#and how little opportunity for class mobility there must be

[innerchorus]

Based on your tags and the point in canon you mentioned, I'm guessing this is referring to Alfarid's reaction on seeing how many gold coins Narsus has? If so, you'll have to forgive me but I'm going to defend her here because her reaction makes total sense!

(From Chapter 29)

I'll include the relevent section from the novels, too (with part of it bolded for emphasis):

'“Huh, guess you’re caught up in some shady business, aren’t ya. Though y’look like such a respectable sort.” “Why do you think so?” “Ain’t no honest folk can get their hands on the likes of gold. If an azat had any gold or anything on them, the officials would come and give ’em the rack, even. They’d just assume you stole it all from somewhere, yeah?” Narses was unable to reply. He had absolutely no inclination to reveal his own pedigree as one of the shahrdaran. Good grief. He really was no respectable sort himself. Considering his very identity as one of the governing class, a noble aristocrat…' (Book Two, Chapter 3, part iv)

Alfarid doesn't know Narsus is a noble. When she speaks of 'respectable people' she's talking of regular honest working folk rather than the upper classes, having assumed that Narsus fell into this category. In that context, her reaction is understandable. It's not a case of some people just having money while others don't, it's her knowledge of the Parsian class system telling her that the only way for regular people to get hold of gold coins is through 'shady business'.

Let's not forget Narsus doesn't just have one or two gold coins; Alfarid is startled by the amount. As she doesn't know he's not only a noble but one of the shahrdaran, what else is she supposed to think?

Honestly, I can't imagine Narsus disagrees with her. I'm sure that, although he hasn't been subjected to this class prejudice himself, he's well aware of it, given that he's an advocate for many of the social reforms that Pars needs. What Alfarid is saying isn't wrong. It's only incorrect in how she applies it to Narsus, and that's only because she doesn't know he's one of the nobility. He doesn't dispute what she says because the only way to do that would be to reveal this to her.

Here's her reaction when she does learn of Narsus's origins when they next run into Hilmes in Chapter 36.

(I also think that Narsus's reluctance to reveal his status and his subsequent minimisation of it above points to him having some personal hangups about being identified that way. He also knows how someone like Alfarid will react and he tries to avert that. This comes across more strongly in the novels where he has a rather bitter line of dialogue here: "Just because one is wispuhran or wuzurgan doesn’t mean they’ll sprout horns and a tail…".

Alfarid's preconceptions of what nobles are like is definitely meant to parallel Narsus's mistaken belief that, as a bandit, Alfarid will steal from the dead, indicating that both of them are exceptions in a way (the Zott are not typical bandits, and Narsus is not a typical noble). But although they are both wrong about each other, while Narsus's comment caused genuine offence to Alfarid, her assumptions about the provenance of his gold coins aren't what bothers him, it's the knowledge that she'll see him differently once she knows he's a noble.)

I hope this made sense, I'm about to go climbing and I'm rushingggg

Oh my god...

I forgot how annoying Alfarid was in the beginning! And how hypocritical. Dear lord above (or below).

I am so happy that she later has such a big character development. She now is one of my favourit characters. (And that is the genius of Arakawas writing! Or rather of Tanaka...)

I am continuing chapter 5 and am now where Narsus and Alfarid are at the village that go attacked by Team Zahhak.

[moe-moe-kyun]

Malicious Compliance

Synopsis: MC gets annoyed at Lucifer's bossiness and decides to toy with him a little.

Tags/Warnings: Nudity, suggestive, gender neutral reader, lucifer x MC, lucifer x reader, cursing, explicit language

Minors DNI!!

Notes: I'm writing a smut version of this :3 it just got a lil long and im doin all this on mobile lol

Condensation masked the mirror as you stepped from the shower, steam saturating the bathroom air. You tossed a towel over your shoulders and tappen the screen of your D.D.D. to awaken it- did Asmo finally send you that link for the up-and-coming influencer's DevilTube?

Lucifer: 6 Missed Calls

Fuck. You were boned. How had you not heard the phone vibrating?

Lucifer's profile image- a picture of the two of you on a task to the Human World- popped up as he called you again, and you were quick to answer.

"Finally. Come up to my office, we need to discuss your latest progress report." He sounded stern.

"Okay, I'll be up in, like, 5 minutes? I just-"

"Now," Lucifer cut you off before abruptly ending the call.

"The boning continues," you murmur. You move to finish toweling off but think 'Fuck it. He wants me there now? Bastard gets a wet floor,' and affix the towel around your waist while stepping out of the bathroom.

It took until you were halfway to Lucifer's office for doubt on your malicious compliance to creep in. The nearby railing was a lucky godsend to keep you from falling as your wet feet slipped on the hardwood floor. Too late now, you resolved, and continued the journey.

The doors to Lucifer's office creaked open. He didn't glance up at your entrance until he heard the soft 'plap's of water droplets colliding with the floor. You were moving to shake off more water as he finally met your gaze.

"MC, why are you not wearing clothes?"

"Because someone refused to listen when I said I needed a few minutes to dry off and get dressed," you snarked in response as he sighed.

"Please dry off and change, we can discuss the report when you're decent," his gaze was squarely on the desk before him, the faintest tint of pink blessing his pale cheeks.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"No," you approached his desk as you spoke, "if I leave the office now I'm not coming back. What'd you need to talk about?"

Lucifer begged his gaze not to slip to where the towel was slipping around your waist, the faux knot coming loose little by little.

He clears his throat before beginning, knowing better than to try and argue at this point: "very well. The latest report from you Flora and Fauna of the Lower Circles of Hell course is less than satisfactory. There's a missing report and two assignments marked as C's." Lucifer points out each part of the progress report to you as he lists them. You stay quiet, leaning over from behind his chair, as he speaks.

"Huh, professor must not've updated it. There was an issue with TurnItIn that night and almost every student got a submission receipt while the teacher's end didn't get the actual paper, so that's square. The low scores were group assignments, see?" You move to point at the paper where 'Group Work' is printed in small lettering, and your bare chest brushes against Lucifer's back. You pretend not to notice how his spine stiffens in response.

"I will follow up with your professor to corroborate, but I suppose your explanations are satisfactory in the meantime," Lucifer says, placing the report down next to the others from your classes.

"Ooh is that one from Devildom Law? Move I wanna see what he said," you speak quickly, excited at the opportunity to see your grade.

Lucifer isn't sure how to react as you push your way in between him and his desk, sitting in his lap as you go over the report. He can't help the bulge growing in his pants, his cock getting harder the longer he looks at your bare back, water droplets still sliding down until they absorb into the loose towel around your waist.

"MC," he manages through grit teeth.

"Yeah, Luci?" He could hear your grin.

'They've known what they were doing this entire time,' the realization hits him as you slide farther back onto his lap. Lucifer's hands grip the armrests so hard his knuckles turn white.

The coy smile spreads greater across your face when your ass comes in contact with Lucifer's dick practically twitching in its confines. Just when it seemed you were about to grind against him, you stood. Relief flooded Lucifer's veins. How embarrassing this situation was- he prayed you would leave him with a shred of dignity and not acknowledge his arousal.

"Okay, well, if that's all?"

"Yes, you are free to return to your prior activities. Thank you for clarifying the report with me," Lucifer replied. He would never admit how much effort it took to keep his voice level as he met your gaze.

"Okiedokie, see you at dinner!" With a cheerful goodbye you pranced out of the office, leaving Lucifer to deal with his problem alone.

"Cheeky human," he muttered.

[rhapsodyyyyyyy]

The Cracks in the Foundation: A Look at Poor Quality Education

Education is where society begins. It shapes the future, fuels innovation, encourages creativity, and empowers individuals. But what happens when the foundation starts to crumble? When quality education collapses, the consequences can ripple through future generations, leaving a legacy of inequality and limited potential. If you know a thing or two about the struggle of Poor Education, critical issue of education, the hidden or ignored problems and you want to be aware about it. If you are looking for a way on how to support poor quality education, then this blog is for you.

THE STATISTICS OF THE CHALLENGES IN ACHIEVING QUALITY EDUCATION

Statistics show that we are falling far behind and we need to take action with utmost urgency. The world cannot afford to let millions of children fall behind, deprived of the education. unable to reach their full potential. We must invest in education, bridge the gaps in access and quality, and build a future where every student has the opportunity to learn and thrive. This serves as a stark reminder that we urgently need to invest in education and ensure that every child has access to quality learning. We must face these challenges and build a future where everyone has the chance to succeed.

CAUSE OF POOR-QUALITY EDUCATION

Lack of funding:

Lack of qualified teachers: Little pay and no or fewer professional development opportunities will discourage better teaching professionals from teaching in less privileged schools.

Poor infrastructural facilities: Poor ventilated classrooms, crumbling buildings, and even the lack of adequate water supply and sanitation facilities.

Inadequate Learning Materials: The absence of books, computers, and other fundamental learning equipments may limit the interaction with the curriculum among the students.

2. Poor Teaching Skills:

Lack of training by the teachers: Teachers may not have the expertise and knowledge in conducting interesting and useful teaching processes.

Large class populations: The teacher is unable to offer every individual attention and care for her/his students due to a huge number of students in a class.

Discrimination and prejudices: The victimisation of the marginalized groups in the society is carried out in the classroom, and they are supposed to be treated with fewer expectations and fewer opportunities.

