#a whole lot went into the creation and enforcement of this status

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Late nineteenth century scientists had grown dissatisfied with biblical injunctions, and impatient. Skin color had become a treacherous signal and whites were faced with an atmosphere of escalating social urgency:

Ridiculed as barbarians by their former colonizer, England, and by most of Europe as well, Americans felt they could ill afford to be characterized as a nation of mongrels and mere pretenders to white status.

Black skin could no longer consistently and reliably designate a Negro, so it was critically important to find other means of detection."

Medical Apartheid, Harriet A Washington

One of many reasons I always remind y'all "Skin color is not the only thing that designates Blackness". Honestly, there's so much packed into this quote beyond that. It's so good. I wish I could quote this entire book to y'all. It's nauseating for sure, but it's incredibly well written 🤌🏾🔥. 19 pages of bibliography to reference for further reading, and it's in small print. Ice Approved. If anyone has a PDF, let me know.

[caitlynkirammansrifle]

Three thoughts: Firstly - really liked your fic, was the first one I got invested enough in to put more than a single comment on Ao3 (and this ask too yay). Secondly: as to alternate perspective ideas, chapter 27 between Vi blacking out and waking up in the Piltover hospital. How did that meeting between Vander and Cassandra go? Thirdly: as to the council/founding lore - why can't both Heimerdinger and House Kiramman be the founders of Piltover? My headcanon is that there were multiple founding families of Piltover, and that's the origins of the council. Heimerdinger gets to be "the founder" because he's the only individual still around, but the Kirammans (and maybe also the Ferroses and the Hoskels, but not the Medardas) were definitely part of founding Piltover too. I'm also now wondering if the hypothetical divide of "founding councillor / elevated later" fits onto the fic's status quo / revolutionary council divide neatly. Did Cassandra first try to persuade the councillors whose houses were elevated to the council after Piltover's founding?

Glad you liked it!! <3 <3 I appreciate all the comments you've left! All of you make my day when I see them :D

As for the story parts:

I could definitely add that perspective, but I believe I can post that little one shot today, so we'll see how it goes. That's a good request!

Here's my headcanon (of my own lore lol):

The main reason is that I wanted Cassandra to have a sense of responsibility to to the city. In the chapter from her point of view, she tells the old sheriff before Grayson: “Sheriff, my ancestors shaped the very cobblestones that laid the foundations of this city,” she stated in a tone that brooked no argument. “If I wish to traverse a single one of them, then I shall, no matter how unsensible it may seem to you. Am I understood?” TL;DR: I like the gravity of the Kiramman's being the original founders.

Now, how the elevating of councilors works:

The whole city was once Zaun, the last bastion of the Valoran Empire, which I imagine that the Valoran empire set up the council there to run the city while they expanded their empire. So when the empire fell, Zaun was just left with the council and went on business as usual. Their main areas of government, law enforcement, etc., were located where the present day Zaun is now. It just kind of existed like any other city in the world until one day, the trade merchant family, the Hoskels, proposed the creation of the Sun Gates, which is a massive canal. They created the River Pilt and built up the artificing, trade, and science centers for the Sun Gates on the northside of the river that would become Piltover.

Once Hoskel's family set off the bombs that led the the creation of the fissures and sunk half of the south side of Zaun into them, those on that council were destroyed along with it. So a new one had to be formed and, due to the destruction of the south side, the new one was built on the north side. Because the surviving governing families (think of them like distant relations of the original council in Zaun who worked on the Sun Gates) were related to the original councilors, nothing actually changed in terms of what family ruled, but now you have a bunch of people who never would have been in powerful positions or receiving a lot of wealth suddenly getting it, fueling the greed that led to them not providing aid to the destroyed part of the city. Not a great foundation for government immediately following a devastating disaster. Now, families come and go, some die out, some leave, some are exiled, etc. So some families have changed, such as Shoola's being 600 years on the council as opposed to Cassandra's being on it for 800 years.

I will say, part of my clean up throughout this fic will be fixing up the lore a bit. Making it up as you go along, especially for a fic as long as this one, will lead to discrepancies. I'll do what I can, but for the most part, the important parts are what I want them to be and will be unchanged: the Kirammans are the ones who built Zaun/Piltover and are the oldest family on the council, the Hoskels accidentally sent half of the city into the fissures--which would turn into the Undercity--and ever since The Sinking, no one from what was the south side of Zaun has served on the council.

Lastly, because its been so long that these family's have been on the council, there isn't much weight between who was elevated and who wasn't, except perhaps Cassandra's and that was mainly due to the fact that she had the most money because of how old her family is (that's changed, however, because Mel is now the richest person in Piltover). The reason Heimerdinger is the leader of the council now is because he is the longest serving councilor and his wisdom, despite its inconsistency at times, still does serve them well in other matters.

[dextixer]

RWBY is not hopepunk though it had the potential to be

WARNING - A really long post.

Over the past 2 or so years i have noticed more and more people refer to RWBY as a part of a genre called "Hopepunk" (HP after this). Its a relatively new genre that has emerged as an opposite to the "Grimdark" genre of writing. Besides calling RWBY HP i have seen some claims that THIS is the reason why many critics do not enjoy RWBY as much as they could. I have also seen claims that because RWBY is HP, it does not follow the usual tropes of a lot of media and instead goes its own way.

This has caused me to gain some interest in the subject and research it in the hopes of seeing if the claims are true. This thread is the result of that research and the opinions that i have come to.

Hopepunk

Before continuing on we first have to understand what HP is. It has been generally described as a genre of writing in which fighting for positive change is encouraged no matter how hard it is, and even if it fails. A genre in which society itself rises up to change an unjust current system. It is about challenging the status quo.

Whereas Grimdark focuses on how hope fails and how no matter how you try, you will most likely be beaten back. Hopepunk focuses on how hope can succeed and should never be lost through hardship.

It is very much a genre of "resistance" and "change". And it has arisen in response to our current world. In which the fight for positive change can sometimes feel hopeless and yet people will still try.

It is also fair to say that due to being a relatively new creation hopepunk is still kind of in its infancy, it still is a little bit vague as a concept and encompases many different aspects into itself.

RWBY is not hopepunk

And if i am being completely honest? RWBY is not hopepunk. At least, for the most part. For almost the entirety of the series the protagonists of the show are doing the exact opposite of trying to fix broken systems or enact change. It is best exemplified by how they are fighting against the White Fang, seemingly the only force fighting against racism in the world of Remnant. It would not be so bad if the protagonists had an alternative, but they didnt. They just defended the status quo because the way the WF went about things was "wrong".

One could argue that in Volumes 4-5 Menagerie, Blake was trying to uplift her community to enact change. But that is not what happened, Blake shames her community into once again fighting the White Fang. And that is it. There is nothing more after that. All the work after that is left to her father and Ilia. And that is something that stopped existing at the start of V6.

In fact the whole faunus subplot is an example of how RWBY is not hopepunk. There are no systems of abuse being shown. Even when they are told, for example the SDC, the show goes out of its way to then remove it all. Is Adams scar example of systematic abuse? No, he got in a fight. Are faunus treated like slaves? No, they are paid equally to humans in the same jobs.

So the result of that is the world itself not even having a proper "enemy" or a system to fight against. And then team RWBY is left to fight only FOR the status quo.

Let us ask ourselves. What systems are our protagonists fighting against? What injustices? They are fighting against inhuman monsters and their dark godess. Its your very standard fantasy. Even during Volumes 7-8 where the systems of classism could be fought against our protagonists are instead not even involved with Mantle that much. They work with Ironwood. Does Weiss get to change her company? Does Blake get a role as a partner to Robyn in a fight against injustice? Does Robyn even get scenes where she organizes the community, gives them resources or anything of the sort as Robin Hood of stories does?

No, there is nothing.

There are no systems that are fought against. Our protagonists for the most part enforce the status quo and arguably have only 1 rebelion in the shape of getting away from Ironwood. But even that is not about systems as much as it is fighting against an (at that point) evil and insane madman.

It reminds me of how people praise Harry Potter for also being hopepunk.

Just like RWBY, Harry Potter has the window dressing of hopepunk. At the end of Harry Potter no systems are challenged, the protagonist becomes a police officer, nothing truly changes in the world besides the big bad and his evil followers losing.

And even then at least Harry Potter actually gave systemic problems in its world. RWBY has not even managed that.

And if i sound/feel angry, its because i am...

RWBY could have been hopepunk

And its because RWBY COULD have been hopepunk and went out of its way to blaze ahead in this new genre of writing.

After all, the main bad guy of the show cannot even be defeated in regular ways. "There is no victory in strength". It is the unification of humanity that is required for her to finally possibly be removed from the world.

This is a PERFECT set-up for a journey to fight against injustices in the kingdoms!

Fighting racism in all of the kingdoms! Fighting monarchists in Vacuo. Fighting against militarism and classism in Atlas. Fighting the nationalism of the kingdoms and uniting them together against all odds by adressing systemic problems of society!

The best we get in the show are hints of these things or them being cranked up to 11 and never adressed at their core, only beaten down.

I would PAY money to see Weiss take back the SDC and then financing and offering political support to Blake who recreates the White Fang in her own way in EVERY kingdom, fighting racism both through word and action. I would PAY for seeing Robyn unite with Blake and both going out and helping the people of Mantle, maybe even distributing food, organizing the construction of new buildings and the like. I would PAY to see Ren and Nora try to give help to the homeless and the abandoned due to their own experiences.

I would PAY to see Ruby and Yang organizing huntsmen to be less focused on the Grimm and more focused on being pillars of their communities, spreading out throughout new settlements and villages to not only protect them but also help them in other ways.

Remnant is a WORLD OF POSSIBILITY to create systemic problems that plague our world and then FIX them!

And instead NO problems are adressed as we have to fight the immortal Sauron rip-off that sits on her arse half the time doing nothing! Our protagonists do not organize communities, they barely engage with subplots that should by all rights be theirs. The systemic problems are beaten down through violence or just outright dissapear.

Critics love hopepunk

Many people see the critiques that many of us critics have an imagine us to be "conservative", to be against RWBY because it has female leads fighting against forces of darkness and characters like Ironwood. That we want everything to be "grimdark".

That could not be further from the truth.

Most of the prominant critique (that is not on youtube) of RWBY as a show comes from the left-wing perspective. RWBY as a show tries to be progressive, it tries to include positive messages and subplots that could facilitate those messages.

But at the end of the day those messages either fall apart of are never fully realized because the writers have writen themselves into corners.

It is writen not in a "progressive" way but more in a "liberal" way. RWBY is writen by accepting that progressive ideas are "good" but without any understanding of WHY progressive ideas are good and why people strive for them.

In many discord conversations amongst various critics we have constantly shared various Anime with the hopepunk premise. Of people building up fantasy kingdoms that have to tackle real world problems like we have, and doing so through the building up of a community.

And this is why RWBY frustrates us. Because it had the potential to be that, but instead chose to be just a fighting show with some messages that barely qualify as Hopepunk.

Ending word

I will apologize if my words seem heated but do not take them as anger, rather as passion. You see for a relatively long time now, maybe a year i have been interested in hopepunk stories (without actually knowing the term), especially cross-over fanfictions in which characters from one world go into another and fix problems there. I love it. I love because it feels good to read those kinds of stories, to know that darkness can be banished.

But in regards to RWBY all i see is the potential of what could have been, but never was. And it somewhat annoys me when people praise RWBY for being hopepunk and then say that THAT is the reason why we critics dont enjoy RWBY.

Believe me, if RWBY was hopepunk, i would love it more than anything else in the world. But it just is not. And most people who use that label do not seem to understand what it actually is. Hopepunk is not "just" about having hope against overwhelming odds, it is not about a "bright" world.

Hopepunk is about dark and twisted worlds, worlds that we the people can fight against collectivelly. It is a genre of rebellion, of change. And RWBY just is not that....

Do keep in mind that this is all my opinion and not stated as fact, especially since "Hopepunk" is an extremelly new genre (Officially coined in 2017 i believe?) as such many things, especially interpretations can be in the air.

But please, by all means, comment with agreements of disagreements if you like, i am not against discussion or being corrected on things.

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

fuckit im posting some Cybertronian caste system rambles now. copypasted from discord bc im lazy, names redacted except for mine.

