability levels and increased costs were blamed, and as a result, the division recorded a loss this Q2, but the publisher hopes that the reform will spur regrowth and increased collaboration between the American and European bases.

[asm5129]

URGENT--HELP NEEDED ONCE MORE

The board of trustees filed their 20 day notice to the Vermont AG on June 26, and the AG’s office has given us no real indication that they are taking our complaints about the BoT’s malfeasance seriously.

We need to once more flood their offices. Make them feel pressured to investigate these criminals.

You can find out more at remakegoddard.org as well as donate to help them pursue actions against the board of trustees.

The main Vermont AG office:

(802) 828-3171 [ext. 3]

Ago.info@vermont.gov

Other AG relevant numbers and emails at the bottom of the post

Complaints (you can pick one to focus on or pick multiple, but these are the primary concerns right now):

Goddard College’s Board of Trustees have flagrantly violated their fiduciary duties, the established bylaws of Goddard College, and the nonprofit standards of Vermont through the following actions:

1. The Board of Trustees has been operating well below its minimum quorum, in secret, often excluding all but the executive members and the president. On the rare occasions when it has held an open (Zoom) meeting it has not allowed meeting attendees to enter into conversation or even see and communicate with each other.

2. In 2023 the administration contracted with CORE Education Services, a Public Benefit Corporation out of Virginia that specializes in “college transformation.” At this point, the people named as Goddard College’s CFO, Comptroller, head of HR, head of admissions, and head of marketing all work for CORE, not for Goddard. Outsourcing of these essential leadership positions is highly irregular for an institution of higher education and not in alignment with Goddard's mission and guiding principles.

3. Rejecting, damaging and/or ignoring options to increase financial sustainability of the college. A few examples:

A) Staff member Alisha Raby and alumnx George Darling worked together to create and donate apparel and other merchandise for sale by Goddard, to be provided for zero upfront cost, yet the administration refused this gift that could have raised tens of thousands of dollars.

B) A parent of a current student offered a donation of $50,000 to help keep the school running, and provost Noah Coborn refused it on behalf of the administration.

C) Staff members created a plan via which the college could raise funds hosting events and engaging in community partnerships that make use of often vacant property.

D) The administration cut off access to the college by alumni, the most likely donors as well as those most likely to write bequests, by making an enemy out of the Goddard Alumni association. Dan Hocoy, soon after his hiring as president despite community objections, canceled the alumni reunion on campus even as people had already signed up for it, paid, and made their travel plans. He then subsequently threatened to sue the elected board members of the alumni association (which was started by and given official status by the college) for using the college name.

E) The National Labor Relations Board ruled on August 24, 2022 that the College violated labor laws when dissolving the Development Office and laying off all of the employees of that Office.

All of these actions combined with the antilabor practices delineated below and the abandonment of any recruitment or donor cultivation efforts ensured that the college would have streams of revenue except tuition.

5. A complete lack of transparency including:

A few days before announcing the closure of Goddard’s campus the board sent out an email asking for ideas on how to keep Goddard sustainable. Considering that they would have had no time to properly consider contributed ideas, it’s clear that this request was never genuine.

The faculty and staff found out about the closure of the campus at the same time as the students, in what I have been told is a clear breach of contract. The same happened with the announcement of the closure of the school.

Students, faculty and staff alike were told that going online-only was simply an “experiment” to see whether it would improve Goddard’s financial situation, and the administration also said (in writing) that in-person residencies would be reconsidered in the following year. As such, new students were actively being accepted to Goddard that very semester. Yet mere months later the board announced it would be closing the school at the end of the semester. So the notion that it was simply an experiment appears to have been a lie, or they would have waited to analyze the full data from said experiment. Unless there was serious negligence, there’s simply no way they could have miscalculated their financial sustainability so much that within mere months they would go from believing they could run the college for a few more years (even if it had to be online-only) to believing they had to close at the end of the current semester.

The “experimental” closure of the campus apparently resulted from a survey that had been conducted where a majority of students expressed preference for online-only. However, the results of the poll may have been skewed, considering that one of Goddard’s campuses had been closed and the remaining campus for those students was across the country, leaving questionable data as to whether online-only was genuinely “preferred”. Additionally, many students were unaware of this poll in the first place.