3. Systematic inequalities:

Gender discrimination: Girls are specifically disadvantaged in the shackles of education, especially in developing regions. It is because of culture in some cases, and in others, lack of economic power and security in school.

Socioeconomic disparities: Many children from low-income backgrounds cannot attend schools due to poverty, poor childcare, and an uncaring parent.

Schooling inequality based on rural-urban divide: There will be fewer resources, fewer qualified teachers in rural areas of development than in their equivalents in urban communities, and students from the former may gain lesser educational achievements.

CONSEQUENCES OF POOR QUALITY EDUCATION

1. Individual Level:

• Scarce and low-paying jobs : Individuals without adequate education are confined to low-remuneration jobs and are unable to undertake stable employment. • Economic mobility: Education prevents subsequent generations from devolving into poverty cycles, although education impacts economic ability to achieve success in the labor market. • Health outcomes: Education fosters healthy behaviors while developing an understanding of health information. Poor education leads to underlining bad health results.

2. Community Level:

• Economic stagnation: It prevents economic growth, development, and leads to a leakage of skills. • Social unrest: High unemployment and poverty lead to social unrest and instability. • Limited civic engagement: Citizens educated are knowledgeable, conscious, and have a voice in the democratic process and are able to get their leaders accountable.

3. National Level:

• Competitiveness reduced: Low-quality education systems make it hard for countries to compete on the global economic scale. • Inadequate innovations: The absence of sufficiently skilled employees and an innovation culture can easily hinder technological advancement. • The excess usage of foreign aid: A country with a poor education system will inevitably use more foreign aid within their society to solve the social and economic issues.

SOLUTIONS

1. Increased funding:

•Infrastructure development: That means the quality school building and maintaining them, computer technology, and enough resources for learning. •Raise the salary of teacher and professional development: Higher salaries and professional benefits will attract current qualified teachers; however, low salaries and the lack of both might discourage qualified teachers from teaching. •Expand access to early childhood education: Early childhood education programs can lay down sound foundations for future learning and development.

2. Better Teaching Skills:

• Evidence-based instructional approaches: Use teaching methods that have been proven to increase involvement and learners' achievement • Class size: Limiting the number of students for each teacher enables them to fully cater to an individual's needs • Equity and excellence: All learners should have equal opportunities for quality education that recognizes cultural heritage and social background

 3. Systemic Inequalities:

• Institutionalizing gender equality in school: Availing girls with equal opportunity in education while putting them on watch for safety in schools. • Eradicating poverty and extending social safety nets: Poverty needs to be eradicated through these net services thereby offering the opportunities that are economic ensuring all children can go to schools. • Rural development: Extending resources towards making rural communities at par with the urban community.

WAYS TO SUPPORT:

Support International Organizations: Volunteer or donate to organizations like UNICEF, Save the Children, or the World Bank and bring attention to education reform in developing countries.

Educate Yourself: Learn more about the issues and opportunities in international education. Learn the problems with the children of other nations and how you can help with that.

Share Your Knowledge: Talk about global education with friends and family, and encourage them to become involved.

Donations: Organizations working for education improvement, helping schools with allocations of resources and funding for training teachers, educational reform.

Advocate : Speak out for quality education. Share information, write to your elected officials, and participate in campaigns that support educational initiatives.

Engage Your Community: Attend school board meetings, offer to volunteer at local libraries, or become active in the events of your community that would promote literacy and learning.

Addressing this challenge requires a concerted effort from governments, educators, communities, and individuals. By investing in education, improving teaching practices, and addressing systemic inequalities, we can create a world where all children have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Remember: " Every action, big or small, can contribute to creating a world where everyone has access to quality education."

[borathae]

Sibiiiiiiiii! Thank you!!! I 💜 you!!! And yes please write the Greece trip/ Kook’s trip and tell us where else these hot vampires own property! 😩😩😩 As if they weren’t hundreds of years old and hot as fuck, they own villas and castles and houses all over?! 😩😩😩 Please give us as many HCs as you want!

Of course they do 😏😩 I mean djsjs not all of them obviously. Hear me out

Jungkook is the BROKEST vampire ever. Because of his curse, he couldn’t ever get a real job which in return meant that he never aquired enough money to invest it in passive income. So that man is as broke as one could get jsjsjs.

Hobi has decent amount of money. He came from a upper middle class family and saved enough money to invest in a small passive income, which has gathered a good amount these days. But because he is still technically only in his sixties, his wealth is very much in human levels still.

Jimin is the third brokest vamp of the bunch. Example given: how he had to live while he was still persumed dead. I mean, one could argue that he was in hiding and didn’t want to risk getting found out, but there is also a good possibility that he is simply broke in vampire terms. Most property he owns, Tae either bought for him or they bought it together. And then there was also the whole part of where he had to live as Namjoon’s slave for centuries, so he didn’t really have alot of opportunity to, you know, buy property. He does have a very healthy sum on his bank accounts though, mostly because of the shared property with Tae and because Tae is tranferring him money on a monthly basis.

I would place Seokjin next. This man was already wealthy when he was still human and had two properties and some factories/warehouses as well as ships in his human years and he also invested in a lot of start-ups which bring in a lot of money these days. He is actually a huge stock holder in the mobile phone market and has his fingers in other techonological fields as well. For properties he owns the one Sanguis spent their "frat years" in, owns a house in South Korea and bought Emma her own shop in town so she could expand her perfume business. He also owns an apartment complex where he gets constant income. Fun fact? OC actually rented an apartment in the complex when she first moved here, which is why she never got in trouble for randomly stopping to pay rent. She and Seokjin laugh about the coincidence these days. He gets most of his money from his countless shares though.

And now this is where it gets hard to talk about because damn those vampires are RICH jdjdjs they're old, they've seen too much and they got way too much money to spend.

Taehyung I'd place third. He's both share holder in many businesses, owner of multiple art galleries and possesses property which is used commercially, as rentals or as his private escapes. So passive income is very much guaranteed on a constant. He owns a homely cottage in the Austrian Alps, owns a chateau at the coast of France and a small farm in the French countryside, owns a little Greek ocean house and invested in apartments in Paris, New York, Hong Kong as well as London. If he spends money he spends it on new property, promising shares and other investments. If he spends fun money he spends it on trips, whatever expensive item suits his taste, art and fashion. He also regularly wires money to Jimin and ever since recently, he opened two separate accounts for Jungkook and OC where he also makes monthly deposites. Trust that this man does not feel any change in his numbers with those new tranfers. And also that he LOVES spending his money most when he can spend it on his darlings.

And then there is Yoongi. Woof woof. I would say that he and Tae aren’t that far apart actually despite their age difference. One must consider though that eventhough Yoongi’s been alive for ages, it was rather difficult to make money which can still be used in the 21st century. You get me? He does own a lot of castles though from the earlier days. The one they all currently live in he bought around the time of the French Revolution, but he owns another castle in Romania and one in Germany. He also owns a town mansion in Geneva and has a penthouse in New York, which he never uses. He won’t ever mention it, but he owns a private island in the Carribbeans and treated himself to a very secluded cottage somewhere in the deepest Canadian forests. He also forgot about it already, but he owns property in South Korea and a villa in Osaka. It brings in money as they are both used as rentals, but Yoongi hasn’t set foot in either of them in decades. He gets most of his passive income through the various rentals he owns as well as being shareholder in some of the biggest markets these days. He also regularly buys property and sells it again to a higher price. Right now he plans on buying a house with OC close to Meredith's place and he also thinks about surprising OC with her own small plant shop in town. He doesn’t transfer to their accounts, but he never says no. If anyone of the family wants something, he'll get it for them no questions asked. He will also regularly hand over his black card with a nonchalant "don't look at the numbers, princess" and he genuinely gets pouty when she wants to pay for something when he’s with her. This man always pays even if she sometimes complains about it. And no sum is ever too big for him. You remember those 100€ he gave her in Paris for a cab? Yeah that was the equivalent to a few cents for him.

I don’t know where to put Namjoon on the list because being stolen of his powers and then hidden from the world kinda just cut him off from his wealth. You know? I do believe though that in his prime, he was the richest. And also the one who spent his money on the most fucked up shit.

[mnrpardiman]

AI Generated Essay

Title: Capitalism for the Poor, Socialism for the Rich

Introduction

In contemporary society, there exists a fundamental disparity in how economic systems are applied to different segments of the population. The statement "Capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich" captures the stark reality that while the lower classes are expected to navigate a capitalist landscape filled with risks and minimal support, the affluent enjoy various forms of social safety nets and governmental assistance. This essay argues that this imbalance fosters economic inequality, perpetuates systemic injustice, and undermines the foundational principles of a fair and equitable society.

The Burden of Capitalism on the Poor

Capitalism, by its nature, emphasizes competition and individualism. For the impoverished, this translates into limited access to resources and opportunities. Many low-income individuals find themselves in unstable jobs that offer little security and no benefits. They must contend with the burdens of healthcare costs, housing instability, and underfunded education systems. The expectation that the poor should rely on their laurels in a purely capitalist system is unrealistic when institutional barriers impede their ability to succeed. Furthermore, accessing capital—whether through loans or entrepreneurial ventures—is often more challenging for the poor, effectively trapping them in a cycle of poverty.