THIS IS THE OLD DIAGRAM. IM GONNA SHIFT SOME SHIT AROUND IN THE NEW VERSION LOL

also note: this is historical worldbuilding, i.e. the shit megatron and optimus got rid of. just wanna make that clear xD

catboy orion pax — Today at 6:50 PM

ok so to start with i wanna get rid of the summary words

theyre like loosely applicable in terms of how social organisation went but there's enough variation that it was never a guarantee

like for example, the guard castes that work around the well of all sparks and at the palace of the primes were more like T3  than T6 and sometimes higher

and sometimes different places had different priorities so you might get a scientist in, like. kaon or some shit who's T4 at best

jhgfgdfds — Today at 6:54 PM

Jazz is a chronicler, right?

catboy orion pax — Today at 6:55 PM

yep, he and orion are both in t4

buuuuuuut the chroniclers rank sliiiightly higher

there are internal ranks within the tiers (but it’s less like a ladder of rank than a vaguely-defined cloud of midges jockeying for position tbh)

my headcanon is the chroniclers are the ppl writing down history and life as it happens, and the archivists - their caste name is 'record-keepers' - are the ones maintaining and working with that data

the hall of records also has a guard clade that rank about t4 bc they have to, and a clade of cleaners/maintenance workers who rank about t6 and dont interact with patrons. both of these are ranked higher than they would otherwise, and are pretty well off compared to castes that do similar jobs in, say, the global undercities, but they still get kind of a shit deal in comparison to everyone around them. it’s all relative.

red alert is somewhere in that general T4 data handlers' area too

i made a joke about, if you're using the Grid (the part of the Datanet that isn't a complete dumpster fire), you have like a 1 in 3 chance of red alert being ur own personal FBI agent meme

hgfdgg — Today at 7:08 PM

so is Prowl lower ranked than the rest, at tier 6?

catboy orion pax — Today at 7:09 PM

i think prowl might be admin caste level, tbh

the enforcers are like, the vast majority of them are t6 because that's all they need to be to interact with tiers 6, 7 and 8, who are most of cybertron

there will be t6 officers and then there's be higher-caste officers

probably local command structures vs regional

in rise, prowl is in a regional commander sort of position, trying to run an anti-cartels unit of sorts, and it isnt going well

ultimately they fall under the ministry of justice, which is headed by T1 mecha

tbh the main thrust of this system, as it applies to my fic, is that it has like bureaucratic bloat out the wazoo

there are a lot of castes that just fuckin exist?

they do the same job as some other caste or few but somehow they ended up in separate castes, with the different legal status and restrictions that implies, and the caste system as a whole just shrugged and moved on because fuck dealing with all that shit

absolutely nothing about my cybertronian government is an efficient system lmfao

jhgfjgdf — Today at 7:14 PM

I blame the quints

catboy orion pax — Today at 7:14 PM

[cackles]

tbh it sort of came from the quints but it wasn't ultimately their fault

there was like... the quintessons tried to take over cybertron and add it to their colonial empire three fuckin times

they failed every time but it was a close run thing that wreaked an apocalyptic level of destruction and disruption on cybertron

the ppl who finally beat the quintessons the third time were scared to shit of them coming back for a fourth go, so they did everything they could to turn cybertron into a unified state for the sake of better defense

previously it had been fragmented, kinda like europe in the middle ages? in theory the kings paid homage to the prime and took his thoughts into account but in practice they mostly got left to their own shit

i want to say there were like five large-scale social reorganization tactics that the empire used to try and make a centralised single state but i can only remember three of them rn

1) enshrinement of caste system (didn't have an 'untouchable' equivalent at the time, that came later); 2) creation of a state religion out of the bits of the previous religions that played nicely w each other, and 3) imposition of a global language of government

oh yeah and there's a thing called rank-exempt

cause sometimes the Govt acknowledges that the caste system just makes shit Kinda Annoying so if ur sufficiently useful the ppl ur useful to can apply to have ur restrictions temporarily or permanently lifted so u can be even more useful to them

but ultimately the system is just Bad For Society in a variety of ways and nobody’s been brave enough to admit it, so it stumbles on with a chokehold around the Empire’s figurative neck.

[anon-e-miss]

OMG, that was such a sad mama!Prowl... poor thing I hope at some point you write a happier follow up to that fic. I hate seeing Prowl and Smokey so sad... I also look forward to this coming week! I hope you enjoy it.

Crosscut and Road Rage were dead. As much as Prowl loathed these mechanisms with every fibre of his being, he could not celebrate their demises. He remained in the nursery, the collection of rooms that had made up his existence for fifty-six vorns. Nothing had changed here, not yet. His elder creations needed help with their school work while their younger siblings needed support and attention as they learned numbers and shapes and speech. They did not appear to notice the loss of their progenitors but then Road Rage had never visited the nursery or seen the femmeling she had sired on Prowl, and Crosscut had come maybe four times in Smokescreen’s entire life. When he had deemed it time to put another newspark in Prowl, it had been Prowl who had gone to him. Those dark-cycles were the only times Prowl had left the nursery since kindling with Smokescreen where he had been bred in Crosscut’s berth and then sent on his way.

There was no relief in the knowledge that he would never go to that berth again. Prowl adjusted Bluestreak against his chassis as his newest creation lost his latch and complained bitterly for it. His protoform was still thin and soft. Prowl had only given him emergence the previous quartex, only an orn before he had learned of Crosscut and Road Rage’s deaths. He was reading the younger sparklings, Flash, Streetstar and Strongarm a story as the elders worked on their coursework. Smokescreen was a good help with Camshaft’s math and Downshift’s reading. He had become a singularly dutiful brother and creation and Prowl felt guilt for depending on him. It would not be much longer now. When he received his youngling upgrades, Smokescreen would leave the nursery, and he would not come back. The grand door opened and Prowl’s mouth  went dry. Smokescreen was still a six quartexes from his emergence-cycle. He still had six quartexes in the nursery.

Prowl recognized one of the mechs, Sideways was his brother in law. He suppressed a shiver of revulsion. Crosscut’s ownership of Prowl’s fertility would have been passed to his brother by Praxian inheritance laws. They had met before Prowl had been bought and sold, during that brief period of Prowl’s life when his path had been his to choose. Sideways had been the model for every negative stereotype one might have of an enforcers, and Prowl doubted anything had changed. Though he actually did not know. Crosscut had never shared gossip with him. His time in Crosscut’s presence had served one and only one purpose. There had hardly been any talking. The things said had not been things Prowl had wanted to hear. Just demeaning scrap that had filled Prowl with impudent hate.

Seeing Sideways exhausted Prowl. He found himself mentally cursing at the prospect of laying under this mech and bearing him creations with even more fervour that he had Crosscut. For all he had hated that mech, he had been the devil he had known. Now Prowl was in the merciless servos of fate and he did not enjoy it. This was not the life he wanted, to be passed on to the beneficiary of Crosscut’s estate, and perhaps then on to the next. Prowl had take great care to hide his receptive status from the moment he had learned of it. If he had never been shot, the medic would never have had cause to look and Prowl’s life would still be his own.

“Start packing,” Sideways said. No greeting, no exchange of sympathy. None of that was especially startling, but the order was.

“Why?” Prowl had never learned to stop asking questions. He had never learned to serenely embrace his fate. It did not matter how many times his ownership changed servos, Prowl did not believe he would ever know that kind of serenity.

“You’re being passed to the Warlord of Polihex to pay my brother’s energon debt. Pack up whatever you can transport. The caravan will here in three mega-cycles.”

“What about my creations?”

“They’re going with you,” Sideways sneered. “I sure as Pit don’t want them.”

***

This would have been the perfect opportunity to make his escape, but Prowl looked around the opulent trailer letting his optics fall on each of his creations. He had not wanted to carry even one of them, yet he could not imagine leaving them. Even though he had struggled to bond with Bluestreak as he had carried him in his forge, Prowl could not imagine pulling the newling from his line and jumping from their transport and fleeing across the dunes. The love he had for them was a cage he could not break free from. Acknowledging the reality only depressed Prowl further. He stared out at the dunes as he and his creations were carted off into the unknown.

It was a long journey, and his sparklings grew quickly tired of their confinement. Their whole lives had been the nursery, and the little high walled garden off of the patio. But this trailer was a fraction of the size of their nursery had been and they were chomping at the bit to be freed. They would not be free until they were grown, and even then the course of their lives would be written upon the reading of their sparks. That at least would have been the case in Praxus. Perhaps Polihex, a land of brigands and nomads, offered mechanisms more freedoms, or perhaps their receptive mechanisms spent their entire lives in red tents.

As the sun set and the moons rose Prowl watched as their caravan rolled up to another with carpets spread out over the sand, tents set up in a ring,  and a great many fires burnings. His creations all but covered him. They had fought and they had cried but eventually they had become too tired and too bored to do anything but recharge. The trailer rolled to a stop. His sparklings stirred but remained in recharge. Prowl crained his helm to look out the window. He watched as mechanisms rose up from the carpets and spoke with the caravan’s driver. Fireflight cast interesting shadows on the faces of the mechanisms who had been disturbed from their rest.

Tent flaps were thrown open and a newcomer approached. Everyone inclined their helms to the yellow and blue mech. Prowl turned his helm as Smokescreen sat up, and then knelt on the bench to look out the window with him. When he looked back, he locked optics with the newcomer. A klik later the doors to the trailer were thrown open. The sparklings woke with a start. They clung to him as the newcomer stepped into the trailer. Prowl rumbled his engine in a low decimal level in hopes of soothing them without drawing unnecessary attention. The yellow and blue mech stared at him.

“How many o’ these bitlets were stolen from their origins?” The mech asked in thickly accented Neo Cybex.

“None,” the driver said with surprise. “The prize is the origin.”

“Ya adopted any o’ these bitlets?” The newcomer asked.

“No,” Prowl replied. Faintly surprised that he himself had been asked the question. “I carried each of my creations.”

“Six” The mech said after he counted the mechlings. Then he corrected himself. “Seven... That is... something.”

Prowl did not flinch at the mech’s tone though he bristled internally at the judgment in it. Bearing seven creations had not been his choice, and he did not appreciate being spoken down to for this lot. At Prowl’s side, Smokescreen’s doorwings twitched up and Prowl rumbled his engine again. The low octave tone still at a soothing effect on Smokescreen. Would it after he got his upgrades? Prowl did not know. It was all he could do to hope he would have the opportunity to find out.

“Lord Straxus was real excited ‘bout that,” the driver revealed. “He only e’er sired the one off his harem ‘n that wasn’t for lack of tryin’.”

“Of course,” the newcomer sneered. “Well, get up. Easier to recharge if you stretch your legs a bit.”

“This one’s run before,” the driver argue as he stretched out his arms to ensure Prowl did not get by him, not that he made any attempt. “Straxus don’t wanna lose’m to the dunes.”

“Straxus is dead,” the yellow and blue mech replied. “Jazz is Warlord now, let’em off.”

“But...”

“Are ya really gonna tell me ya think ya know better what Jazz would want?”

“No... no Punch.”

“That’s what I thought. Come on, off, the lot of ya. Let’s get some fuel in ya.”

Prowl did not know who Jazz was but he sounded infinitely better than Straxus. Though that could have been nothing but a naive hope. The nap his sparklings had taken would make it difficult to get them down again, some exercise would do them could, some fuel as well. They had not been given energon for a few joors; the driver did not like stopping so the sparklings could relieve their waste tanks so he was sparing with fuel.  Smokescreen picked up Flash. The youngest of Prowl’s sparklings was too wild to be trusted. Prowl cradled Bluestreak to his chassis and extrended his servo to Camshaft. Camshaft held Downshift’s servo, and Downshift, Streetstar’s and Streetstar, Strongarm’s. Prowl watched as the mech the driver had called Punch helped Smokescreen down. Though Prowl was anxious to do it, he allowed Punch to lift each sparkling down, after he told them to stay close to Smokescreen. Their optics were all wide and owlish. They would likely have stayed close even without Prowl’s instructions.

“Watch yer step,” Punch cautioned Prowl. “Y’ll sit wit me by the fire.”

It was a command rather than a request. Prowl acquiesced because he was much too happy to be out of the trailer to argue with Punch. A new fire was lit by the carpets stretched out in front of the tent Punch had left. Before they could even reach it, a mech left a trailed filled with fuel on the carpet. There were no plates, Prowl imagined they were meant to share. Certainly it was different than anything that would have been tolerated in Praxus but Prowl was not inclined to judge the Polihexians for it.  He was grateful for this small taste of freedom, to sit on a carpet in the wilderness without a single wall around them. It would only be a brief reprieve but it was more than he had had in vorns.

“Take whate’r ya like,” Punch ordered. “There’s lots to share”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Prowl said. “We have not left the trailer for more than a few kliks in many mega-cycles.”

“Y’re welcome,” Punch said. “Will ya tell me yer designations?”

“I am Prowl. My eldest is Smokescreen. These two beside me are Camshaft and Downshift. My twins are Strongarm and Streetstar. My little one is Flash and my newling is Bluestreak.”

“Ya have a strong spark to carry so many, and close together at that.”

“I suppose.”

Smokescreen served as gopher for his siblings and origin. He handed out gelled fuels and candied crystals before he took any for himself. The sparklings ate, they were hungry as they had the right to be. They took their time, distracted from their fuel to some extent by the strange sights and smells. When Smokescreen looked up at the stars and say transfixed at the sight of the constellations, Punch told him what the Polihexians called them. The younger sparklings followed Punch’s digit as he pointed up at the sky and told them stories. Bluestreak woke and immediately went for his origin’s well, Prowl bared it for him.

As his newling nursed, Prowl listened to the stories. Some of the constellations had different names in Prowl, but he had never seen them this clear. It was pleasant to sit back and listen to the stories. Though Bluestreak could not possibly see the constellations, Prowl cradled him so that he could star watch like his siblings once he had drunk his fill. Shrill cries broke their peace. Punch rose quickly and returned to his tent. The sound had Prowl’s chassis throb and his drained fuel lines fill. It was a familiar sound.

Punch returned a short time later, two newlings similar in age to Bluestreak in his arms. He seemed weary as he cradled them on his lap and tried to convince them to latch on the nozzles of bottles filled with pink fuel. In the glow of the fire they seemed ashen to Prowl, sickly and weak as they waved their servos and cried. Punch crooned at them in a dialect that Prowl did not understand. He sounded anxious to Prowl, though he could not be certain. With each passing klik they refused the bottles, and Prowl’s chassis became painful full.

“They do not like bottles?” Prowl asked, tentatively.

“Less the bottles ‘n more the machadron energon,” Punch replied. “But it’s all we got for ‘em. Their origin was dead before I found’m. Straxus didn’t get’m a medic when the evacuation went wrong. Rust took’m. Or that’s what the guards told me when I found’m.”

“I am sorry.”

“That’s why Straxus’ dead. Because he botnapped Free Wheeler ‘n let’m die. Jazz is half mad as it is, I don’t wanna tell’m I couldn’t save his bitties too.”