6. The board has misrepresented teach-out options to students, providing false information about available alternatives and obstructing their ability to make informed decisions about their academic futures. They falsely presented schools as teach-out options that, when contacted, informed students that no such agreements were in place. They did not facilitate financial aid reimbursement when they failed to fulfill their obligations. They did not provide teach-outs for all programs, not in degree type or subject. They attempted to send students to for-profit and non-accredited schools. They refused to assist students who offered to facilitate teach-out outreach, and provided no point of contact for students.

7. They have ignored serious purchase offers from potential buyers, such as Cooperation Vermont. CVT is an organization dedicated to using the campus as a center that would have benefited Vermont in myriad ways including working with former faculty, staff, and students to keep the Goddard spirit and programs alive. Yet CVT received months of radio silence from the administration, which delayed any meaningful progress on its ability to negotiate effectively.

8. Union-breaking behavior. Two semesters ago the staff went on strike for around thirty days. After the first week and a half or so, the board threatened that if the staff did not stop striking within a very small allotted window they would lose access to their health care benefits. This threat was followed through, and the staff only recovered their health care once a new contract was settled.

9. The Board has as of this moment not guaranteed severance for the faculty despite their legal obligation to provide it.

10. Here is an article about how the stakeholders of Goddard college are reacting to the current crisis: https://montpelierbridge.org/2024/06/rumored-goddard-sale-sparks-community-protest/

Contact point is my email Adam.myers.pro@gmail.com

Spread this to everyone you can. The more people who call in asking for the same thing, the better chance we have of getting it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say. We need to be LOUD and we need to be IRRITATING, and we need to call and email EVERY DAY until we succeed.

Other Vermont AG numbers and emails:

Email: Elizabeth.Anderson@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-5514

Email: Michelle.Bennett@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-0392

Email: Rebecca.Butler@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-5512

Email: Megan.Campbell@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-0096

Email: Ben.Chater@vermont.gov Voice: 802-279-7572

Email: Merideth.Chaudoir@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-1422

Email: Kelley.Connelley@vermont.gov Voice: 802-917-6373

Email: Christopher.Curtis@vermont.gov Voice: 802-279-5496

Email: Rebecca.Delabruere@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-5511

Email: Shelley.Facos@vermont.gov Voice: 802-498-3392

Email: Willa.Farrell@vermont.gov Voice: 802-371-8375

Email: Gabriela.Ferrari@vermont.gov Voice: 802-828-5507

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A post shared by IAN BARTLETT - 📸 Stop Wars (@thebartlett)

No sale on stolen land. Protesters prevented a Zionist real estate event in Brooklyn today. The sale includes properties in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. The demonstrators argue selling land in these settlements to only Jewish purchasers further entrenches the settlements and the Israeli occupation.. There have been a growing number land sale events in recent months.

-- Ian Bartlett, 13 Mar 2024

Initially, organizers from PAL-Awda NY/NJ, the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation, and PAL-Awda Mothers’ Committee, alongside 40 other organizations, called for a protest against an “israeli real estate event… set to take place in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where realtors [would] engage in selling property in occupied Palestine, settlements deemed illegal under international law.” After encouraging people to file complaints, the event was canceled, and the protest was redirected into a vigil.

[s-leary]

Treat every customer like they’re your 85-year-old grandma who’s never done a real estate deal, HomeVestors trainers tell franchise owners at annual conferences. But a ProPublica investigation — based on court documents, property records, company training materials and interviews with 48 former franchise owners and dozens of homeowners who have sold to its franchises — found HomeVestors franchisees that used deception and targeted the elderly, infirm and those so close to poverty that they feared homelessness would be a consequence of selling. One HomeVestors franchisee falsely claimed to a 72-year-old woman suffering from a hoarding problem that city code enforcement officers would take her house, according to court documents. An Arizona woman said in an interview that she was forced to live in her truck after trying unsuccessfully to cancel the sale of her home. One court case documented the plight of an elderly man in Florida who was told if he sold his condo he could continue living there temporarily. But he spent his final days alive waiting to be evicted when — after the contract was signed — the franchise owner informed him the homeowners association rules didn’t allow it. “You were always lying to them. That’s what we were trained,” said Katie Southard, who owned a franchise in North Carolina.

The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses” — ProPublica