Socialism for the Rich

Conversely, the wealthy enjoy numerous privileges that highlight a socialist-like dependence on the government, often without the corresponding societal obligation. Tax incentives, corporate bailouts, and subsidies are prevalent in many capitalist economies. These measures function as a safety net for the rich, cushioning them from market failures and economic downturns. For instance, during the 2008 financial crisis, governments utilized taxpayer money to bail out major banks and corporations, a stark contrast to the lack of support extended to struggling families facing foreclosure or job loss. This selective application of support reveals a system that favors the wealthy while placing an undue burden on the poor.

The Cycle of Inequality

The disparity in support experienced by different socioeconomic classes perpetuates a cycle of inequality. While the wealthy are shielded by government policies that serve their interests, the poor are marginalized, often left to fend for themselves in an unforgiving capitalist system. This societal structure not only exacerbates economic divides but also diminishes social mobility. When individuals from low-income backgrounds lack access to education, healthcare, and job opportunities, their chances of breaking free from poverty diminish. Instead of fostering a meritocratic system where everyone has an equal chance, we perpetuate a cycle where privilege begets privilege, further entrenching social classes.

An Ethical Dilemma

The ethical implications of "capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich" cannot be overlooked. This duality creates a society where wealth and resources are inequitably distributed, giving rise to resentment and division. The belief that individuals should succeed solely through their efforts undermines the complex realities of systemic inequality. It places blame on the poor for their circumstances while exonerating the wealthy from accountability for the systems that allow them to prosper. Recognizing this disparity breeds a critical dialogue around the necessity of redistributive policies aimed at creating a more equitable society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the assertion that we practice "capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich" highlights a critical injustice within our economic systems. This reality not only places an unfair burden on the impoverished but also undermines the social contract that binds our communities together. To foster a fairer society, we must reevaluate our policies and structures to ensure that support and opportunities are equitably distributed across all socioeconomic classes. Only by addressing these disparities can we hope to create a system that truly reflects the ideals of both capitalism and socialism—where individuals can thrive based on their merit and hard work, rather than their social standing at birth.

[loomsolarblog]

How to Start a Successful Business within Small Investment

Many such new businesses have come up in self-reliant India, which can be started and earn good monthly earnings. Since 2022, many new businesses have been started such as ration shops, medical shops, small-scale manufacturing plants, online classes, etc. At the same time, there are many businesses whose pace has stopped, such as cash-sharing service businesses, tour and travel businesses, real estate businesses, mobile shops, technology companies, etc. People start businesses according to their investment and experience.

There is one such fast-growing industry in India in which people are looking at their future, and that is the solar industry. As soon as the name solar comes, you will understand that the business of solar panels is also known to people in Hindi solar plates and solar energy. It is used to make free electricity and electricity is needed in every house, factory, school, hospital, and office. So you must have guessed about its future growth.

Business opportunities

There are many business ideas in the solar industry, which can start and earn up to 1 lakh rupees a month. For this, small investment and penance are necessary so that you will be able to succeed in the solar business.

1. Dealership business

Those who are looking for a business where they want to earn more profit on less investment, then they can start a dealership business, in this you get a chance to start a business with very little investment and you can start from a home or small shop business.

2. Distributor Business

Those who are already doing a business and want to start something new in their business, then they can start a distributor business, in which they can start a business with any company.

Solar's business is growing at a rate of 3 times every year. Those who started this business as a dealer have become distributors of their district today and those who started as solar influencers are now running their own installation and own business. This would have given you an idea of what the future of the solar business will be like.

[workpermitz]

Is Getting A Job And A Work Permit In UK Difficult?

If you are wondering how I can get a work permit in the UK?, then this blog is the solution for you. 

Being the 6th largest economy in the world, the UK offers a thriving economy and world-class infrastructure. The immensely growing business, science, technology, healthcare, and education sector of the UK, provides the best employment and career opportunities. 

It might get a little exhausting sometimes to find the perfect job, but what's the taste of success if you don't have to struggle a little for it?

The increasing employment rate in the UK makes it so much easier to find that dream job. 

Is it difficult to get a UK work permit?

If you are applying for a UK Work Permit from a non-EU country, then getting a work permit is not straightforward, although it is not impossible.

To get a UK Work Permit, you need to fulfil a wide array of criteria, like getting a job offer from a UK-based employer, meeting certain points as per the point-based immigration system (we have explained this below in the article) and a lot of paperwork. 

It might seem a herculean task, but with the right approach and professional guidance, it is possible to land a UK Work Permit. 

Follow our guide to learn about all the details. It will make getting a UK Work Permit easy for you.

Challenges while applying for UK Work Permit

To get an approved UK Work Permit, you need to ensure to give the correct paperwork in order to prevent a refusal. The first challenge will be to get a job offer from a UK employer. This employer should be your sponsor. This is the first criteria while applying for a UK job permit.

Then there are a few other things which you should address to avoid a work permit rejection:

Irregular fund transfer

Incomplete form

Unclear visa category

Mistakes and illegible form

disorderly placed documents:

Inadequate funds to sustain 

How do you apply for a work permit in the UK?

Applying for a work permit is not that tough. You need to follow a few procedures to obtain your work permit. However, if you want to apply from another country, you must ensure that you have secured a full-time permanent job. 

Ask your respective employer to send you a letter of invitation that serves as proof of your employment and states that you are entitled to receive a salary. 

Ask the UK employer to send all the relevant documents and letters regarding the job so that you have all of them in paper format that will help to get the England work visa. 

Potential Sectors in the UK to find the Job

The UK has a vast economy that includes many potential sectors hiring numerous eligible candidates and offering full-time job opportunities with high-paying positions. The need for professionals in different sectors creates the demand for employment. These are:

IT Engineer

Mobile Developer

Recruiting Assistant

Conveyancing Assistant

CNC Machinist

Designer

Product Designer

Assistant Principal

Salon Assistant

If you want a high-paying job with enough growth prospects, we highly recommend you go after any of these job sectors and boost your career graph with them using an England work visa. You can even apply for these positions remotely and work from anywhere around the world.

How to get a Job in the UK?

Work Visa to get a Job

You will need to apply for a UK tier 2 visa to get a job and work permit in the UK. This visa allows you to stay in the UK and can easily apply for an eligible job in your desired occupation with an approved employer. 

The UK has introduced a new policy for the UK Work Permit and Visa Regulations. According to this, students with a bachelor's or master's degree are granted a work visa for two years only, and with a PhD Degree are granted a work visa for three years.

There are many Tier 2 visas available. You can opt for the one that matches your job requirement or the type of work you want.

Skilled worker visa

Health and care work visa

Senior or specialist worker visa

Minister of religion visa

International sportsperson visa

Points-based immigration system

With improved and advanced Visa Regulations and Policies, the UK now follows a  points-based immigration system to attract skilled professionals worldwide. In this, if a candidate scores a total of 70 minimum points, he is eligible to apply for the UK skilled worker visa for doing a job in the UK. The points grading system is based on the following criteria:

If you are offered a job letter from an approved sponsor in the UK.

The specified salary for that particular work.

Skills required for that job position.

If the specified occupation has a worker shortage in the UK.

What are the candidate's educational qualifications?

The candidate has a minimum IELTS score for uk work visa.

Seek Professional Help!

We hope that this guide has answered your question about how I can get a work permit in the UK and helped you to know how you can find a job in the UK without difficulties. 

However, if you are still perplexed about how to get the perfect job, you can contact Work Permitz for assistance and guidance. They will help you in your visa process and provide consultancy services.

[seooptimizacija]

Cpanel hosting

Cpanel web hosting is your best option

Cpanel Web Hosting - When looking for web hosting, I look for a few things. The first thing I want to see from my chosen web host is more value for my money. We all know that hosting is not the cheapest thing in the world.Features Well, I know that's true if I want quality hosting, but many hosts offer very little to justify any kind of cost. So I want features that will allow me to make the most of my money and offer my customers more for their money. cPanel does this for me. I have the ability to use one product, which carries so many different features, which allows me to give my customers the best.Ease of use I also look for ease of use. I certainly don't want to use a host that will require me to take classes just on how to use the software or control center. I need a host that allows me to easily manage all aspects of my website in a user-friendly way. cPanel can offer me this with its easy-to-use format that is fast and easy to understand.Benefits and opportunities In today's Internet world, users expect a lot of convenience and possibilities. This is something I have to give my customers if I expect them to join my business. This means that I have to be able to offer my customers unlimited options. With all the different operating systems available, I want to make sure my customers' needs are well served, and with cPanel, I can do just that.Automation One absolute necessity is automation. Without automation, my job is much harder. The whole point of creating an interesting business is that the Internet makes the world an easier place to shop, learn and serve surfers. I want a host that offers me solutions or lets me use my own. I need a host, like cPanel, that allows me to use any number of business tools for the success of my business.Flexibility Additionally, as offered with cPanel, I will need a flexible hosting package. I need to be able to add features, delete features, and customize my customers' viewing and purchasing experience as needed. I have a custom application that I want to use in my business; the host must have capabilities to support application integration.Finally, my host has to keep me updated on how my account and server are doing. If there is a problem with my account, I want to know. cPanel, send me emails or messages via instant messenger or even via my mobile phone if there are problems with the services, my account or the server. This is important because I don't always have time to log into the website to check the status. With these messages, I can always be sure that everything runs smoothly. Read the full article

[davidstfde]

Understanding Cybersecurity for Students

We all have probably heard about Cybersecurity and how it has become one of the issues with great concern over the years. But little do we think about it being a very serious threat to the education system of a society. In the year 2020, from the months of July to August, the Microsoft Global Threat Activity Tracker have detected more than 8 million malware incidents. And do you know which industry is the most affected? It is the Educational industry that has proved to be the most affected by malware incidents as per the Microsoft Global Threat Activity Tracker.