“Give them to me,” Prowl said, laying Bluestreak in his lap. “I have fuel enough in my well.”

“Please,” Punch replied. “No one in the camp has a drop to give’em. Mine dried up vorns ago.”

Gingerly he gave the sickly newlings to Prowl, one at a time. It took surprisingly little effort to convince the first, a red mechling to latch, though only weakly. As he suckled, energon flowed through Prowl’s nozzle and into the newling’s mouth and he suddenly suckled harder. Prowl took the second. This was had no use for him, but Prowl was patient. He rumbled his engine in that low octave purr he had learned with Smokescreen, and as the yellow newling’s temper was soothed he started to suckle, and energon flowed into his famished little frame. As they nursed, Prowl stroked their helms and crooned softly at them, and patiently endured their frantic suckling.

“Y’re a miracle from Primus,” Punch declared. “I don’t know how to repay you.”

“Tell me what you know of Jazz?” Prowl asked as he glanced up from the newlings. His sparklings crawled over to look at the strange newlings. The sight of their origin nursing a newling was common place for them, but the newlings had only ever been their siblings. Smokescreen took Bluestreak from Prowl’s lap so he could relax a little more and rocked his littlest brother. He looked to Punch as Prowl asked the question. His answers would affect all of them.

“He’s a good mech,” Punch replied. “I see why ya’d have a need to know. I spose ya were promised to the Warlord, ‘n not just Straxus himself.”

“I was told I was being given to the Warlord of Polihex to pay restitution for Crosscut’s misdeed. I never heard a designation mentioned. I do not know that Sideways would have bothered to know it.”

“This Crosscut was yer Conjunx.”

“We were not bonded,” Prowl replied. “Crosscut owned my fertility, that is all.”

“I don’t understand,” Punch said.

“Bondings are reserved for receptive mechanisms who accept their duty. They are afforded some freedoms, the ability to walk the streets, to visit shops and theatres. I forged my medical records, and hid that my spark is receptive for many vorns. My deception was uncovered and my fertility was bought and sold. As I needed to be compelled to do my duty, I was not afforded the dignity of bonding.”

“‘N they call us savage,” Punch hissed. “Love, ya won’t be caged here. That ain’t our way.”

“You cannot speak for Jazz.”

“Oh, I can, to a point. He’s my bitlet ‘n I know his spark as only an origin can.”

“You are his origin? You run this caravan?”

“Bein’ receptive, bein’ an origin don’t cost ya yer freedom here, Prowl. Payment or no, ya won’t be a breedin’ slave to my creation. That ain’t our way, ‘n it ain’t his way.”

[inkdrinkershadowsinger]

Thoughts/ Background The Deathly Hallows Part One

We get this first look at the new regime. If something were ever done  like a fanfiction where Muggles did find out, you could copy this speech word for word, and it would have the same effect.

We see the Muggle family murdered, and then you see

Harry looked out that window countless times to see his “family” leaving on trips or outings without him, but this is one that he can’t take with him, no matter what.

To be fair, Voldemort would torture the Dursleys for fun merely because of what they are.

This just seemed out of character for Petunia. She hasn’t talked about Lily in anything but derogatory terms for years, and then suddenly she’s “my sister”. Please. Then again, the shock of being forced out of her home, with her family, but without Harry, the special one, like Lily was might have triggered some old memories. We never really learned what the whole relationship between these women were especially when they were older. I just don’t care for Petunia overly much. Dudley, on the other hand, exhibits some potential.

This is also a nod to the books, Mr. Weasley here isn’t merely tinkering with his workshop, but fashioning a way for his family to communicate with one another, and for others to communicate with the Order when things get bad. He is planning ahead.  

Hermione had to do something here that most people, one, wouldn’t have had the skill to do properly, and two, would have been incredibly hard on them. She vanished all thoughts of her from her parents minds. She took a very logical step and executed it for the safety of her parents. She did what was necessary, and her logical brain made that possible.

Snape just blows through the wards around the Dark Lords home because he is a bad ass. Then the look on his face when he sees Charity Burbage is just heart wrenching. You can think of any number of backstory for these two that you want. But she specifically refers to Severus as her friend. Not her co-worker.

The Malfoy’s are not amused. This is the stiff upper lip of the aristocracy, and also, the fact that they are both extremely uncomfortable and frightened.

The only thing Pius is thinking is, “Don’t let the snake eat me. Don’t let the snake eat me.”

A wizard or witches wand is one of the most important things to them. It is an extension of their body. They have it since they turn eleven. It is always beside them, and to use another person’s wand is both extremely intimate and vile when you consider taking this extension of someone away.

How Snape looks at her….. He shows his emotions on his face as much as Draco in this scene for me. He might have perfected that frightening teacher gambit because his emotions are so full and available on his face. He perfected that scary act because he couldn’t have people looking at him for too long or else they would see everything.

Harry packs up nothing from this room. He has Hedwig and his trunk, presumably.

He looks in his cupboard one more time. The place where he spent so many years. The toy soldiers are still there. The sword here in the toy’s hand looks like a wand.

Love Mad-Eye

I’m sorry, but you can’t even see the scarring on Bill’s face. That always pissed me off. He is shown for four minutes maybe in this movie, they could have made him look like he did in the books, truly ravaged.

Tonk’s pregnancy. Another nod to book readers.

Hermione is sneaking up on him while Mad-Eye talks to Harry. She is eyeing him as Harry is preparing to monologue.

Mr. Weasley is guarding the doorway just in case behind Fred and George.

Harry knows this is serious, but still can’t hide his fascination here.

Tonks is calming Remus in the background because he knows that they all are about to undertake something that could be very dangerous.

“I know Ginny was lying about that tattoo.” Another nod to the books. I love these. I live for them in this movie and in the next one.

Harry lets Hedwig out to fly one more time. He probably thought that she would go off without him, and meet him at the Burrow, but animals are so receptive that she stuck by her friend because she knew that something was off.

Sirius, in a very real way, brought Harry to Pivet Drive, rescuing him from people still loyal to the Dark Lord, and then Sirius’ bike takes him away, and rescues him from the Dark Lord.

Hagrid takes the bike to a Muggle road where they could in theory hide in plain sight, just like Harry did at the Dursleys.

That must have been one powerful stunner to knock Hagrid, the half giant out.

Do we ever really get this phenomenon explained fully? Why Harry’s wand acted of its own accord, and defended himself against Voldemort? Is that because of the twin cores? Because Voldemort was using someone else’s wand.

Mrs. Weasley is such a strong character. To have to stay home, and take up the position of watcher and waiter and potential triage if help is needed. It took almost more courage to stay behind then it took to go.

Why did Mundungus flip? What offer was made for him to be swayed to the other side. He is old enough to have lived during the first war he would have known what it was like back then.

Mr. Weasley must be having some serious flashbacks right now about losing someone. He was married to Molly who lost both of her brothers in the first war. They were twins, and now his twin son has just been injured. I wonder how close the four of them were? Odd purebloods who wanted to fight against the oncoming horde. Did they house them or the Marauders at one point in time? Did Arthur provide cover for them? This is why we need the thing, and so, I did THE THING if you would like me to send you some of the thing, message me.

Harry is presenting some very valid points here. They need to get going, but Ron is showing some rationality here that is uncommon for Gryffindors. He is saying, “Let’s take a second, and try to think this through.” A vast contrast from what happens later on.

The Burrow looks more modern and less cluttered in this movie compared to the second. Then again, this is after the fire in the sixth film, and thus, in theory, they have lost a lot of their possessions. Things would look differently.

Ginny is a minx, and I love it. “You ain’t gonna pay attention to me? You really think so?”

Harry is changing his tune about weddings after he sees Ginny in that dress.

George winks at them!!!! That always kills me. Before he gives Harry the “Older brother” look.

George two seconds later, “I’m going to get a commendation.”

The deluminator finally making another appearance.

As a bookworm, I can think of no better gift then someone who loves books giving me an annotated copy of their favorite book.

I like that the fact that the sword of Godric Gryffindor can come out of the sorting hat seems to be common knowledge.

They have guards outside of the tent.

Hagrid and Madam Maxime.

Is that Fleur and Bill’s cake behind Hermione? Or something else?

Nice close up of the symbol.

If that is the cake, I feel like it probably does something spectacular to make it more grand.

You can see Mrs. Weasley behind Aunt Muriel being the fantastic mother of the groom making her rounds.

Death Eaters AK first, as questions never.

The waitress is me at work…. Lol if only we could wear air pods and block everything else out.

Harry, you know your girl Hermione has got your back.

Harry is very practical here. I don’t think he cares one way or another about whether these death eaters live or die.

Hermione is the best at spells is the same as saying she is the best at everything.

You can see Hermione having a flashback to her parents here.

Who created these wizarding laws? It would have Voldemort if they could have kept the trace on Harry. How do they enact these laws? Enforce them? What magic is used in their creation?

This is the first time that Harry has been back in Grimmauld Place since Sirius died. He goes to Sirius’ room first. I wonder why Mrs. Black did rid everything of Sirius’ presence from her house after he defected. Did she have some sort of hope that he would come back?

The nameplates on their doors are so different. Sirius’ is plain and boldfaced. Regulus’ is curvy and fluid, full name present.

Look at Grimmauld Place in Ootp and then look at it now. Mundungus robed the house blind. I wonder how he managed to make out with so much when Kreacher was there. Unless Kreacher was under some sort of enchantment to not harm any wizard in the household unless directed otherwise. It seems like something that house elves would be forced to comply with.

He calls him little master Regulus,,,,,,, I will never forgive the filmmakers for not letting the creatures have their final stand at Hogwarts in the movies like they did in the books.

Neville is just fed up with this bullshit. He’s a pureblood. He knows that he is too valuable to the new regime to incapacitate. But this still takes some guts.

The statue in the atrium has been replaced with wizards crushing the muggles and creatures.

The way that a corrupt regime tries to take over is by not only changing the narrative in the media, but by also changing the culture. They change the art and the books, the burn whatever they don’t like. They make you think that something has always been there even when it has just been replaced. Think 1984 by Orwell.

Umbridge is just so pleased with herself. She needs another vacay with the centaurs.

The way that Ron looks Hermione makes me want to sob. It is so beautiful.

Okay, how long in advance did Jk Rowling plan this series? It is not a surprise to me at all that she went ahead and is now writing the Cormoran Strike detective novels. Her mind works in deep layers of plot and intricasies of detail that I can barely fathom. She must have been planning this for years. To have the resurrection stone open not at touch, but when Harry puts it to his mouth because that is how he caught his first snitch in the first novel. This woman is a bloody genius, which is why I reading The Cormoan Strike novels and taking notes son, I’m not sleeping on this woman anymore.

Mundungus is sneaky, but Hermione is smart as shit. None of them are fooled by his idiot act.

I love Dobby. And Kreacher. Without these characters, the story of Harry Potter wouldn’t have been as good as it is.

When I watched this movie, I was like, dang!!! Of course, it is Umbridge.

These high ranking ministry officials are the definition of getting too comfortable. You really about to let yourself get abducted in broad daylight.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione taking out the trash.

What happens if a Muggle wanders into this bathroom? Or a Muggleborn who hasn’t got their Hogwarts letter yet? Do they think they are just taking a wee, and then get spat out at the Ministry of Magic? That would be quite the story.

I love that Harry and Ron don’t even question if this method of getting to the ministry is going to work or not. They just automatically stand in the toilet.

Also, the statue makes it seem like the Muggles are fighting one another. That would be something that Voldemort’s regime would want. They would want it to seem like the Muggles are low, petty creatures who would rather save their own skin then another of their kind. It would inspire a sense of community even subconsciously among those that saw it.

Poor Ron. Didn’t they research these people? They got two high ranking people, and then poor Reg Cattermole.

Where Ron gets out of the elevator. These office doors? Look almost like entrances to banks or crypt vaults. Very secure looking.

I know this is another actor acting like Harry, but that was a pure Harry Potter face when they saw Umbridge.

That pamphlet reads: Mudbloods and the dangers they pose. Perfect Pureblood Society./ They are mass producing propaganda.

I wish some mention of this being a WWW product could have been put out there.

Umbridge would be OCD. She is the type that needs to be in control of everything, and that would translate into her surroundings.

These books in Umbridge’s drawer look old. They don’t look freshly printed. And why would such a neat freak have old books in her desk? These might have been from the first war with Grindlewald. When Muggles attack. Mudbloods: How to spot them. These could easily be reworked into new propaganda. Umbridge is a racist who relies on “research” to assert her ideals.

Umbridged marked out Mad-Eye’s, Sirius’, and  Dumbeldore’s faces in red ink like she was crossing something off of her grocery list.

Ron is this close to his dad, and yet, he can’t say anything to him. It might have led somewhat to him feeling like he does later on, and eventually heading out.

Ron and Arthur have the same sense of humor and I love it.

Arthur was ready to throw down with Runcore as Harry. Mr. Weasley gets a lot of flack for being soft, sweet Arthur, but he definitely has a side of steel when he thinks that he or someone in his family is being hurt.

The death eater trials seen back in Goblet of Fire were full of paperwork, trying truly to determine guilt or innocence. This trial, there are no witnesses, hardly any paper work, and no proper jury. Clearly a farce. Umbridge is judge and jury. She is absolutely horrid and I hate her.

Umbridge must get a serious tick anytime anyone says the word, “Lie”.

Ron is trying his best to get this lady understand that they are facing tough, unfair times. I hope that they took the advice and got the heck out of dodge.

Copies of Harry’s face hiding Harry’s face from view is amazing.

They land in such a calm looking place, but the reality is that everything has just got a heck of a lot harder. They have been forcibly evicted from Grimmauld Place, and now, one of their number seriously injured. Everything just went from bad to worse soon to be deplorable.

I like that Harry refers to Voldemort as Tom here. Saying, “You Know Who” makes it seem like he is far removed from the rest of humanity, but saying, “This belonged to Tom’s grandfather. This belonged to Tom himself.” That humanizes this monster like figure, both in that it makes it seem like he can be defeated, but also that, it makes it seem possible that he can be redeemed which seems to be what Harry at least attempts in the eighth film.

Harry just looks at Ron, like, “Yes, fucker, it does bother me.” It takes very little time for people to start turning.

Like, why didn’t they just tell Ron that they had a run in with snatchers. Shouldn’t he have been alerted to any new threats?

Are there really just miles of abandoned trailers somewhere like that?

Hermione is keeping the peace the best that she can, but she has a lot against her, the two fragile, male egos not the biggest concern.

I never liked this scene of them fighting each other in the woods. But it sort of turns that feeling of fighting for pretend or something to do to really trying to harm each other, and letting the resentment that the two men feel towards each other and towards other people come to the surface.

They cut the scene of Ron and Hermione skipping rocks out of the final version of the DVD, and I have always hated that because it is so cute.

When Ron leaves, Harry is truly terrified that he is going to hear two snaps of apparition, and that Hermione will leave him too.

She ties her scarf around the tree because she hopes that Ron will come back and see it. It reminds me of that, “Tie a yellow ribbon round an old oak tree…”

The contrast in the tent here between this tent in all its beige glory and the tent that was used in Goblet of Fire at the Quidditch World Cup is stark. One is clearly bright and fun, and this one, like their circumstances is just bleak.

I know that JK Rowling loves this scene, but I don’t. I always thought that it was out of place in this film. Hermione is just torn up because Ron, someone who she has deep, deep feelings for of friendship and something more has just left them, her, and Harry decides that now is a great time for a dance. And the way that Harry looks at her is just a little too personal for me. It feels like the end of the world. The only justificiation for that look that I can think of, is Harry is feeling so hurt by Ron that he intends to wreck what is left of their friendship before Ron can, and what faster way than ruining what Harry knows Ron feels for Hermione. That is a really dirty interpretation though, so, Idk. It’s better to think it is just an odd scene and odd acting on DR’s part.

I feel like Harry and Hermione had a renewed sense of determination to start getting stuff done since Ron left. They wanted to try and make progress, subconsciously thinking that somehow that might get them all back together. Work so you don’t think, maybe.

You can see the snow start to fall at the end of this scene, and then they apparate into a snow covered Godric’s Hollow.

I love Harry’s insistence that he is not going to polyjuice himself or anything like that because he wants this visit to Godric’s Hollow to be authentic.

The Peverell tombstone, a nod to the books that I don’t think gets fully explained in the films.

So, Nagini is a horcrux. Nagini was once a person. Nagini is a snake and Voldemort’s familiar. Now, we know that animals can be transformed into goblets and plates or whatever, but animals can be transfigured into a person? That’s what happened here with Bagshot, right?

Bathilda Bagshot straight up had a blue steel picture of young Grindlewald in her house. And I don’t blame her. This version of Grindlewald is far superior.

Skeeter’s book, another nod to the book.

She is speaking parseltongue , but Harry only hears English. This is where, us, the viewers, promptly start freaking out.

Harry gets thrown into a baby boy’s nursery then proceeds to fight against a piece of Voldemort’s soul. Irony.

THE DOE!!!!

Some people deal with tension using humor. Ron is one of those people. I am another.

Some people deal with tension with conflict. Harry is one of those people.

It looks like the piece of Voldemort’s soul in the locket literally tries to beat down on Harry, but it is rebuffed by the piece of soul that he already has inside of him.

Locket Hermione’s voice here is so different then her actual speaking voice.

This scene where locket Hermione and locket Harry are making out makes me want to vomit. It is so cringey that this was even included in the movie tbh.

“HEy,,,1,/ehdzjh,samdlas”

Ron’s like, “Mate, when we walk up I need to hold the destroyed horcrux and the sword, you know, for maximum effect.”

I like that they said that Ron was at a pub instead of home with the Weasleys like he was in the books.

“Just my name.” The way Ron says this makes my heart melt. It says so much in so few words.

I like that there is magic in this universe, and then there is magic. There is that little ball of light that floated from Sirius’ lips when they were being attacked by dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban, there is the veil in the department of mysteries, and the ball of light that Ron talks about here. Explanations are provided for so much in this series, but there are still magical things that even the characters don’t know the whole of.

Hermione is like, “Heifer, please, you ain’t getting any of my time yet.”

I have a feeling that Hermione is right for the next ten years after the behavior you have exhibited Ronald Weasley.

Luna. My baby. My girl.

The fruit on the plants are floating. If I grew up in house like this, in a place like this, I would believe in a lot of things that other people may not. It seems like a place where imagination is really allowed to flourish.

The animation used for the “Tale of the Three Brothers” is absolutely stunning. It is why people have it tattooed on their skin. It’s breathtaking.

He says, “The most powerful wand ever made.” He doesn’t say created. There is the theory that it did come from death, but then that the brothers were merely fantastic inventors. I don’t know which the truth is, maybe some of both. It would make a wonderful fanfiction.

At the wedding at the beginning, both the Lovegood’s are wearing yellow and they’re bright and happy, and then you have this scene where everything is dark and gloomy. Some beautiful non-verbal storytelling.

You can see just how wrecked Xenophilius is. He is desperate to get Luna back he is wandering into an attack zone.

People who are desperate don’t have the reason available to think, “Oh, what if these people don’t actually care about my concerns.” They have a single track mind in getting what they want.

Grindlewald is still a cocky bastard even after decades in prison. This old man looks more the badass than Depp.

Fenrir Greyback is just standing there, second fiddle to this random, purple scarf wearing snatcher. What the heck?

This scene always baffles me. Lucius has seen Ronald Weasley and his family for years. Lucius taunts Arthus on a regular basis. Lucius has heard repeatedly that Hermione and Ron are Harrys friends from Draco for at least six years. They KNOW FOR A FACT that this is Ron and Hermione, who do they think the third person is going to be?????????? It should have been a high enough possibility based on their presence alone to call the Dark Lord, but none of them do it because they have to make sure????

Draco has stared at this face for SIX years. I mean, Draco is just prepping himself to lie this whole time if he can get away with it.

Bellatrix ain’t no fool though. She figures out about the stinging jinx. The only thing that saves them is her seeing the sword.

Snape is the best potions master around. All of them probably have heard of veriterserum, and none of them thought to have it on tap?

It pisses me off to no end that we didn’t get to see Pettigrew strangle himself.

Dobby is a king!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I saw this, I died.

Dobby is like, “Harry Potter, sir, duh.”

WE MISSED OUT ON A LUNA AND DOBBY BROMANCE AND I AM FUCKING FURIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like having Pettigrew just pass out or whatever was such a cop out, but I understand what it would have done to the tone that had already been established in this sequence.

Even then, Draco isn’t ready to fall into line with Bellatrix’s plans.

Dobby is a king, and I love him.

DOBBY HAS NO MASTER. DOBBY IS A FREE ELF. DOBBY HAS COME TO SAVE HARRY POTTER AND HIS FRIENDS.

I love Dobby. I want to cry no matter how many times I watch this scene because he is so small and vulnerable and honest, and he just loves Harry so much. And he did so good. And he saved them, and Harry wants so badly to save him back, but he can’t.

Harry has just lost so many people. In the next film, when he is speaking to everyone in the house Harry seems almost militaristic in his approach and demeanor, but when you think about what has just happened, Dobby’s death, that harshness and straight to the point approach seems more realistic and warranted definitely.

This scene where Voldemort breaks into Dumbledore’s grave: I read something that commented on Voldemort like hovering over Dumbledore’s body to get to the wand. Then it was like, well, he could be straddling him. I have honestly never been the same since. I laughed so hard.

[hugh-hiab-leo]

Interview with Dr. Sy Stokes on Police Brutality

The stakeholders in police brutality could be anyone but the issue seems to affect African Americans disproportionately as long as law enforcement has existed in the United States. Protests and activism seem to raise awareness and catalyze the justice system reaction to hold assailants accountable for their actions, such is with the Officer Chauvin case. One prominent activist is Dr. Sy Stokes who Black/Chinese postdoctoral fellow for the National Center for Institutional Diversity. His primary research is focused on campus racial climate and racial equity. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a BA in African American studies, earned his master's degree in higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his PhD in education at the University of Southern California (USC). He addressed many topics including Police Brutality, Defunding the Police, Anti-Asian Hate, and Respect for the Elderly. He sets up diversity meetings across the nation in Universities and Institutions and focuses on students’ response to racism on campus, and challenging history and tradition to educate the younger generation. He, along with 11 others including PhD students and faculty members, pioneered the Black Ruins Campaign in UCLA in which they directly challenged the University’s claim of being the most diverse school in the world. The data was later exposed on social media including YouTube which garnered millions of views. He talks about this in detail during the interview when we asked him what movements he has been part in. He encourages us, the youth, who often feel powerless in our social status to really use our power in social media, protests, and education. He says the youth are the best chance a movement has in changing the status quo. “Don’t be afraid to go against the grain” is what Dr. Stokes says. Police Brutality, Anti-Asian Hate, Sexism, and other forms of prejudice will always exist, however, progress must continue to move forward and that is done by activism and leading social change. 

We had a chance to interview him on May 5, 2021 at the end of the meeting between 12:00pm - 2:00pm on zoom to answer us questions pertaining police brutality.

Interview Transcript:

Our Team: What have you been involved in besides what is on your description?

Dr. Stokes: ”I along with 11 other black activists at UCLA back in 2013, created the black ruins campaign. We took the university to task about the lack of black students at UCLA, I believe it was less than 4%, now it is 4% exactly. Its been a decade and hasn’t really changed much. But the reason why we went after the University is that we understood that UCLA kept boasting that it is the most diverse University in the world, has the most undergraduate applicants of any school in the world, so on. And we understood that, above all else, the most important two things of college universities is one, reputation, and two, is money. The reason I put them in that order is because when you have reputation, it doesn't matter if you have money, you will get that money, from donors and what not. So reputation is always number one. So we destroyed the reputation of this institution and really exposed what is going on behind closed doors. We took the data that was not available to the public and but we put together ourselves , we were able to make system change, because all of the sudden, it flips the status quo on its back, and it shows the world who they really are. The whole calpain worked and we got millions of views on YouTube, but most importantly, it created these mobilization campaigns in multiple universities. Here in University of Michigan with #BBUM, one in Harvard #ITOO, Mizzoui with the Hunger Strike in 2015 that was successful, and we kept seeing within that era the student activism, students were taking their universities to task by exposing what was happening behind closed doors. That can happen in any institution, and you must evaluate what is important to your institution, and figure out a way to leverage that. You cannot get fired like you are in a job, you are a student and you have a lot more power than you realize. You just need to come as a collective, you only need a few, for me it was 11 guys, 1 faculty liaison, and 2 other staff members and PhD students, that was it.  You don’t need many people, you just need a movement with a meaning behind it, that has data behind it, and that can really convince people the power of change...”

Discretion: *Casual filler words have been taken out to have a concise transcript that addresses the relevant issue; only condensed factoid beyond this point of the interview*

Our Team:  Why do we see frequent cases of police brutality in recent years?

Dr. Stokes: “It is not that police brutality cases are drastically increasing by the years. But, use of phones to record such incidents has elucidated many cases to the media where we all can see. Police brutality is happening everywhere at all times, and the George Floyd case would not have been significant if it was not recorded. The increasing awareness of the youth to participate in organized protests and challenging the local jurisdictions to hold the aggressors [cops] accountable brings a lot of media attention that we did not get before. You cannot stop an individual cop who is corrupt or a “bad apple” but when the system under which they work in is also corrupt and is not held accountable in the face of justice, then that is when police brutality cases increase because there is no repercussion for the actions of the cops. No consequence, no care.”

Our Team: What is your stance on defunding the police?

Dr. Stokes: “US police spending ranks third among world wide military expenditures with $118 billion a year. In Portland, OR African Americans were arrested at a rate of 4.73:1 to white people for non-violent crimes. A third of the city budget is allocated to the city’s law enforcement. While the remainder is allocated towards housing, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, education funding, job training and job creation, accessible healthcare, domestic abuse and sexual assault clinics and resources, aging and disability services, youth programs, among other things. But a third of the entire budget goes to law enforcement. The state legislature is engineering the conditions of poverty which comes with inevitable crime, increased homelessness and substance abuse, the state claims they need more funding for militarized police force to control these outcomes. Defunding the police would actually make law enforcement jobs easier, if city officials allocated these funds towards resources within the community. Officers wouldn't have to be tasked to respond to every societal problem imaginable. The reason defunding the police doesn’t happen, is that the dominant power established the system as it is and made the population believe it is the best solution, so even imagining anything to better the community is seen as idealistic or radical. More cops is not going to fix deep issues that plague are communities.”

Our Team: What can we do instead (less police officers)?

Dr. Stokes: When the funding for police officers is reduced, the money can be allocated towards education, housing, rehabilitation, mental health help, and providing resources for historically marginalized communities. A decrease in crime will follow due to the reduced rate of poverty and better education. Defunding the police does not mean eradicating police completely because crime will always exist. But as it is today, unnecessary amount of police officers are employed and there is little funding for mental health professionals that could help individuals with mental issues rather than cops with guns blazing. In terms of our safety, Don’tCallThePolice.com has hotlines in every city in the United States for issues in housing, domestic abuse and sexual assault, stalking, mental health issues, crime, and substance abuse. Instead of only officers showing up, mental health professionals come first and in the case of mental health and crime with a few cops. This way the individuals participating are not taken to jail immediately, but first given help and the cops are there for last resort of violence.”