With technology being skyrocketing towards development, education has also upgraded to keep up with the trend. In the recent times, we can see how there has been a rush around the globe to adopt e-learning which has also exposed the field to an increasing cyberattack. More and more cybercriminals are finding opportunities to defraud learning institutions and schools, stealing sensitive information or deploying ransomware schemes to extort money.

According to FBI sources, many attackers are taking the advantage of the sudden transition to online learning because of the COVID-19. Even though online learning provides many positive opportunities for learners, it also becomes an important matter to strengthen cybersecurity defences.

In this article, we will discuss the information needed to identify common cyber threats for those who are associated with the education industry. We will also discuss the tips and best practices to follow that will help you keep yourself and your institution safe.

Cybersecurity for Students

Online learning has become a common mode of education in the recent times and much malicious cyber activity has affected students in a variety of ways. According to Education Technology, after the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of potential attackers has increased.

What are the Cyber Threats for Students?

Before we go forward discussing on how to keep ourselves safe from Cyberattacks, we need to have a strong understanding of the threats that are faced by today’s students in their day to day life. Here are some of the attacks that you as students need to be aware of:

Data Theft: As per reports from CNBC, the attackers know very well that students often have a lack of proper understanding of how to take care of their financial data which they put online for the first time. Experts say that hackers can use this data for identity theft, credit fraud and many more.

Malware in Mobile: Researchers have found that attackers target mobile phones mostly. As students have found all the facilities on their mobile phones they have started to move from desktops to the smartphone. This is why students must be very cautious while using it.

Camfecting: Many students nowadays use their smartphones to do their online classes. With a webcam and camera built-in into their phones, students found it more accessible to deal with their studies. But the most important thing that students do not know is that this opens the doors to camfecting which allows hackers to remotely access and take control over the camera.

Malicious Social Media Messaging: Facebook and WhatsApp are two such social media messaging platforms that are prone to be attacked by cyber attackers. According to various studies, hackers took full advantage of the pandemic and post-pandemic situation and lured victims to phishing websites which may lead to misuse of personal information. According to a study on cybersecurity threats amid the COVID-19 pandemic, hackers are taking advantage of platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp with scams to lure victims to phishing websites, which can compromise personal information.

Social Engineering: Among the many cyber attacks social engineering scams are among the top cybersecurity threats faced by higher education students, as per research by EducationDive. These social engineering attacks rely on manipulating users into revealing confidential information.

Tips for Students for Cybersecurity

Cyber attackers nowadays are constantly discovering new ways and strategies to attack users on the digital platforms. It is extremely important to protect yourself from these serious threats. Here are five cybersecurity tips that will help you protect yourself from these cyber attacks.

Keep your software up to date: Always be sure that you keep your mobile phones and other devices up to date. This means that it will update all the software on your devices. Out of date software can put you at risk and become the victim of these cyber attacks.

Do not share personal information: Be careful about what you are sharing on social media. Sharing personal contact numbers, addresses, school addresses, email IDs etc can put you at high risk.

Install Virus Protection: Antivirus or virus protection protects your smartphones and laptop/desktops from malicious cyber activity. Virus protection with anti-phishing support on your device will keep you safe online. Make sure that you keep scanning your devices if any virus attacks have been made. Make sure that you check at least once a week.

Do not click unrecognised links: Do not click on unrecognised website links that you find popping up on your phones and computers. These ads that show up on our devices from untrusted sources can host malware that will install and risk your digital security.

Stay on Guard for Phishing: Always stay cautious that you do not open any kind of email attachments from untrusted sources. Surely there might be emails from friends and teachers but always keep yourself alert to use caution while opening any kind of attachments.

There are also necessary steps that we can take for safeguarding ourselves from Cyberattacks at home. As parents, a child’s protection is above everything else.

Parents are children’s best protection against the threats that are found online. There are ways by which you can protect your child from being the victim of cyberattacks.

As a parent, you are your child’s best protection against online threats like those mentioned above. Here are five steps that you can start following with your child today.

Maintaining online privacy protection: Make sure that you have taught your child how to password-protect their devices in their online accounts. Explain to them why creating strong passwords is important and that they should never share their passwords with anyone outside the household.

Identity protection and location: Always remember that you must remind your child to disable photo geotagging if they use Android and iPhone and remind them not to share any personal information online like age, address of the school, phone number or any other identifiable data.

Use Secure WiFi: Always ensure that your home’s wifi includes encryption and a strong password that restricts access outside your space. Share your WiFi password only with those that you know and trust.

Make use of parental controls: Many parents give their kids their first digital devices like Tablets and smartphones at a very young age when they do not even understand the power in their hands. So start using the built-in parental control features that will help parents monitor their children’s usage as early as possible.

Understanding cybersecurity is a very essential part of our lives. Especially in today’s world where everything is getting digitalised. Therefore we must make sure that we remain aware of the cyber threats that we might become victims of and avoid falling prey to the cyber attackers.

About SFS School, Guwahati

SFS Guwahati is one of the best Private CBSE School in Guwahati with Integrated Coaching, awarded with the “Certificate of Excellence” by Bharat Shiksha Puraskar and Ranked №24 across India for “Mental Health” Ranking 2021

[ragunath12]

NFT marketplace development, where to start?

“On a blockchain stage, another NFT Marketplace for artist has been introduced”.

Do you know what NFTs are, what they are used for, and whether or not NFT marketplaces can be developed? What exactly does this technology consist of when we talk about digital assets that are revolutionizing the virtual world’s collection of art and goods?

What does NFT mean?

Even though you can photograph Las Meninas by Velázquez using a mobile device, you do not automatically become the owner of this artwork. Previously, having a painting in your home established your ownership of it, and this was previously justified with certificates. But that painting might be damaged, stolen, or even faked. You can ensure that a work is yours and is immutably registered with the blockchain using NFT marketplace development , a part of the blockchain technology. The term “NFT” stands for “Non Fungible Tokens,” and it describes digital versions of works of art or any other tangible or intangible product that consumers place value on. Thanks to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, these assets have risen significantly in recent years. But what do these stores of value actually consist of? In most cases, the value of NFTs is found in something we cannot see or touch. It differs from the value we have traditionally assigned to material possessions like gold or works of art. A collection of Pokemon cards is a good example of how to acquire Non Fungible Tokens because they are more centered on collecting. The influencer Logan Paul did this on February 19, 2021, when he moved 3,000 NFTs from one of his works to this new location. What other uses can they have besides providing a great opportunity for art-related entrepreneurs?

Blockchain technology used in the field of art.

It is no accident that prominent businessmen like Mark Cuban have staked money on this class of digital asset. Artworks are regarded as assets, which is the first thing we must comprehend. Since it depends on what people would be willing to pay for it, the value of a painting you possess might be a very illusive idea. He is worth 2 million euros if someone is willing to pay that amount. Despite the lengthy history of this art market, the use of blockchain technology there is a real innovation. It is a decentralized method of tracking the ownership of each asset, with each asset’s purchase for instance being registered in the system’s various nodes, computers, and servers. It is also noted that you are the sole owner of that bitcoin at the same time, allowing us to confirm ownership of a given item. In the past, there was only one server in centralized databases that could verify your ownership of a certain item. That server’s vulnerability makes it problematic for anyone to hack. This task is virtually impossible with blockchain because it cannot be changed. Digital works can be created and proof that you are the owner of that digital asset is now possible thanks to the use of this technology in the art world. It can be sold to others, and its value will probably rise over time. NFT makes it possible to improve the relationship between artists and their fans. DEVELOPMENT OF NFT MARKETPLACE Withblockchain technology! Knowing a little bit more about this technology, we can now inform you that marketplaces and oriented platforms can be created to connect creators, designers, and artists with their audience from anywhere in the world. Its capitalization has increased recently, making the NFT marketplace development service as effective and promising for the future. Many businesses are stepping up to tokenize their own NFTs. We list a few features here:.

Since the majority of marketplaces use the Ethereum network (blockchain), its development requires building a non-fungible token protocol on that platform.

The system incorporates smart contract systems.

Any user can make a profile, download their wallets, and store NFTs once the Marketplace is ready.

Make your own digital wallet (Wallet).

Dedicatedly plan out your project.

OpenSea and Rarible are just a couple of the platforms that are already available on the market for making, purchasing, and selling NFTs. However, these platforms are constantly evolving and more and more niche platforms are entering the market.

Do you want to make your own?

Benefits of expanding NFT markets. The following are the main advantages of these platforms:.

They’re simple to use.

They promise transactions that are completely secure.

It seamlessly incorporates the electronic portfolio.

They make it possible for you to efficiently log transactions.

Transaction costs are reduced.

They reduce the cost of shipping, storing, etc.

Less money is spent on production.

There are specialists in the creation of NFT marketplace platform development who can aid you in your endeavors, despite the fact that they do have some drawbacks, such as the difficulty of their technical limitations. The blockchain, or chain of blocks, is what lies behind NFTs. They are purchased with cryptocurrencies and kept in wallets. You need to have this virtual wallet in order to be able to store them. It’s important to keep in mind that ownership, not digital artwork, domains, or collectible stamps, is what is purchased and sold with NFTs. Tell us what you think about the creation of NFT marketplaces and whether or not you believe that NFTs present a viable opportunity for e-commerce.