Our Team: “What advice do you have for young adults, students, and youth like ourselves who are at different levels of awareness but are seeking to make change in racial relations in our University and possibly America?

Dr. Stokes: “ I would recommend the book ‘Faces of the bottom of the Well’ that talks about racial realism in which America was built on racism and we may never see the end of racism ever. As pessimistic as it sounds, however, we cannot fold or give up. When we engage in defunding the police, or even have organized protests, they [people in power] don't want us to do that, they don’t want to see us in the street in powerful numbers, they hated seeing it last year [George Floyd protest] because they understood that we are standing against the grain. Even though we should accept racial realism, we can still push back over and over again because we know at least for the next generation, it may get better. Just like for our older generation, they understood assimilation is not the answer and they combated and resisted until we reached here. There is no perfect. But we must always pave a better path for each generation by resisting and fighting to make the world a better place in terms of public safety and freedom. 

Work Cited

Beschizza, R. (2021, April 20). U.S. policing budgets would rank as the world's third-highest military expenditure. Boing Boing. https://boingboing.net/2021/04/20/u-s-policing-budgets-would-rank-as-the-worlds-third-highest-military-expenditure.html.

Resources by city. Don't Call The Police. (2021, April 22). https://dontcallthepolice.com/.

Turner, N., & Justice, V. I. of. (2020, June 8). What Policing Costs: A Look at Spending in America's Biggest Cities. Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/publications/what-policing-costs-in-americas-biggest-cities.

[utopianatolia]

Kitaplar...

228) Albert Camus - The Plague

"Ah!" Cottard sighed. "I only wish I had a knack for writing." When Grand showed his surprise, Cottard explained with some embarrassment that being a literary man must make things easier in lots of ways. "Why?" Grand asked. "Why, because an author has more rights than ordinary people, as everybody knows. People will stand much more from him." "It looks," said Rieux to Grand on the morning when the official notices were posted, "as if this business of the rats had addled his brain, as it has done for so many other people. That's all it is. Or perhaps he's scared of the 'fever.' " "I doubt it, Doctor. If you want to know my opinion, he—" He paused; with a machine-gun rattle from its exhaust the "deratization" van was clattering by. Rieux kept silent until it was possible to make himself audible, then asked, without much interest, what Grand's opinion was. "He's a man with something pretty serious on his conscience," Grand said gravely. 

The Pretect sent instructions to Rieux, through Richard, asking him to draw up a minute to be transmitted for orders to the central administration of the colony. Rieux included in it a clinical diagnosis and statistics of the epidemic. On that day forty deaths were reported. The Prefect took the responsibility, as he put it, of tightening up the new regulations. Compulsory declaration of all cases of fever and their isolation were to be strictly enforced. The residences of sick people were to be shut up and disinfected; persons living in the same house were to go into quarantine; burials were to be supervised by the local authorities —in a manner which will be described later on. Next day the serum arrived by plane. There was enough for immediate requirements, but not enough if the epidemic were to spread. In reply to his telegram Rieux was informed that the emergency reserve stock was exhausted, but that 

One of the most striking consequences of the closing of the gates was, in fact, this sudden deprivation befalling people who were completely unprepared for it. Mothers and children, lovers, husbands and wives, who had a few days previously taken it for granted that their parting would be a short one, who had kissed one another good-by on the platform and exchanged a few trivial remarks, sure as they were of seeing one another again after a few days or, at most, a few weeks, duped by our blind human faith in the near future and little if at all diverted from their normal interests by this leave-taking—all these people found themselves, without the least warning, hopelessly cut off, prevented from seeing one another again, or even communicating with one another. For actually the closing of the gates took place some hours before the official order was made known to the public, and, naturally enough, it was impossible to take individual cases of hardship into account. It might indeed be said that the first effect of this brutal visitation was to compel our townspeople to act as if they had no feelings as individuals. During the first part of the day on which the 

Still, if it was an exile, it was, for most of us, exile in one's own home. And though the narrator experienced only the common form of exile, he cannot forget the case of those who, like Rambert the journalist and a good many others, had to endure an aggravated deprivation, since, being travelers caught by the plague and forced to stay where they were, they were cut off both from the person with whom they wanted to be and from their homes as well. In the general exile they were the most exiled; since while time gave rise for them, as for us all, to the suffering appropriate to it, there was also for them the space factor; they were obsessed by it and at every moment knocked their heads against the walls of this huge and alien lazar-house secluding them from their lost homes. These were the people, no doubt, whom one often saw wandering forlornly in the dusty town at all hours of the day, silently invoking nightfalls known to them alone and the daysprings of their happier land. And they fed their despondency with fleeting intimations, messages as disconcerting as a flight of swallows, a dew-fall at sundown, or those queer glints the sun sometimes dapples on empty streets. As for that outside world, which can always offer an escape from everything, 

themselves for having troubled too little about this in the past, and for having affected to think that, for a lover, the occupations of the loved one when they are not together could be a matter of indifference and not a source of joy. Once this had been brought home to them, they could retrace the course of their love and see where it had fallen short. In normal times all of us know, whether consciously or not, that there is no love which can't be bettered; nevertheless, we reconcile ourselves more or less easily to the fact that ours has never risen above the average. But memory is less disposed to compromise. And, in a very definite way, this misfortune which had come from outside and befallen a whole town did more than inflict on us an unmerited distress with which we might well be indignant. It also incited us to create our own suffering and thus to accept frustration as a natural state. This was one of the tricks the pestilence had of diverting attention and confounding issues. Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.

people who are fond of each other?" Rieux was silent for a moment, then said he understood it perfectly. He wished nothing better than that Rambert should be allowed to return to his wife and that all who loved one another and were parted should come together again. Only the law was the law, plague had broken out, and he could only do what had to be done. "No," Rambert said bitterly, "you can't understand. You're using the language of reason, not of the heart; you live in a world of abstractions." The doctor glanced up at the statue of the Republic, then said he did not know if he was using the language of reason, but he knew he was using the language of the facts as everybody could see them—which wasn't necessarily the same thing. The journalist tugged at his tie to straighten it. "So, I take it, I can't count on help from you. Very good. But"—his tone was challenging—"leave this town I shall." The doctor repeated that he quite understood, but all that was none of his business. "Excuse me, but it is your business." Rambert raised his voice again. "

 Toward the end of the month the ecclesiastical authorities in our town resolved to do battle against the plague with the weapons appropriate to them, and organized a Week of Prayer. These manifestations of public piety were to be concluded on Sunday by a High Mass celebrated under the auspices of St. Roch, the plague-stricken saint, and Father Paneloux was asked to preach the sermon. For a fortnight he desisted from the research work on St. Augustine and the African Church that had won for him a high place in his Order. A man of a passionate, fiery temperament, he flung himself wholeheartedly into the task assigned him. The sermon was a topic of conversation long before it was delivered and, in its way, it marks an important date in the history of the period. There were large attendances at the services of the Week of Prayer. It must not, however, be assumed that in normal times the townsfolk of Oran are particularly devout. On Sunday mornings, for instance, sea-bathing competes seriously with churchgoing.

After launching it he went on at once to quote a text from Exodus relating to the plague of Egypt, and said: "The first time this scourge appears in history, it was wielded to strike down the enemies of God. Pharaoh set himself up against the divine will, and the plague beat him to his knees. Thus from the dawn of recorded history the scourge of God has humbled the proud of heart and laid low those who hardened themselves against Him. Ponder this well, my friends, and fall on your knees." The downpour had increased in violence, and these words, striking through a silence intensified by the drumming of raindrops on the chancel windows, carried such conviction that, after a momentary hesitation, some of the worshippers slipped forward from their seats on to their knees. Others felt it right to follow their example, and the movement gradually spread until presently everyone was kneeling, from end to end of the cathedral. No sound, except an occasional creak of chairs, accompanied the movement. Then Paneloux drew himself up to his full height tnnk a deen breath and rnntinued his sermon in a vnire 

"Yes, the hour has come for serious thought. You fondly imagined it was enough to visit God on Sundays, and thus you could make free of your weekdays. You believed some brief formalities, some bendings of the knee, would recompense Him well enough for your criminal indifference. But God is not mocked. These brief encounters could not sate the fierce hunger of His love. He wished to see you longer and more often; that is His manner of loving and, indeed, it is the only manner of loving. And this is why, wearied of waiting for you to come to Him, He loosed on you this visitation; as He has visited all the cities that offended against Him since the dawn of history. Now you are learning your lesson, the lesson that was learned by Cain and his offspring, by the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, by Job and Pharaoh, by all that hardened their hearts against Him. And like them you have been beholding mankind and all creation with new eyes, since the gates of this city closed on you and on the pestilence. Now, at last, you know the hour has struck to bend your thoughts to first and last things." A wet wind was sweeping up the nave, making the candle-flames bend 

most poignant were—anynow accoruing to wnat ne tom Kieux—those of Paris. There rose before his eyes, unsummoned, vistas of old stones and riverbanks, the pigeons of the Palais-Royal, the Gare du Nord, quiet old streets round the Pantheon, and many another scene of the city he'd never known he loved so much, and these mental pictures killed all desire for any form of action. Rieux felt fairly sure he was identifying these scenes with memories of his love. And when one day Rambert told him that he liked waking up at four in the morning and thinking of his beloved Paris, the doctor guessed easily enough, basing this on his own experience, that that was his favorite time for conjuring up pictures of the woman from whom he now was parted. This was, indeed, the hour when he could feel surest she was wholly his. Till four in the morning one is seldom doing anything and at that hour, even if the night has been a night of betrayal, one is asleep. Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one, or, failing that, to be able to plunge the loved one, when a time of absence intervenes, into a dreamless sleep timed to last unbroken until the day they meet again.

"In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all the hideous fears that stamp their faces in the daytime are transformed in the fiery, dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood. "And I, too, I'm no different. But what matter? Death means nothing to men like me. It's the event that proves them right."   

"So does every ill that flesh is heir to. What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you'd need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague." Rieux had hardly raised his voice at all; but Tarrou made a slight gesture as if to calm him. He was smiling. "Yes." Rieux shrugged his shoulders. "But you haven't answered my question yet. Have you weighed the consequences?" 

"You like being mysterious, don't you? Yes, fire away." "My question's this," said Tarrou. "Why do you yourself show such devotion, considering you don't believe in God? I suspect your answer may help me to mine." His face still in shadow, Rieux said that he'd already answered: that if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God. And this was proved by the fact that no one ever threw himself on Providence completely. Anyhow, in this respect Rieux believed himself to be on the right road—in fighting against creation as he found it. 

Rieux turned to the window. A shadow-line on the horizon told of the presence of the sea. He was conscious only of his exhaustion, and at the same time was struggling against a sudden, irrational impulse to unburden himself a little more to his companion; an eccentric, perhaps, but who, he guessed, was one of his own kind. "I haven't a notion, Tarrou; I assure you I haven't a notion. When I entered this profession, I did it 'abstractedly,' so to speak; because I had a desire for it, because it meant a career like another, one that young men often aspire to. Perhaps, too, because it was particularly difficult for a workman's son, like myself. And then I had to see people die. Do you know that there are some who refuse to die? Have you ever heard a woman scream 'Never!' with her last gasp? Well, I have. And then I saw that I could never get hardened to it. I was young then, and I was outraged by the whole scheme of things, or so I thought. Subsequently I grew more modest. Only, I've never managed to get used to seeing people die. That's all I know. Yet after all—" Rieux fell silent and sat down. He felt his mouth dry. "After all—?" Tarrou prompted softly. "After all," the doctor repeated, then hesitated again, fixing his eyes on Tarrou, "it's something that a man of your sort can understand most likely, but, since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes toward the heaven where He sits in silence?" 

Tarrou nodded. "Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that's all." Rieux's face darkened. "Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle." "No reason, I agree. Only, I now can picture what this plague must mean for you." "Yes. A never ending defeat." Tarrou stared at the doctor for a moment, then turned and tramped heavily toward the door. Rieux followed him and was almost at his side when Tarrou, who was staring at the floor, suddenly said: "Who taught you all this, Doctor?" The reply came promptly: "Suffering." Rieux opened the door of his surgery and told Tarrou that he, too, was going out; he had a patient to visit in the suburbs. Tarrou suggested they should go together and he agreed. In the hall they encountered Mme. Rieux, and the doctor introduced Tarrou to her. "A friend of mine," he said. "Indeed," said Mme. Rieux, "I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance." When she left them Tarrou turned to gaze after her. On the landing the doctor pressed a switch to turn on the lights along the stairs. But the stairs remained in darkness. Possibly some new light-saving order had come into force. Really, however, there was no knowing; for some time 

A faint smell of moisture rose from the lawns, parched though they were. Still masked by the eastward houses, the sun was warming up Joan of Arc's helmet only, and it made a  solitary patch of brightness in the Cathedral square. A clock struck eight. Rambert took some steps in the empty porch. From inside came a low sound of intoning voices, together with stale wafts of incense and dank air. Then the voices ceased. Ten small black forms came out of the building and hastened away toward the center of the town. 