[loucutie]

super depressed and in pain bc it’s 38 degrees out and i physically can’t do anything when it’s cold like my body is Stiff and it fucking sucks and i took my adderall this morning bc it helps distract from pain but i’m also just so throughly depressed like i’m 24 and i can’t do anything without assistance in some capacity. i always feel like a burden and i drain everyone around me i feel like a bottomless pit of take take take and no matter how much my partner or my family or friends say i’m ok i feel useless. i can’t drive, i haven’t gone to college yet, i don’t have skills, i can only work a job for so long before i get fired or quit bc of my pain. i lost the house i grew up in after grandma died and my mom was getting paid to take care of her so she lost her mom and her job and i feel responsible. i got sick in middle school and she was in her last rotation for dental assisting but she left school to help me bc i couldn’t get out of bed without physical assistance. she could’ve had a career and financial freedom but she left school to take care of me full time and i carry that with me everyday. my dream is have a history doctorate i want to study archiving i want curate entire exhibits. i haven’t even gone to community college. i tried but had to fail out bc of attendance. professors were unwilling to prerecord lectures or even let me attend virtually. that’s why seeing how quickly schools made accommodations for virtual learning made me so angry. the exact protocols for online learning especially in the area i went to school are things my mom and i spent my whole high school career fighting for. when i requested to be able to zoom into class i was told it was ridiculous and it was just never going to happen but flash forward 2 years and it suddenly matters to accommodate able bodied students. location shouldn’t stop a child from learning! but it didn’t matter when it was me bc i’m already a lost cause. black, poor, physically disabled, why should we help her pass? it’s not like she’ll make anything of her self so let’s not waste the resources. i graduated by the skin of my teeth. i start working at a second hand teen clothing store (iykyk) it’s great and they’re willing to accommodate my needs. i work there for years but my body gave out and i couldn’t pretend to be “normal” so even with all the accommodations i still had to leave bc i couldn’t handle it. i apply for community college and it’s great for a while until my professors decide not to accommodate me anymore. one of my professors is also disabled. he had no interest in my 504 plan. i emailed him my dr note for missing class a couple days in a row and he emailed me back saying essentially he can’t worry about me and even if i have notes he refuses to record his lecture and so any info i miss is my problem. i asked what i could do to make my accommodations easier for him. keep in mind this is a cis white man who also uses mobility aids. he told me that i need to help myself more and stop relying on others. at the same time i’m also being medicated for my adhd for the first time and trying to adjust. i asked my english teacher for extra explanation on an assignment and she took every single opportunity to belittle me. i even explained my recent diagnosis and she said that if it’s not on my 504 she does t have to do anything about it and told me to ask classmates about it. she constantly critiqued without teaching us how to do better. a truly vile woman who is def racist (like when she failed my paper on the angry black woman stereotype bc “i don’t understand how being powerful and strong could be a negative thing. women have been seen a delicate and too weak to do anything so this must just be something you made up” and in the next essay prompt she put a little not that said not to talk about taxes or religion or social justice bc “my taxes are high enough.” like she writes grants for the hospital in the area which is terrifying. a racist writing grant for a hospital that has a history of profiling it’s patients.)

all of this to say i’m having the worst time with self worth and confidence in my abilities. i don’t have anything to show for living this long i can’t even drive a car or cook that well or move around when the weather is cold. laying in bed for rest is the most isolating experience. when i was a kid my days were just taking medication that would make me sleep for hours, wake up to eat something and watch animal cops, take more medicine, and fall back asleep. it was truly the worst experience of my life. i lost so many friends and even family bc i couldn’t physically get out of bed.

this pain has taken everything from me and so tired. i want to do something with my life but i’m terrified i’ll have to give it up bc i can’t stand for too long or be in cold temps too long or bend over or lift anything heavy. it’s so isolating. my partner is helpless when i’m having a bad pain day bc she’s a doctor but knows she can’t do anything for me in the moment. i know how much of a burden my disability is on my friends and family and i hate myself so much for it. i’m grateful they love me but i don’t want to trap them in this with me. they say they don’t mind but can see the toll it takes on them. i hate seeing my partner cry bc i’m in so much pain and she can’t do anything. i feel so guilty when she gets home from work and has to help me bc i couldn’t get out of bed all day. i feel like i’ve been afforded too much kind that i didn’t earn. all i do is ask for help or hurt myself trying to do it myself. both are humiliating in completely different ways.

i’m so exhausted like physically mentally emotionally exhausted.

[acedumbb]

(I wrote this in 10 minutes, so it must be horribly translated, sorry about that :((( )

(My best attempt at a one shot soft, let it show I'm terrible at shit sfw)

(HELP I NEVER USE TUMBLR FROM MOBILE AAAAAA)

A One Shot of Jotaro pt3 in love with a gentle Male!Reader.

cw;; smoking, slight mention of anxiety problems.

(y/n) had always been kind, charismatic and gentle, that is why he had earned the place as one of the most popular in the class, but he had never had as many people behind him as Jotaro Kujo did, he wanted to know his secret, how did he captivate so many people like that? So when he found out not only that he had a stand but that he was going to Egypt to fight other Stand users, he did not hesitate to volunteer.

At first (y/n) was jealous of JoJo's position, but after a while he realized that he was only curious about him, a mysterious attraction that forced him to keep an eye on the black-haired man all the time, he wanted to know what he was thinking, so it was clear that that was his goal, to read Jotaro Kujo's mind, to know what his way of seeing the world was, to understand his way of thinking, something that many would give as an impossible goal.

Surprisingly, he managed to win the trust and favor of the Crusaders easily, he even started to get along with them, and his impossible goal to read JoJo's mind was past history, he had completely forgotten it, now he was only there for them. Because it would be an injustice for Jotaro's mother to die like that, he wanted to help them.

And over time he joined the group, pranking others with Polnareff, playing video games with Kakyoin, and Joseph and Avdol always had something to discuss as a group, so of course, even though he had forgotten his previous goal, he still had reason to want to. get closer to JoJo.

Of course, when he had the opportunity to spend one night sharing a hotel room with Jotaro I do not doubt it and accept it, until now they had not had many dialogues, although he did not doubt that Jotaro felt something similar to him, since there not ​had been few occasions in which he had noticed the special attention that the black-haired man paid him at all times

— Jotaro, these are not hours to smoke..

— That does not concern you.

He sighed deeply, he was a bit bothered by the frequency with which the boy smoked, not only did he do it, which was bad in itself, but also that he was able to smoke several packs a day, which if he continued like this would seriously ruin his health.

— Why do you do it?

— Uhm? Do what?

— Smoking, people smoke when they feel bad, so I wanted to know if... you feel bad right now...

— ...Not right now.

(y/n) realized that as the opposite face was blushing, putting out the cigarette he had in his mouth, Jotaro lowered his cap a little, trying to hide his blush.

— ...I have an idea, if you feel bad, you can tell me, and I will try to cheer you up, so you won't feel so bad, what do you think?

So they quietly signed a contract, whenever Kujo needs it he would be there, inevitably both were excited about that, although the way they showed it was different.

So the days passed, against more enemies they fought, and at that moment they had thought of eating in a restaurant before going to the hotel, but Jotaro refused the food and went to his room directly, Joseph did not mind that, (y/n) wanted to accompany the boy since they both shared a room.

— JoJo?

Jotaro felt a chill when he heard the other's soft voice, he shrunk a little, he had gone out to smoke on the balcony of the room, he was somewhat ashamed that (y/n) will find him smoking, although of course, he would have been more ashamed tell him I was a little anxious.

— You're smoking? Bad boy, don't you remember what we talked about?

He jumped a bit from surprise when he felt that the minor was holding his hand, specifically the one he used to hold the cigarette, gently (y/n) slid over to the cigarette, grabbing it and then pulling it down, leaving Jotaro paralyzed, no one in his entire life, had ever dared to hold his hand, much less take a cigarette from his hands, it was something so new that he felt stupid respect for the contrary.

— What are you..?!

It seems that that was not the only thing that (y/n) was going to do for him that night, since he helped himself with his own stand to climb the balcony railing, sitting there to be at the imposing height of the black-haired man, (y/n) smiled sweetly with those thin lips that he had, a gesture that seemed terribly sexy to JoJo, as if he wanted to tempt him to do something very inappropriate for him.

— Jotaro, silly, don't ever make me do that again, I thought you'd make Star Platinum beat me up!

— What..?! But then don't do that again!

He became paralyzed again when he heard a slight laugh from the minor, who covered his mouth slightly to avoid laughing more, then did something that the black-haired man did not expect, he opened his arms and legs, inviting on the contrary to give him a good hug.

— I know you are not the type of person who likes to worry others with their problems, so I will spare myself from trying to ask you what it is that torments you, and I will jump to the part where I tell you that a hug cures all ills!

— Yare yare daze, you're crazy..

— Come on JoJo! It's just a hug, silly, I don't bite, at least not you.

Jotaro stayed in place for a few seconds, then he gave a long sigh, and to the incredible surprise of (y/n), JoJo hugged him tightly, burying his head on the opposite neck.

— Don't tell anyone about this, if you do I will kill you.