Many centuries previously a profane writer had claimed to reveal a secret of the Church by declaring that purgatory did not exist. He wished to convey that there could be no half measures, there was only the alternative between heaven and hell; you were either saved or damned. That, according to Paneloux, was a heresy that could spring only from a blind, disordered soul. Nevertheless, there may well have been periods of history when purgatory could not be hoped for; periods when it was impossible to speak of venial sin. Every sin was deadly, and any indifference criminal. It was all or it was nothing. The preacher paused, and Rieux heard more clearly the whistling of the wind outside; judging by the sounds that came in below the closed doors, it had risen to storm pitch. Then he heard Father Paneloux's voice again. He was saying that the total acceptance of which he had been speaking was not to be taken in the limited sense usually given to the words; he was not thinking of mere resignation or even of that harder virtue, humility. It involved humiliation, but a humiliation to which the person humiliated gave full assent. True, the agony of a child was humiliating to the heart and to the mind. But that was why we had to come to terms with it. And that, too, was why—and here Paneloux assured those present that it was not easy to say what he was about to 

"My brothers"—the preacher's tone showed he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon—"the love of God is a hard love. It demands total self-surrender, disdain of our human personality. And yet it alone can reconcile us to suffering and the deaths of children, it alone can justify them, since we cannot understand them, and we can only make God's will ours. That is the hard lesson I would share with you today. That is the faith, cruel in men's eyes, and crucial in God's, which we must ever strive to compass. We must aspire beyond ourselves toward that high and fearful vision. And on that lofty plane all will fall into place, all discords be resolved, and truth flash forth from the dark cloud of seeming injustice. Thus in some churches of the south of France plague victims have lain sleeping many a century under the flagstones of the chancel, and priests now speak above their tombs, and the divine message they bring to men rises from that charnel, to which, nevertheless, children have contributed their share." When Rieux was preparing to leave the church a violent gust swept up the nave through the half-open doors and buffeted the faces of the departing congregation. It brought with it a smell of rain, a tang of drenched sidewalks, warning them of the weather they would encounter outside. An old priest and a young deacon who were walking 

A faint smell of moisture rose from the lawns, parched though they were. Still masked by the eastward houses, the sun was warming up Joan of Arc's helmet only, and it made a solitary patch of brightness in the Cathedral square. A clock struck eight. Rambert took some steps in the empty porch. From inside came a low sound of intoning voices, together with stale wafts of incense and dank air. Then the voices ceased. Ten small black forms came out of the building and hastened away toward the center of the town.  GERİ DÖNDÜM :)

[liepcrd]

world building: aesthetic au

( that’s right heathens, instead of doing actual replies im going to talk about this cozy little setting for a minute. buckle up and get ur d batteries, it’s time to take a trip back. )

@truthfullyideal​ ( cause u were interested; heckin buckle up m80 )

First things first, a lot of this stuff may be subject to change, I’ve had a few ideas of where to take it (mostly technology wise) because it’s supposed to be reminding of a time never experienced (im 19 give me a break) or reminiscent of the ‘good old days’, but also having phones and stuff would be cool? So that’s not really concrete but for this we’ll just assume that it is. 

The “Aesthetic AU”, as I’m calling it, takes place in a small, slow town called Lanolin Heights (which is located in the region of Hoenn). It’s got a school system, one (1) main grocery store and one strip mall with slow, municipal businesses. The main store is like a Walmart in that it sells general things, but smaller. For specific items, one would have to go up to the city, a nice forty-five minute drive up the highway. Needless to say, a lot of the teens are forced to hang out at the local pizza joint, (one of the only standalone businesses aside from what I just listed) at their houses or in the woods. Local law enforcement is pretty slack and knows just about everyone by name. If they don’t know someone, they usually know their relatives.

The schools are the Elementary and High School, Elementary serving as both Primary grades (K-5) and Middle grades (6-8) ((based on american school systems)). The High School houses grades 9-12, in which students either move or commute to the college in the next city over, Rustboro. While the overall Elementary School atmosphere is welcoming and inviting, the High School is super cliquey. Everyone has their own group, which may seem good on the surface: the jocks have a group, the popular girls, cheer squad, even the smart kids and outcasts have a clique. But if you don’t fit in any of those cliques, you’re often left high and dry. The kids in the school system have known each other and grown up with one another for the most part, so they’re not very welcoming to outsiders unless you fit into a clique or can conform to fitting in. Luckily the cliques themselves are pretty good, once you get into one of them.

For fun, the kids usually stay in their houses with groups or hang out at the local pizza joint, Rockwell’s Pizza. The joint has a jukebox with the latest hits, good food for a price teenagers can afford and the owner, much like the law enforcement, knows just about everyone. On the weekends and before exams, you’ll find the place packed with teens and young adults alike. Along with the standalone pizza joint, there’s a small VHS store and worn-down bowling alley. Lane 13 is always broken, there always seems to be a flickering light, the two arcade games have a 50/50 chance of stealing your quarters, but the fries and soda are legendary so no one really cares. The VHS store never seems to have the new releases until a month after they’ve already hit the theaters, but they have good quality tapes and never seem to run out of movie snacks, which keeps the people appeased. Every once and awhile, the store has a small amount of movie merchandise. This usually sells out very rapidly, but the plus side is that they usually forget they even have it in the first place so it’s usually vintage merch by the time someone bothers to clean out the store room. A good steal if you happen to get lucky.

There’s a single gas station that has stupid delicious glass bottled soda and has a plethora of 40s, 50s and 60s memorabilia on the walls. Old timers often spend a lot of time talking to the cashier which can be a pain, but teenagers in the High School are known to be easily hired here as the owners are elderly so there’s usually one cashier line with two elderly people chatting and one with a super busy, hectic teenager trying to get to every customer in line. The gas station is a good place to hang out with old people, for the history enthusiasts they can often be found here striking up a conversation with some of the town ‘elders’.

Beside the pizza joint and the gas station there is an old, abandoned strip mall. There’s development signs up advertising the creation of a mall here, but it’s been up for so long it’s starting to fade. The parking lot is cracked and the stores look dilapidated. The parking lot is a popular place for new drivers to practice, daring drivers to do some donuts in the winter, or teens just walking its length back and forth while chatting. Sometimes you can find a casual soccer game hosted here, and even rarer than that, a flea market will set up shop, or even a small, watered down carnival. If the schools have some sort of event, such as a bake sale, weather permitting they will have it here due to the abundance of space. Rockwell appreciates the business they bring, though he has no trouble paying his bills without the influx.

Along with Rockwell’s, the other sole restaurant is a diner setting. ‘Lanolin’s Diner’, it’s named. Elders will tell you that the owner’s wife was named Lanolin, who was named after the town. The owners have long since died, but the diner still remains a popular spot. The diner has a friendly atmosphere like Rockwell’s, but like the gas station it’s more retro-esq. Good burgers, good milkshakes and great coffee for the ever studious exam taker. They also possess a jukebox, but it is older than the one found at Rockwell’s and has little to no modern tunes.

Not in the main ‘hustle and bustle’, (which should be used loosely) but not quite out of town limits either, there is a rock quarry. They were going to use the rocks and gravel here for something-- no one can ever agree on what-- but whatever project it was got scrapped and the place is supposed to be shut off from the public. That doesn’t stop most people, teens in particular, from going there to hang out. It’s also a popular spot for young trainers to test their skills and battle (as is the empty parking lot). Geodude can be found here, and if you’re lucky, you may even find a Graveler. The quarry isn’t checked up on by law enforcement-- they all know what goes on down there anyway. It’s blocked off by a sad little chain that is easily walked over, but if they truly need to block it off they will have barricades. This has happened before, particularly during dangerous storms that could flood it.

Somewhat close to the quarry is a small antique shop. It’s only ever open on Tuesdays, which makes school kids wonder what actually is sold there, but the kids known for skipping class often come here (or, at least go once or twice) and browse during the open hours. The reason it’s only open once during a week is because the owner, a little old lady, goes out the other six days and acquires her unique goods. She also makes some damn good cookies, which is by far her best seller. No one else works here but her and she is guarded by a large Arcanine, if anyone thinks they can get past her with some nonsense.

Along the highway, if you’re approaching Lanolin Heights you will be able to see a water tower with faded letters that say, in cursive, ‘Lanolin Heights’. Some abandoned and boarded up houses and, what appear to have been businesses along the country routes that go through and close to Lanolin Heights suggests that this place used to be busier than it currently is. However with the addition of Rustboro, it would seem most people left Lanolin and went there. A lot of the elders could tell you that statement is true, some of them even having been some of the people who left when Rustboro was established.

Because it is a small town, the students and even the adults get really excited over their school sports teams, which are oddly good. The rallies are always booming with life and for the time the event goes on, all other worries seem dropped and left behind. It’s common for adults no longer in school to come to them still if they can, for the food is delicious but the nostalgia they hold for most is even sweeter than the funnel cake. Usually the community comes together as a whole to donate money to rallies and games, as well as clean up the mess once it’s all said and done. Pokemon help with this as well.

As Rustboro has a gym, there are classes in the schools dedicated to Pokemon battling, type match-ups and status aliments (basically, a basic trainer’s school course) but nothing goes into too many specifics. Most kids find out from adults or elders what they need to do in battles, or by trial and error. Once every two months, Professor Birch will visit the town and hand out starter Pokemon to eligible children. Usually these children are the ones who’ve done good in school, but he always brings a few extras to hand out to some other children as he believes they all deserve a chance to raise one of the starters of Hoenn.

And that’s about it! The most important landmarks in Lanolin Heights. Later on I’ll make a post explaining Katherine and what she does in this small town, but for now this will have to do. As I said before, this is open for anyone to take part in, it’s just a fun little “slice of life AU” for peeps. Set in the 80s-90s? Something like that.

[kineticpenguin]

As annoying as this is, this is the result of a very intentional PR campaign that’s been going on since 9/11. Whatever else happened that day, a lot of cops did die trying to rescue people from the WTC. American law enforcement was only too happy to capitalize on the huge boost in public opinion from this. I think most people forgot (or are too young to remember) the absolute hero status conferred to cops in the wake of this. And since it was a foreign terror attack, they were treated as some of the first casualties in the War on Terror. The NYPD, and the rest of American law enforcement, was both immediately and intensely militarized by both federal law and equipment (the creation of the DHS and distribution of military hardware was spurred by this). If you’re living in BFE and wondering why your Sheriff has an MRAP, this is why.

And then, we immediately invaded Afghanistan, and about a year later Iraq. Now, just about everyone in the US was on board with going to Afghanistan to get bin Laden, kick over the carts of whoever sheltered him, whatever. But a year later, with shows like 24 prepping the American public for suitcase nukes, and demands for substantial proof of WMD production, a “smoking gun,” being met with Condoleeza Rice saying that there would always be some degree of doubt but “we don’t want the ‘smoking gun’ to be a mushroom cloud.” If you think today’s “we’re all in this together” is annoying, try to imagine 2003-2007 where “you’re with us or against us.” Support Our Troops or you hate America and want the terrorists to win.

Now if that seems to be an odd digression: it isn’t. The police absolutely wanted to be counted as Our Troops, and with that post-9/11 goodwill, many Americans were absolutely willing to include them in that number. You may have seen an essay talking about cops being “warriors.” You’ve almost certainly heard some version of that godawful “sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs” essay. By virtue of being guys in uniform with guns, cops were now Honorary The Troops.

Only one problem: for all that dramatic talk, cops weren’t doing the fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they sure as fuck weren’t fighting any terrorists in the US. And most embarrassingly, the world has only become safer for US law enforcement the whole time. All this talk of the sacrifices of unique warriors in the war on crime was all that: talk. 

Also, they kept fucking up. A lot. And then they started fucking up at an increasing rate, with controversial police killings on the rise well before Ferguson.

The people handling PR for law enforcement went back to the GWOT well, and found it was nearly dry. Even in New York, people were taking about Amadou Diallo again. Except... not with the American right. The right wing had fully embraced the cops as The Troops. Why do you think the Thin Blue Line/Blue Lives Matter logo is an IR US flag patch, the kind so many of us wore in Iraq and Afghanistan, except with a blue line added?

People talk about the loss of color in flags like this as a fashy thing and, y’know, maybe it is. It does look like it leapt straight out of some dystopian movie. But think of where they got the base of that flag to begin with: the patch actual soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors wear when they’re in harm’s way.

They wanna be soldiers so bad. They wanna be at war so bad. They want everyone to revere them for being badass, for their “sacrifice” when they draw six-figure salaries from jobs they can walk away from at any time. But they’re not at war. They’re people we’ve given immense trust and privilege, to carry weapons among us with state authority, and use them as they see fit. And there are a large number of Americans who see this as acceptable, good, noble, and true.

But the reality of the matter?

[storiesofwildfire]

v; they’re not the predators anymore

tracktag ( CURRENT )

status; OPEN ships; MULTI

My name is Loki and I belong to the very first generation of scouts brave enough to pass beyond the dome.

Before I was born, a massive dome was built over the expanse of our city to protect us from the outside world. Our government claimed that the pollution of the planet had become so great that if we attempted to thrive in it, we would eradicate ourselves. The dome was proposed as a way to combat a potentially toxic atmosphere before it had a chance to fully develop.

They claimed that the air inside the dome would stay pure by setting up filters that would cleanse it before it was ever introduced to the people who lived inside the city. 

As I said, I was born long after all of this happened, but according to all of the stories I’ve heard, people panicked. Everyone was so afraid of what might happen to them and their families if the dome wasn’t constructed in time. There were very few people who were actually skeptical of the lies being force-fed to them and it was a unanimous decision that the dome be erected as quickly as possible. No one wanted to risk their lives or the lives of their loved ones. No one could truly be blamed for that, right? But no one ever stopped to wonder where the sudden worry came from.

Once the dome’s construction was complete--a project that took surprisingly little time despite how massive the structure was and how much of the city’s resources, personal, and technology went into building the damned thing—new laws were set in place. There were protocols about what the citizens needed to do in the event that the dome was punctured or cracked and there were all sorts of areas around the outskirts of the city that suddenly became off limits due to something that was housed there, air purification facilities or what have you. The most important new law to be set in place was probably the simplest and most obvious rule. 

Due to the high probability of encountering toxins in the air outside the dome, no one was permitted to leave.

I’m not sure about all of you, really, but that always sounded a little suspicious to me. Let’s think about this rationally, shall we? This city, a place we call Asgard (and trust me, the irony really hasn’t fallen upon deaf ears) had very few problems before the dome was built. People could come and go as they pleased. We never experienced war or disputes with other colonies. Our air was perfectly breathable and no one suffered any severe ailment from the atmosphere that always existed and probably always would. Sure, pollution was a dangerous thing that plenty of people worried about. Asgard spent decades upon decades before the wall was built creating new technologies to dispose of waste in healthier fashions, keep the air clean by using alternative sources of energy like solar and hydro power, and even enforced strict laws about how the people who lived in the city were allowed to live if it affected the environment. As far as everyone knew, the pollution was declining. 

So why, suddenly, had the dome been a necessity? Why was no one allowed to leave the safety of the dome? Why were the people of Asgard kept captive like rats in a massive cage? Most people didn’t really look at it that way. Asking around, most everyone agreed that the dome was some sort of blessing and even today, it stood as a monument of our success and security.

As I grew older, I asked more and more questions. Most people didn’t take kindly to my inquiries, which usually consisted of “don’t you think it’s strange that no one is allowed to leave?” and “why does no one ever talk about the negative impacts building the dome created?”

To ask these questions was to question the government itself and to question the government... Well, let me put it this way. Asgard is a beautiful city with a lot of technological advancements and friendly, brilliant people. Overall, it’s a wonderful place to live and most people never have an issue, but the highest-ranking officials don’t take kindly to insubordination. We don’t really have prisons here in the city. If someone is caught breaking a law, regardless of how minuscule that law may be, it usually results in the offender being banished to the outside world, beyond the dome. Those people never return. Now, I’ve never gotten into that much trouble before, but I’ve certainly received my fair share of threats from law enforcement and some of my neighbors who don’t care much for my prying eyes and “misguided heart.”

During my childhood and teen years, I never really got any significant answers. No matter who I asked, where I went, or what I tried to search for, there just wasn’t enough of a lead to go on that wouldn’t land me a one-way ticket to exile. Sometimes I thought that might be for the best. Living in the outside world could be great!

At the end of the day, my suspicions were correct. To be blunt, the dome was never erected for the purpose of keeping out poisonous and contaminated air. No, the walls were built to keep something far more horrifying out.

No one actually understood what the dome was capable of until the day that it malfunctioned. Up until that day, everyone believed that the dome was transparent so we could see the world beyond but we couldn’t travel there. The dome, however, was far more advanced than anyone who wasn’t directly tied to its construction could imagine. The interior of the dome created a seamless image that would change as different weather simulations cycled through. This gave us the illusion of being able to see the outside world and to reap the benefits of rain and other various weather conditions, but it was nothing more than one giant simulation.

That reality hit us all hard when part of the dome caved in and cracked away, revealing the real outside world to us. Instead of toxic gas flooding into the city, however, we saw something much more terrifying. Standing as tall as the dome was a humanoid creature, naked, with no genitals. It beat its massive fists the size of houses against the dome over and over again, causing the ground to tremble as entire reflective panels fell from the sky, crashing down to the ground. Homes and businesses were destroyed. People were killed. 

That day stood out as the darkest day in the history of our city. 

The truth behind the creation of the dome came to light. The city fell victim to chaos as people finally turned against those in power who had sworn to protect us. Decades of lies came to the surface and we were defenseless to protect ourselves from these massive creatures. The dome had stood as a barrier to protect our city from these monsters for so long, but one eventually came along that was strong enough to break down our barrier.

None of us knew what to do. We weren’t trained to fight monsters. Hel, none of us even knew such beasts existed until one peaked through a massive hole in the sky to look down at us. Once it tore a hole through the dome large enough to fit an arm through, it reached down inside and started grabbing for people. It managed to take a few and to everyone’s horror, the moment the beast grabbed hold of them, it tossed them into its mouth, swallowing them whole. 

We’re still not sure what scared the creature off, to be honest. Something frightened it or called it away and it left before any more damage could be caused, but people were dead and our way of living crumbled before us. Once the dust settled, the dead were accounted for, and the injured were in hospitals... Well, mutiny, riots, and a lot of violence produced from fear sparked throughout the city. The only way those who were in power could stay in power was if they managed to come up with some sort of solution. 

A team was sent out to repair the damage to the dome. Each person brought in for the job had been part of the initial construction of the dome. At least they knew what they were doing. Volunteers were taken to the city’s border, where people would keep watch at all hours of the day and night in the event that another beast showed up.

As I said earlier, I’m one of the first scouts to step foot outside the dome. I volunteered, but not for guard duty. No, I became part of a special organization, one that wasn’t entirely endorsed by the rest of the city, to go our and hunt down that behemoth and any others like it. We developed special weapons to combat them, though we hardly knew how to fight what we’d never seen before. The first few months outside the dome were dedicated to nothing but searching for more specimens so we could observe them and figure out what sort of weaknesses they had.

Needless to say, we lost a lot of people during this time, but we did eventually find one weakness. The nape of each beast’s neck seemed to be the only spot in which someone could kill it. The nape needed to be completely sliced away and that stopped every single monster in its tracks regardless of how big it was. To accomplish this goal, we devised three distinct weapons. The first was a type of bow and arrow outfitted with a thin, wire-like arrow that if aimed correctly, would slice right through just about anything, including the nape of a Titan, the name we chose for these humanoid giants. The name seemed more than fitting, really. The second weapon was a set of exaggeratedly long swords with blades made of the same wire-thin-yet-extremely durable material the arrows were made out of. Unfortunately, this weapon required a hunter to get extremely close to a Titan in order to bring it down. These were the most dangerous but the most effective means of attack. The final weapon was a whip outfitted with a similar material to the arrows and the blades, though it was more malleable so it could swerve and coil like a whip ought to. The length of these whips varied depending on person and style, but I’ve seen a few that were long enough to wrap around a Titan’s throat completely and decapitate them with ease.

We also developed a small pack that rested in the center of our shoulder blades. When activated, wing-like appendages with small accelerators along the undersides emerged and spread the span of our arm’s reach. These allowed us to temporarily leave the ground and maneuver through the air, much like a bird might. These were necessary to get close to some of the larger Titan’s napes, but the contraptions weren’t exactly the most stable. Each one had to be custom built for a person’s size and weight and if it didn’t match up perfectly, the person wouldn’t get off the ground or they’d plummet back to earth shortly after. In times of great distress, we resort of simpler gadgets that comprise of repelling gear modified to pull someone through the air if need be. 

I can’t tell you a number of times I’ve stuck the end of my grapple into the shoulder of a Titan and climbed it like a tree. Whatever got the job done, right? As hunters, our only mission wasn’t to take down any threats present in the area. No, we also set out to find other settlements and civilizations that might be holding out against what very clearly seemed to be the end of the world.

Truth be told, I haven’t been home since I left. I have no idea what’s happening back in the city, but I have a strong suspicion that anger people still held grudges against those who kept us in the dark for so long. Who knew? Maybe a change of power was happening... I hope so. 

Gods only know what might have been different had we been prepared for these horrors.

[our-legacy-rp-blog]

MONI has been accepted for the character ISOLDA ARUNDEL

We absolutely love your take on Isolda, she should be an excellent addition to the RP. She is such an interesting character, and you certaintly captured that. Welcome to OL, and be sure you fill out the checklist HERE.

OOC name & pronouns: Moni, she/her Age: 25 Timezone: CST

Character’s name: Isolda Aruden FC choice: Candice Patton Position request: N/A

Birthday: May 10; Taurus.

Earth Sign; Taurus sign is know to be practical, patient, and thinkers. Slow and study wins the race, but once she finds something that catches her eye, there is no stopping her from finding the answer. While her sister is more of the extroverted bull, Izzy is the introverted bull who watches, waits, and then charges. She likes to look at all situations first before she goes forward with her plans.

Wand: 10 ½; Beech; Unicorn Tail Hair.

Patronus: Not everyone can produce a patronus and I’m one of those Harry Potter fans who doesn’t believe everyone should be able to produce one. When I read through Isolda’s Past part, I realized she could be a smart wizard but still not be able to master how to produce a patronus just yet. The problem is that she hasn’t fully maintained a positive memory strong enough for her to fully produce one. Along with her worries and change of heart she is having currently with her mother, it’s still hard for her to fully produce something longer than three seconds. This is something only her sister knows about to a certain extent. 

Boggart: Izzy’s boggart takes the form of her sister and mother being tortured and dying. When she first encountered a boggart at her house, it had been her trapped in small spaces. She was afraid that she would not be able to figure out how to get out of a space like that and that she failed to solve something. Yet when she was in Hogwarts, the form of the Boggart started to change. While encountering one at school, many people thought that it might be a werewolf or another magical monster. However, when it came out to the image of her mother and sister slowly dying, she realized that though she might have her differences with her mother and her ideals, her mother and especially her sister still meant so much to her that if she ever lost them, she was not sure how she would live on.

HEADCANONS:

Izzy has taken a strong interest in history and research during her time at Hogwarts. In her sixth year, she has been granted special permission to explore rare books that Hogwarts would receive along with access to the restricted section even though she is not a seventh year. She keeps multiple notebooks with different topics she is looking into. For those she doesn’t want her mother or sister to know about, she labels them something else to throw them off. 

As a stress reliever, Izzy bakes. Baking is full of precision, patience, and skill. She loves looking up different recipes and techniques to help improve her skill and taste palette. Her favorite thing to bake is bread because you have to pay attention to how much of each ingredient you put into your creation. She had once joked with her mother that if school didn’t work out, she would open a bakery in Diagon Alley. Her mother, with little to no shock to Izzy, was not amused with this comment but deep down she was sure her mother could agree that she could make a mean banana bread. 

As twins, Izzy always felt like the closest person in her life was Lissa. Lissa was her complete opposite but they complimented each other well. Izzy was afraid that once they got into Hogwarts, they wouldn’t have a close bond anymore. Her theory was proven wrong just a few months into their first year. Though their house brought out their best, and sometimes worst, qualities, Izzy felt just as close to her sister than ever before. There are just certain things Izzy feels it’s best to keep to herself rather than tell her sister. Other than that, Lissa is the only person Izzy feels comfortable talking to freely. 

Before going to Hogwarts, Izzy was gifted with a cat to keep her company while her and her sister shared an owl for mail. Izzy had found over the years that she was more of a dog person than a cat person but her tabby cat, Neptune, has grown on her over the years. Neptune has a way of comforting Izzy when she doens’t realize she needs to calm down or concentrate. He doesn’t get in her way or bother her all that much but he will make his presence known when he wants to. According to Izzy, Neptune might be mixed with something else other than 100% cat. He is too smart sometimes she feels but like her sister points out to her, she could be over thinking things.

HISTORY:

The Arundel family wanted for nothing in the wake of the Second Wizarding War. With many families decimated, their lines broken or simply killed off, the Arundels rose to the top of pureblood wizarding society like a predator on its prey. They’d always been an aspiring family, making connections where they could and intermarrying where possible, but there never seemed to get the recognition and status that they desired - they could never reach the highest positions in the Ministry of Magic, they could never secure alliances with the top families. But when many pure families sunk away with shame at the end of the war, the Arundel’s rose to the top: Ellise Arundel was perfectly placed in the Ministry to become Vice Minister of Magic, second only to Lowell Tegus. Securing the spot during his election, Ellise became the one Arundel to succeed where others hadn’t. Their pride kept them from boasting, but the family was happy - and so was Ellise. From then on, they held their heads high at gatherings and parties, but most importantly, they remembered who their friends were now that their fortunes had turned around.

Already married and with two twin daughters, Ellise was a busy woman with strategy on the mind and not a lot of time to spare for others. She tried to be there for her daughters, but the truth was that her job was everything: as Vice Minister, she was working with Minister Tegus in those early days to reform ancient laws, arrest werewolves, and establish calm among a people who were terrified. Ellise hardly saw the twins for several years back then, lost as she was in her work. A strong-headed woman with a vision for the future, Ellise became partners with Tegus to help restore the wizarding world to its original glory: something that they hadn’t experienced for many years. Popular among the members of several Departments for always sparing them the time to talk, listen, or answer questions, Ellise helped to bring support to Tegus’ campaign - as well as to humanise his cold approach to the werewolf issue. In office, Ellise was Tegus’ essential right hand in everything he did: she helped coordinate aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but she also helped to bury those who had died during the London Riot with dignity.

Izzy was always the quieter of the twins - the more likely to be in her sister’s shadow or to follow her lead. Lissa never took advantage of that, nor did she push Izzy to be someone she wasn’t: Lissa was instead loud enough and bold enough for the two of them. Izzy was cautious where her sister was rash; she was contemplative where her sister was talkative. Izzy was a child who thought about what she wanted to say before she said it - and even then, she’d think about the ramifications of those words. It was less about hurting someone’s feelings than protecting her own: Izzy knew the weight of words and the effect they could have. She saw it first hand when she and her sister would spend a few hours in their mother’s office sometimes, playing in the corner while Ellise went about her meetings and planning. Izzy loved her mother, but the force of her determination was both an awe-inspiring and terrifying thing to her. Growing up around such a strong woman who used words to convince the wizarding world that the problem was under control when Izzy, sitting in her mother’s office and hearing of the werewolf attacks and protests, knew those words were lies.