Jotaro was delighted with another of the boy's beautiful laughs, (y/n) also became more attached, relaxing with the smell of perfume that the younger man gave off, he surrounded him with his legs as best he could, it was a compromising position, of course, but at that moment, both they got so comfortable with each other that they didn't even think about it.

— ...Thanks, (y/n).

(...oh hell now i know what "cw" means!!!1!1!11!!1)

[vkelleyart]

Thoughts on fandom: inclusion and engagement.

(Art credit to the kindhearted @penpanoply​!)

There’s been some stuff floating around on Tumblr about strife in the CO/WS fandom, and though I haven’t been explicitly named-dropped on anything public, my DMs have been... active. lol Rather than rehash what’s been said already, I just want to impart a little wisdom and perspective in the hopes it may soothe frayed feelings and offer a way ahead for cultivating a respectful community. As someone who has been an active participant in online fandoms since the mid-’90s, which was the advent of online fandom content creation (shout out to my fellow X-Philes!), and who has also spent a chunk of her professional life managing social media for the federal government and for activist groups, I can promise you it’s all gonna be okay.

Here’s some context for why strife happens and what we can do to create a more inclusive and communicative fandom environment. 

1) It sounds cliché, but fandoms go through growing pains. 

In the case of the Simon Snow fandom, what was once a small and cozy space untouched by cataclysmic events (such as the release of *gasp* a sequel) has grown exponentially in a relatively short amount of time following the release of Wayward Son. Newcomers are eager to find a home in this space at the same time as folks who’ve been here a while may be consciously or unconsciously wary about widening their circle, and It’s important to remember that this is not necessarily an expression of bad behavior on either side but just human psychology doing its thing. 

The byproduct, however, is that tension and stress builds over time from the lack of meaningful communication across the divide, which subsequently fuels misunderstandings. Ironically, the interfaces we use to communicate don’t help with this because any existing communication about the tension happens in tiny vacuums until a trigger goes off and bad feelings go public. 

Way Ahead: These moments of destabilization are opportunities to see where we can be more self aware about how we engage with fandom and the kind of community we want to be. Can you promote, support, or befriend someone trying to gain a foothold? If yes, please do! Each person must reach their own decision about what they can do within the confines of their available energy, health, and time, but a little self awareness goes a long way as long as you’re honest with yourself and others if applicable about what you can contribute. Anyone who judges you for it isn’t worth the strife.

2) In a fandom comprised of vulnerable/marginalized people, it’s more accurate to say that cliques are “bubbles of trust.”

This one's important. Just by nature of the source material, the CO/WS fandom includes fans with a wide array of backgrounds and experiences, especially when it comes to those who identify with the characters’ queerness, mental illness, and/or trauma. I really believe––based on individual conversations/group chats––that the difficult lived experiences that so many of our fandom peers have endured has produced one of the most open, aware, and accepting fandoms I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. Our vulnerability is, in a real way, our strength.

That said, a community of survivors also has the side effect of cultivating small circles of engagement that I call “bubbles of trust.” When you’re a survivor of abuse, marginalization, mental illness, fill-in-the-blank, it’s often quite hard to risk casting a wide net and expanding your circle to include new faces––which can subsequently be internalized by equally sensitive and vulnerable newcomers as rejection, judgement, or inadequacy.

Way Ahead: First of all, there may indeed be gatekeeping and exclusion going on. But before internalizing someone’s cagey behavior as gatekeeping or purposely exclusionary, ask yourself if you have all the information. Many people are private (I include myself in this assessment) because life has regrettably taught them to be this way, and so they may insulate themselves to a small group of people who have earned their trust. Some people might also triggered by certain content (case in point: smut triggers my anxiety) so they don’t engage with it. Others might have something in their pasts that define how they handle certain subjects (for example, a person of color should not be tone policed for getting angry when confronted with a racialized microagression, however accidental it was). You just don’t know what you don’t know. 

The solution here is to regularly check your privilege and ask questions in a private space if you sense you’re being treated unfairly by someone. If you go public with your grievances in hopes of mobilizing the mob, you may accidentally find yourself stepping into the role of the aggressor instead of the victim.

3) Social Media is not built to help you get engagement. It’s built to help itself make money off of you.

Repeat after me: Hits/likes are not a measurable indicator of talent or worth. There are ridiculously talented folks on Tumblr and elsewhere who, for whatever reason, haven’t had their viral moment, and it’s not their fault. Loads of factors come into play where things like likes, reblogs, and comments are concerned, among them being posting frequency, subject matter, the time of day, the day of the week, the week of the month, the month of the year, the current administration, the stock exchange, the concentration of middle class users, who just won the Superbowl, a madman trying to steal an election and undermine the democratic process, a PANDEMIC, do you get where I’m going with this?? lol

At the end of the day, my humble successes have been helped along by good luck, good timing, high profile signal boosters, and an absurd amount of work. (This is why I try to signal boost new work whenever I get a chance over at @vkelleyshares.) 

So while you cannot control Tumblr’s interface, trends at large, or your fellow users, here’s what you can do to ensure you give your work the best possible chance of exposure.

Have an image ready to go with your post. Tumblr is a visual platform (no matter what it says about being good for text). Not good with images? Set up a Canva.com account and get access to free graphic software with a gazillion templates to create whatever attractive image you want to attach to your post.

Keep the outward facing text brief and easy on the eyes. Too long and eyes will glaze over. Put excess text behind a “read more.”

You may think you’re being cute when you do this, but don’t put yourself down in your posts. (Don’t put yourself down in general, of course.) Doing so acts as engagement repellant. If you don’t believe in your work, no one else will.

Related: Be your best cheerleader. Confidence is a magnet, and if you don’t have it, go ahead and fake it until you start to convince yourself you are worth the buzz. So promote yourself! You have gifts that only you can impart. Use that knowledge to fuel everything you do from your art/fiction writing to your outreach with other content creators, and by golly, if someone’s done it already, acknowledge that contribution and then tell the world that this is YOUR unique take on it.

Treat your fellow fandom creators as human beings, not art/fiction/content boosting machines. I cannot count how many times I’ve had folks slide into my DMs with offers of friendship only to disappear once they realize I’m not available to draw a picture for their fic. It hurts because it’s manipulative and it makes me want to hole up and not signal boost anyone. Creators who truly support each other will not give off a transactional vibe. I want to help you reach more people, but not if that’s all I’m good for in your eyes. 

The long and short of it: Lead with compassion, do your best with the opportunities at  your disposal, and remember that fandom belongs to everyone in it. ❤️

What saves a fandom made of sensitive and vulnerable souls from imploding when it goes through growing pains is radical compassion from those who can offer it. Begin with the assumption that your fellow fandomers are not trying to harm you, and wade into the water knowing that your insight into the lives of your peers is limited by default and you may need to temper your words or actions accordingly. If you’re a content creator, save compassion for yourself as well, as there are indeed challenges to gaining an audience, and lack of engagement does not mean you lack talent or skill. Be your best advocate, and if you have the bandwidth to lift up a fellow creator and make a new friend, please, go ahead do it! 

And finally, fandom belongs to everyone, and no one has a monopoly on characters, tropes, or themes. Create and consume what you love (with respect for your more vulnerable peers), and bask in the variety, my friends!

That’s all I’ve got in my head at the moment, although I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. Thanks so much to @penpanoply for letting me use her art for this and to everyone else, hang in there and try not to judge each other too harshly. These are unprecedented times, and most of us are doing our best in circumstances that are pushing us to our limits. 

As always, if you have questions or want to sound off on anything, shoot me a message or an ask, or ping me on Discord. It might take me a second to respond (thanks, Covid) but I’ll get to it! Love, love, and more love to all.

[gwynsplainer]

On The Grinning Man and the De-Politicization of L'Homme Qui Rit (a Spontaneous Essay)

Since I watched The Grinning Man I’ve been meaning to write a post comparing it to The Man Who Laughs but I have a lot of opinions and analysis I wanted to do so I have been putting it off for ages. So here goes! If I were to make a post where I explain everything the musical changes it would definitely go over the word limit, so I’ll mostly stick to the thematic. Let me know if that’s a post you’d like to see, though!

Ultimately, The Grinning Man isn’t really an adaptation of the Man Who Laughs. It keeps some of the major plot beats (a disfigured young man with a mysterious past raised by a man and his wolf to perform to make a living alongside the blind girl he rescued from the snow, restored to his aristocratic past by chance after their show is seen by Lord David and Duchess Josiana, and the interference of the scheming Barkilphedro…. well, that’s just about it). The problem I had with the show, however, wasn’t the plot points not syncing up, it was the thematic inconsistency with the book. By replacing the book’s antagonistic act—the existence of a privileged ruling class—with the actions of one or two individuals from the lower class, transforming the societal tragedy into a revenge plot, and reducing the pain of dehumanization and abuse to the pain of a physical wound, The Grinning Man is a sanitized, thematically weak failure to adapt The Man Who Laughs.

I think the main change is related to the reason I posit the book never made it in the English-speaking world. The musical was made in England, the setting of the book which was so critical of its monarchy, it’s aristocracy, and the failings of its society in ways that really haven’t been remedied so far. It might be a bit of a jump to assume this is connected, but I have evidence. They refer to it as a place somewhat like our own, but change King James to King Clarence, and Queen Anne to Angelica. Obviously, the events of the book are fictional, and it was a weird move for Hugo to implicate real historical figures as responsible for the torture of a child, but it clearly served a purpose in his political criticism that the creative team made a choice to erase. They didn’t just change the names, though, they replaced the responsibility completely. In the book, Gwynplaine’s disfigurement—I will be referring to him as Gwynplaine because I think the musical calling him Grinpayne was an incredibly stupid and cruel choice—was done to him very deliberately, with malice aforethought, at the order of the king. The king represents the oppression of the privileged, and having the fault be all Barkilphédro loses a lot thematically. The antagonism of the rich is replaced by the cruelty of an upwardly mobile poor man (Barkilphédro), and the complicity of another poor man.