Groomed, trained, and pampered, Izzy and her sister spent their time learning how to be the best pureblood women that they could be. Given theoretical lessons on magical history and magic itself, Izzy found that she enjoyed pouring herself into knowledge more than the social aspect of her world. It was a distraction from what was going on around her, but Izzy enjoyed researching the history behind everything that was happening in the wizarding world, looking for pieces of the puzzle. In her mind, it was as though she could assemble all the separate parts and find the thing that they had in common - the one thing that would undo all of the trouble in the world. Reluctantly, Izzy was pulled out of her world of papers and books to socialise, her sister whispering names and titles in her ear at parties, the two of them smiling nicely.

Hogwarts came with a warning from Ellise: watch what you say and who you say it to. Izzy had never been one to spill secrets, so her mother had nothing to fear from her. The twins were separated into different houses, which became the first time that Izzy had to really fend for herself. Ravenclaw changed Izzy from being a closed off girl into someone interested in collaborative work, researching, and group projects. She was far from being the leader of any of these things, but she enjoyed the feeling of putting minds together to work toward a whole. For so long, the only mind that she’d connected with had been her sister’s, but now Izzy had a whole house full of smart people willing to put their effort toward learning - and she realised that she wasn’t out of place at all.

Izzy is a smart, logical, and problem-solving girl who thrives on filling her mind with dates, facts, and small tidbits. She’s perpetually searching for a bigger picture - something that all her knowledge can build to - and she often gets disheartened because she can’t quite get there. Though Izzy was raised to believe in her mother’s cause, that werewolves are monsters who need to be caged, it’s only within the last few months that Izzy’s faith has begun to waver. For the first time in her life, she has doubts: what if her mother is wrong? What if there is a better way to handle the werewolves? Izzy doesn’t dare speak out to her family and especially not her sister, all of who believe so strongly in what they’re doing. Keeping secrets isn’t hard for Izzy, but it does weigh on her mind a lot, especially when she has to keep up appearances as a hard and fast supporter of her mother’s agenda.

NOW:

After her O.W.L.S, Izzy received an O in History, showing her strength in History of Magic. Research had become one of her strongest skills over the years making her a tutor for those in her year and younger who needed help with their projects or reports. She had been brought in by her head of house and Professor Binns (still mysteriously teaching History of Magic and floating around like he never died in the first place) to talk about her place outside of Hogwarts. They encouraged her to possibly take a research internship during the summer before her last year in America. All she had to do was figure out what area she wanted to concentrate on. Wanting to write to her mother about the opportunity, she knew her mother wouldn’t be the biggest fan of this career choice. Ellise would want her daughters to take respectable jobs and well respected jobs. Izzy knew her sister would want to follow in their mother’s footsteps and it was suppose to be what she wanted too. After all, her mother was the one who was able to accomplish what all the other Arundel’s weren’t able to do: get the recognition and status they deserved. 

With all the events happening during her sixth year, Izzy is starting to realize she wants to do more to look into the laws that her mother helped enforce. Were the supernatural creatures her mother and the Ministry, a now close friend of the family, the monster they claimed them to be? Izzy could be like her sister and believe everything that was told to them. Izzy, however, was all about the facts. And the more she kept looking into the history, documents, and anything she was able to get her hands on, the more she began to realize that maybe what everything her mother and the Minister preached wasn’t 100% true. Now close to the end of her sixth year, Izzy realizes that there are a lot of decisions she has to make and secrets she needs to keep to herself. Even though she is close to her sister, she knows if she voices her opinions about her future and her current opinion, she might lose the ones she loves the most. 

[blaquebeforeanything]

 Given this history, here are four policy changes that would make progress in improving how the US deals with immigration in the second decade of the 21st century.

Establish a Guest Worker Registry 

The creation of a guest worker registry, specifically to get those who are in the US and working in an undocumented status. This would also provide the guest worker or workers the ability to move not just themselves, but also their families and dependents who are with them, into a documented status. There are several advantages to instituting a guest worker registry and begin its implementation for those who are already in the US and functioning in this capacity. The most important one is that it gets them out of the shadow economy. Having undocumented immigrants, whether they entered the US without proper immigration papers in search of work or they overstayed their entry visits and are working without the appropriate paperwork, on the licit economy will have several benefits.It will create the economic benefits of being able to properly account for their labor in the tax rolls at all levels of government. This way guest workers will contribute to the municipal, state, and Federal tax base and be able to draw appropriate social services – from attendance of children in public schools to healthcare – without being considered tax cheats.  There inclusion within the licit economy will also bring in needed revenue for social security, medicare, and medicaid. A guest worker program and registry will also reduce crime. Undocumented immigrants are easy prey. They are easy prey for employers that would exploit them, just as they are tempting targets for criminals who know that they are unlikely to go to the police for fear of being detained and deported.

A properly established guest worker registry would include a vetting process to determine which undocumented immigrants and workers already in the US should be eligible for and awarded guest worker status, as well as eligibility for those not currently here, but wishing to come to the US and work without seeking permanent resident status or citizenship. For instance, convictions for violent and serious non-violent crimes should and would be cause for rejection of an application. And since we know that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants and workers in the US commit far fewer crimes, including violent crimes, a guest worker program would establish a more equitable system for dealing with undocumented immigrants and workers currently in the US instead of whipsawing back and forth from one presidential administration to the next’s determination of what makes an undocumented immigrant eligible for detention and deportation.

Adjust Grants of Asylum and Awards of Refugee Status

While the US has both congressionally originated legislation, as well as treaty obligations that function as if they are US statutory requirements, regarding who is and is not eligible for grants of asylum and being awarded refugee status, the reality is that each presidential administration adjusts both the who and the how many. Currently, Stephen Miller and the fellow travelers he’s salted away across several executive branch departments and agencies, have managed to short circuit the normal, State Department led annual determination of how many foreigners qualify for refugee status and resettlement in the US. And Miller, as well as his fellow travelers, have also been attempting to rewrite US asylum laws and treaty obligations pertaining to asylum through executive orders issued by the President. While some adjustment from one administration to the next is normal, what Miller has been able to orchestrate is both something completely different and, frankly, un-American in terms of America’s ideals. It is, unfortunately, all to American in actual application. And, I fear, will be used by Miller’s fellow travelers in both the nativist, anti-immigration community as a whole and in the Republican Party to scream bloody murder when the next Democratic administration seeks to return the annual totals back to normalcy. Miller and his fellow travelers ability to severely restrict the quota numbers create a ticket time bomb for them to exploit when a future administration seeks to reestablish appropriate numbers regarding refugees.

In order to prevent having unaccountable, appointed, revanchist white supremacist aides hijack America’s asylum and refugee system in their attempt to re-whiten the US, there needs to be some serious changes made to how the US handles both asylum seekers and those seeking refugee status. The first change is that the threat of both serious criminal and domestic violence that result from the originating country’s political instability and inability to enforce their own laws need to be legislatively established as a valid reason to seek and be granted asylum in the US. Given that many of those fleeing instability in Central America to seek asylum in the US are fleeing the local effects of the political, social, and economic instability of those Central American states that manifest as criminal predation and domestic violence and abuse, these should be recognized as legitimate reasons to seek and be granted asylum. Especially as so much of the political, social, and economic instability in Central America is the result of well over a century of US meddling in the region. The waves of asylum seekers that we are seeing today are one of the downstream second and third order effects of decades of US actions in Central America. Successive US administrations pursuit of what they defined as America’s interests in the region and the hemisphere have contributed to the ongoing and current instability. As a result the US bears a responsibility to provide assistance, through acceptance of those fleeing that instability, through grants of asylum in the US.

A similar dynamic exists regarding refugees. A lot of those seeking to come to the US as refugees are coming from the Levant, primarily Iraq and Syria, as well as Afghanistan. The US’s strategic failures in both Operation Enduring Freedom and its successor mission Operation New Dawn in Afghanistan, as well as in Operation Iraqi Freedom, have destabilized both the Levant and Afghanistan. Additionally, the US’s support for Saudi Arabia, through the sale of weapons and the provision of military training, advise, and assistance missions (both conducted by US uniformed personnel and by contractors), in their religiocidal conflict in Yemen, has also destabilized southwestern Arabia. In all of these cases the US has a responsibility to accept properly vetted refugees and resettle them in the US. It should not be necessary for Americans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or all three in military and civilian capacities to have to fight their own governments to get their host country interpreters and translators awarded refugee status and relocated to the US with their families to ensure their safety. Safety that these host country partners willingly put at risk because they believed the US was there to help them fix their countries.

Despite what the President and his supporters say, we have an excellent and very vigorous process for assessing refugee and asylum seekers claims. What really needs to be reformed is the process by which the US government determines how many can be accepted each year and for what reasons they can be granted asylum and/or refugee status. A process for doing so should be created and established via legislation. And the legislation should require that the process, including the metrics used to determine the annual limits, be reviewed at regular intervals to ensure it is working as desired. For instance, every ten years. This is not a sunset clause, rather the requirement of mandatory review and, if necessary, revision.

Create a Comprehensive Resettlement Program for Guest Workers, Asylees, and Refugees

In order to make the reforms denoted above, it will be necessary to create a comprehensive resettlement program and system for guest workers, asylees, and refugees. To a certain extent, especially for the guest workers, the market for employees to do specific types of work, such as agricultural field hands, will assist in determining where the guest workers go. However, a comprehensive resettlement program has the ability to make a positive difference not just in the lives of guest workers, asylees, and refugees, but also in small towns across America that are dying as their younger residents move away looking for better opportunities. There is both scholarly research and news reporting that indicates that one of the best ways to save non-metropolitan towns is through relocating immigrants to them. Establishing a resettlement system for immigrants, guest workers, asylees, and refugees that seeks to maximize the advantages they bring to the US would be good for both those seeking better lives in America and the small towns in need of revival.

Transform Immigration Judges from Administrative Judges to Title III Judges

Currently immigration judges and immigration courts are administrative judges and courts. Specifically, these courts are established by the Department of Justice and the judges work for the Attorney General. Aside from the fact that there are often too few immigration judges and courts, the fact that they were administrative and not Title III has normally not been a major problem. Unfortunately not being a problem was dependent on not having an unreconstructed neo-Confederate and white supremacist as attorney general. Jeff Sessions was able to severely limit the scope and authority of immigration judges and their courts because they are under the direct control of the Attorney General of the United States. He specifically went shopping for immigration court cases that he could use to remake the rules for what does and does not qualify for an award of asylum just by issuing a memo. Fortunately, the Federal courts have stepped in and blocked this for the time being. However, given the abuse of the oversight power of the Office of the Attorney General regarding immigration courts and judges, this ticking time bomb cannot be left lying around for future bigots to use for their own xenophobic, racist, and nativist ends. The only way to ensure the independence of the immigration courts and the judges who preside over them is to remake them as Title III courts where they will be outside the abuse of the next Jeff Sessions. And there is always a next Jeff Sessions waiting for his or her chance to harm others with a smile on his or her face.

Reform, Restructure, and Relocate US Immigration Enforcement Authority

Right now two Department of Homeland Security agencies, Customs and Border Patrol (C&BP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are primarily responsible for dealing with both documented and undocumented immigrants into the US. And because the vast majority of Americans live within 75 miles of the border, including coasts and points of entry at airports and seaports, C&BP and ICE, which have enforcement authority within a 100 miles of the border, have enforcement authority over the vast majority of the US population. This has led to abuses. One of the major problems with both C&BP and ICE is that they are composite agencies created in the panicked frenzy in the wake of the 911 attacks. In the case of the former they are responsible for both some customs enforcement and for patrolling the border. The latter is responsible for immigration enforcement, as well as customs enforcement.

This is not an effective, efficient, or intelligent way to delegate handling these issues. It would be far better for customs enforcement issues to be separated out and put in its own agency. And since this is a form of law enforcement related to import duties, that agency should be relocated under the Department of the Treasury. Immigration should also be separated out into two separate agencies. The first should be located under the State Department and should be responsible for handling issues pertaining to immigration. As in who qualifies for a visa, what type, how long can they stay, oversight of naturalization, things like that. The enforcement arm, as in policing those who are either undocumented entries, undocumented overstays, or who violate the provisions on their entry visas, should be separated into its own agency and relocated under the Department of Justice. Finally, border enforcement should be its own department, which could remain within DHS or be relocated to the Department of Justice. My natural preference is for the latter as I think providing DHS with Federal law enforcement functions is inherently dangerous and, to be honest, that DHS should be dissolved and the agencies, bureaus, and departments within in it returned to where they originated before it was created as a rushed and panicked response to the 911 attacks.

There are other reasons to break agencies like ICE up. As someone who has done inservice training for an ICE field office on how to leverage cultural information to conduct better engagements with the communities that ICE officers have to interact with and police, I can honestly tell you that ICE has its own internal professional cultural problem; it was created out of only semi-related parts as part of the the creation of DHS, and those parts don’t really hang well together. A similar issue exists for Customs and Border Patrol. As a result the best thing we can do is separate these agencies out by their functions, consolidate those, such as customs enforcement, where appropriate, relocate them within more appropriate departmental homes, and then revise recruitment and training requirements.

I’m going to stop with these five proposed policy changes. Some will have to be done legislatively, some might be able to be done through executive branch action. But all of them are needed to bring US immigration policy into the 21st century. And while they resolve some of our current immigration related challenges, they will, no doubt, create new ones.