The other “villain” of the original story is the way that Gwynplaine is treated. I think for 1869, this was a very ahead-of-its-time approach to disability, which almost resembles the contemporary understanding of the Social Model of disability. (Sidenote: I can’t argue on Déa’s behalf. Hugo really dropped the ball with her. I’m going to take a moment to shout out the musical for the strength and agency they gave Déa.) The way the public treats Gwynplaine was kind of absent from the show. I thought it was a very interesting and potentially good choice to have the audience enter the role of Gwynplaine’s audience (the first they see of him is onstage, performing as the Grinning Man) rather than the role of the reader (where we first see him as a child, fleeing a storm). If done right, this could have explored the story’s theme of our tendency to place our empathy on hold in order to be distracted and feel good, eventually returning to critique the audience’s complicity in Gwynplaine’s treatment. However, since Grinpayne’s suffering is primarily based in the angst caused by his missing past and the physical pain of his wound (long-healed into a network of scars in the book) [a quick side-note: I think it was refreshing to see chronic pain appear in media, you almost never see that, but I wish it wasn’t in place of the depth of the original story], the audience does not have to confront their role in his pain. They hardly play one. Instead, it is Barkilphédro, the singular villain, who is responsible for Grinpayne’s suffering. Absolving the audience and the systems of power which put us comfortably in our seats to watch the show of pain and misery by relegating responsibility to one character, the audience gets to go home feeling good.

If you want to stretch, the villain of the Grinning Man could be two people and not one. It doesn’t really matter, since it still comes back to individual fault, not even the individual fault of a person of high status, but one or two poor people. Musical!Ursus is an infinitely shittier person than his literary counterpart. In the book, Gwynplaine is still forced to perform spectacles that show off his appearance, but they’re a lot less personal and a lot less retraumatizing. In the musical, they randomly decided that not only would the role of the rich in the suffering of the poor be minimized, but also it would be poor people that hurt Grinpayne the most. Musical!Ursus idly allows a boy to be mutilated and then takes him in and forces him to perform a sanitized version of his own trauma while trying to convince him that he just needs to move on. In the book, he is much kinder. Their show, Chaos Vanquished, also allows him to show off as an acrobat and a singer, along with Déa, whose blindness isn’t exploited for the show at all. He performs because he needs to for them all to survive. He lives a complex life like real people do, of misery and joy. He’s not obsessed with “descanting on his own deformity” (dark shoutout to William Shakespeare for that little…infuriating line from Richard III), but rather thoughtfully aware of what it means. He deeply feels the reality of how he is seen and treated. Gwynplaine understands that he was hurt by the people who discarded him for looking different and for being poor, and he fucking goes off about it in the Parliament Confrontation scene (more to come on this). It is not a lesson he has to learn but a lesson he has to teach.

Grinpayne, on the other hand, spends his days in agony over his inability to recall who disfigured him, and his burning need to seek revenge. To me, this feels more than a little reminiscent of the trope of the Search for a Cure which is so pervasive in media portrayals of disability, in which disabled characters are able to think of nothing but how terribly wrong their lives went upon becoming disabled and plan out how they might rectify this. Grinpayne wants to avenge his mutilation. Gwynplaine wants to fix society. Sure, he decides to take the high road and not do this, and his learning is a valuable part of the musical’s story, but I think there’s something so awesome about how the book shows a disabled man who understands his life better than any abled mentor-philosophers who try to tell him how to feel. Nor is Gwynplaine fixed by Déa or vice versa, they merely find solace and strength in each other’s company and solidarity. The musical uses a lot of language about love making their bodies whole which feels off-base to me.

I must also note how deeply subversive the book was for making him actually happy: despite the pain he feels, he is able to enjoy his life in the company and solidarity he finds with Déa and takes pride in his ability to provide for her. The assumption that he should want to change his lot in life is not only directly addressed, but also stated outright as a failure of the audience: “You may think that had the offer been made to him to remove his deformity he would have grasped at it. Yet he would have refused it emphatically…Without his rictus… Déa would perhaps not have had bread every day”

He has a found family that he loves and that loves him. I thought having him come from a loving ~Noble~ family that meant more to him than Ursus did rather than having Ursus, a poor old man, be the most he had of a family in all his memory and having Déa end up being Ursus’ biological daughter really undercut the found family aspect of the book in a disappointing way.

Most important to me was the fundamental change that came from the removal of the Parliament Confrontation scene, on both the themes of the show and the character of Gwynplaine. When Gwyn’s heritage is revealed and his peerage is restored to him, he gets the opportunity to confront society’s problems in the House of Parliament. When Gwynplaine arrives in the House of Parliament, the Peers of England are voting on what inordinate sum to allow as income to the husband of the Queen. The Peers expect any patriotic member of their ranks to blithely agree to this vote: in essence, it is a courtesy. Having grown up in extreme poverty, Gwynplaine is outraged by the pettiness of this vote and votes no. The Peers, shocked by this transgression, allow him to take the stand and explain himself. In this scene, Gwynplaine brilliantly and profoundly confronts the evils of society. He shows the Peers their own shame, recounting how in his darkest times a “pauper nourished him” while a “king mutilated him.” Even though he says nothing remotely funny, he is received with howling laughter. This scene does a really good job framing disability as a problem of a corrupt, compassionless society rather than something wrong with the disabled individual (again, see the Social Model of disability, which is obviously flawed, but does a good job recognizing society that denies access, understanding and compassion—the kind not built on pity—as a central problem faced by disabled communities). It is the central moment of Hugo’s story thematically, which calls out the injustices in a system and forces the reader to reckon with it.

It is so radical and interesting and full that Gwynplaine is as brilliant and aware as he is. He sees himself as a part of a system of cruelty and seeks justice for it. He is an empathic, sharp-minded person who seeks to make things better not just for himself and his family, but for all who suffer as he did at the hands of Kings. Grinpayne’s rallying cry is “I will find and kill the man who crucified my face.” He later gets wise to the nature of life and abandons this, but in that he never actually gets to control his own relationship to his life. When I took a class about disability in the media one of the things that seemed to stand out to me most is that disabled people should be treated as the experts on their own experiences, which Gwynplaine is. Again, for a book written in 1869 that is radical. Grinpayne is soothed into understanding by the memory of his (rich) mother’s kindness.

I’ll give one more point of credit. I loved that there was a happy ending. But maybe that’s just me. The cast was stellar, and the puppetry was magnificent. I wanted to like the show so badly, but I just couldn’t get behind what it did to the story I loved.

[ravennm84]

Lyre Festival Justice

Here is the sequel to Lyre Festival Fraud where you get to see exactly what happened to Lila during her long weekend after she went back to Italy. I thought, at first, that I may have gone to far with the salt... But it’s Lila and I really don’t like her character. So, Warm-Fuzzies and enjoy this salty goodness!!

It was a beautiful day in Rome and Lila was enjoying her shopping spree around the city. She and her mother had spent the first few days after moving back to Italy unpacking and getting settled. It was Sunday, and her mother had to go to the embassy to make sure that all of her paperwork had transferred from Paris, which gave Lila the opportunity to spend the money she’d gotten from the idiots from her old class. Really, she couldn’t believe how stupid they all were to have just handed her over €2,000 for a luxury vacation in Venice. She should have gotten at least €3,000 from the class, but that Mari-brat and stick-in-the-mud Adrien had convinced some of them that she was lying. Oh well, €2,000 was better than nothing.

Best part, none of it could be traced back to her. They travelled to Venice on their own, nothing had been written down, her old mobile phone was disconnected and in a landfill somewhere, and she would just tell her mother that she had gotten all her new clothes at a thrift shop she remembered from the last time they’d been living in Rome. And if the idiots got in trouble and tried to say that she was involved, she’d turn on the tears and her mother would side with her like she always did. Seeing a little cafe, she stopped in to get a good cappuccino, it had been too long since she’d had a deceit cup of coffee.

It was mid afternoon by the time she got home. She had made a stop at the thrift store to grab a couple of their shopping bags to hide the real ones inside. It felt wrong to put a Versace skirt in a bargain bag, but one does what one must to keep her life going smoothly. Opening the door to the apartment, she barely caught sight of her mother sitting on the couch before Lila started gushing about how great it was to be back in Italy and all the things she’d missed. 

She prattled on for a couple minutes before noticing that her mother hadn’t said anything. Turning to look at her, Lila flinched when she saw her. Something was seriously wrong, the last time she had seen her mother so angry was when she’d told her that her dad was cheating on her. That hadn’t been true but they had ended up getting divorced anyway, which was to Lila’s benefit since the man had always called her out on her lies.

“Is everything okay, Mama?” She asked cautiously, doing her best to sound and appear small and innocent.

“Sit down.”

Her tone left no room for argument. Lila set down her bags and sat in the chair across from her mother.

“Mama, wha-”

“Be quiet!” She snapped, and Lila shut her mouth. This actually seemed worse than the fight her parents had before they divorced. “I received a very strange email on Friday night, from a former classmate of yours in Paris. It seemed that the majority of your class was under the impression that we were throwing a party for a lot of important politicians, celebrities, and musicians on a private island and you had invited them. I told myself, ‘not my daughter, she would never do something like that’. But the email went on, with a list of the students that were supposedly going on this trip and gave you money for the expenses. Again, I thought ‘Lila would never be so cruel as to steal money from her friends right before we left Paris’. So I told the person who sent me that detailed information, that I would handle it. I still thought it was a joke.”

The teenage girl didn’t even have to listen to the end of this story, she knew that goody-two-shoes Marinette had ratted her out. Lila was fighting every instinct she had to run and lock herself in her room, but if she moved even a little her mother would stop her. She could only sit there and hope that she could come up with some kind of lie to convince her mother that she was being set up.

“Then when I went into the embassy today, my boss pulled me into his office and started grilling me as to why I allowed seven unaccompanied minors entry into the country. I tried to explain that I had no idea what he was talking about, and then he started reading off the names. Do you want to guess why those names sounded so familiar?”

By this point, Lila was practically curling into herself to make herself appear smaller. She had to say something, any lie that would make her mother believe her and only her. Turning on the tears, she buried her face in her hands and spoke between sobs. Fake crying always gave her a few extra seconds to think before she had to speak. “I swear, Mama. I didn’t want to do it. Marinette forced me to take those papers from your office to give to our classmates so they could get into the country without their parents. I never took any money from them, I swear! Marinette was bullying me the entire time we were in Paris, I was scared of what she’d do to me if I didn’t do what she said. You’ve got to believe me!”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t tell your class about some non-existent party on a private island, had no knowledge of who was coming into Italy, where they were going, or anything like that?” Her mother’s eyes narrowed as she brought out her mobile phone.

Her hands were shaking as she kept her face buried in her hands, something about her mother’s tone  and the way she spoke made this feel like a trap. But she couldn’t backtrack now, Marinette was her way out and she had to stick with it. So she nodded as she continued to sob into her hands.

“Then please explain this to me.” Her mother turned the phone towards her and Lila looked up, her face falling in horror when she heard her own voice. It was a video of her telling her class about who was going to be at the party that she and her mom were organizing, how she was going to need to know for sure who all was coming before the weekend, and Marinette had somehow gotten video of Alya and Nino each handing her €300!

It took longer than she would like to admit for the shock to wear off, but she was smart enough to stick to her original story. “It’s fake! Marinette must have made it to get me in trouble. Max probably helped her, he’s really good with computers. It’s all too convenient to be true. I mean, she sends you all this information about which people are going, how much money they gave me, and a story about a party on a private island in Venice, that anyone would be able to see is clearly fake. Can’t you see that I’m being set up?”

Her mother’s eyes grew harder as she stood from her chair, causing Lila to shrink even further into her own. 

“You say that this is all a set up and you had no idea where your classmates were going in Italy, but you just told me the exact city where they were found. You left them waiting on a dock for you to come ferry them to that non-existent private island, and don’t even bother saying that you know which city because of the video I just showed you, because it never names the city they were in.”

Well, crap. She was about to try another tactic, but her mother cut her off before the first syllable left her mouth.

“Young lady, do you have any idea how much trouble you are in?” she yelled, her face beginning to turn a purplish-red and began pacing the room. “You forged my signature on multiple federal documents, endangered the lives of multiple minors, committed theft, and god knows how many other laws you’ve broken. I can’t protect you from this! You will be facing federal charges for what you’ve done!”

Lila felt her stomach drop to her ankles. “But-but that was all in Paris, and I had diplomatic immunity while I was there!”

“It became an international incident when you forged an ambassador’s signature on federal documents that endangered minors! My boss gave me a choice,” her voice grew even harder and colder than before. “Either you answer for what you’ve done and plead guilty, or I lose my job and we both go to trial for what you’ve done.” 

“You’d let me go to jail for one little lie? It’s not like anyone got hurt!” Lila screamed, standing from her chair in a panic. This was much worse than she’d imagined. 

“And what if they had been?” Her mother screamed back. “What if they had been kidnapped and sold into human trafficking? What if one of them had fallen off the dock and drowned in the channel or hit by a boat? I would be held responsible for that because you forged my signature! Do you not care about the people around you at all? What is wrong with you?”

“But nothing happened to them! It’s their own fault for being stupid enough to believe such an obvious lie. And you’re taking their side over mine? How dare you call yourself my mother and claim to love me!” 

“Don’t you dare try to blame me for your bad behavior!” Her mother yelled back as she advanced on her, making her fall back onto the chair. Mme. Rossi looked back at the shopping bags she had knocked over when she had turned, revealing the Versace bag. Tilting her head back, she took multiple deep breaths before looking at her daughter.

“This is what’s going to happen. You are going to return everything you bought today, and you are going to explain to the managers of each store exactly why you are returning everything.” Lila was about to protest, but one look from her mother had her mouth snapping shut. “We will also be clearing out your savings to pay back your classmates for the money you took, their travel expenses, their parents travel expenses, and any money they lost while being away from their jobs to retrieve their children. After that, you will be standing trial for forgery and fraud. If you know what’s good for you, you will go before the judge and apologize profusely for what you’ve done and listen to everything the judge tells you. If you’re lucky you may receive a lenient sentence; but either way, you can expect your next school to be a reformatory school. And if you try to fight me on any of this, I will let a court appointed attorney with no experience handle your case instead of the family lawyer. Have I made myself clear?”

No longer having to fake her tears, Lila nodded to her mother, resigning herself to the fact that her life had been ruined because her mother didn’t love her and Marinette didn’t know how to keep her nose out of where it didn’t belong.

~oOo~

The rest of the day, Lila was forced to return everything that she bought back to the stores and tell the managers how she had stolen the money from her classmates and then abandoned them in a country and city that they weren’t familiar with. The people that overheard her were horrified by what she had done and the managers banned her from ever shopping in those stores again. After all, if she was willing to steal money from her friends, there was little doubt that she would steal from the stores.

After everything was returned, she was taken to the embassy where they recorded her confession on how she lied to everyone, forged her mother’s signature on the documents she stole, and how she scammed over €2,000 from her former classmates. After the confession was taped, she was taken outside of the embassy and handed over to the police to be kept in a juvenile detention center. She screamed at her mother, not believing that she would just hand her over like that, but the woman looked down her nose at her and said, “It’s time for you to face the consequences of your actions, young lady.” 

When she arrived at the police station, she was relieved to see their family lawyer was waiting for her, although he was less than thrilled by what she had done. He explained that even as a minor, she could be serving 2-6 years just for the forgery of the documents, that wasn’t even factoring in the scam or reckless endangerment of seven minors. If she were to be tried as an adult, she could be serving 6 years for each document, facing serious fines and more time for each classmate she endangered.

After hearing that, Lila had to rush to the trash can to throw up. She couldn’t believe that one little lie could get her into so much trouble. But this wasn’t her fault, none of it was. If there was anyone to blame, it was that goody-two-shoes Marinette Dupain-Cheng. After all the effort she went through to destroy that girl, she just wouldn’t back down. She would make that girl pay for what she’d done. As soon as the charges were all dropped, she would do everything she could, use every dirty trick in the book to force the nosy girl to end her life and stay out of hers.

But that would have to wait for now. For the time being, she would do what her mother said and play her part. Act like the innocent girl that had gotten caught up in her own fibs while trying to make friends in a new country. She didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt or in trouble, she was just so overwhelmed and she is so sorry for everything that happened. She would need to cry a lot, that was a given, but she could do this. Just fake it until she could get her revenge on the girl that ruined her life.

~oOo~Three Months Later~oOo~

Lila hadn’t meant to lose control in front of the judge. She’d spent months locked away with a bunch of low-class delinquents, talking to different lawyers and quack-doctors before going to court. She had been the picture of innocence and childhood regret the second she walked into the courtroom, she was sure to get off all the charges against her. But she and her lawyer had been blindsided. 

The quack-doctors had called her a narcissist and a sociopath, in need of desperate help. To prove that, all of her lies, everything she had said while in Paris had been brought into evidence against her. They’d exposed her truancy and forgery at her old school, found proof of her purposefully getting Marinette expelled, and faking interviews on the Ladyblog which brought her more lawsuits from a bunch of the celebrities she’d lied about. 

Some of her classmates had come to give testimony on what she had done and said during her time in Paris. The goodie-two-shoes brat had even come to Italy to give testimony against her, though Lila hadn’t been allowed in the courtroom while she was there, as Marinette hadn’t felt safe to be in the same room. Lila’s lawyer had actually agreed, probably so she wouldn’t cause a scene. And she probably would have. She would have stabbed her in the face with a pencil, in front of the entire courtroom, if she had the chance.

But the worst had to do with the school security cameras. After M. Damocles and Mme. Bustier had been fired for neglectful and abusive behavior to their students, which had been brought about by the investigation into Marinette’s expulsion, the Board of Governors went farther back through the recordings to see how long the bullying had been going on. What they found was video evidence of Lila grabbing an akuma out of the air and putting it into her earring, and then willingly working with the known terrorist. 

To make matters even worse, Ladybug and Chat Noir had sent a video as testimony of the times Lila had purposefully interfered with their rescues and had led Chat away from Ladybug to make her more vulnerable to the akuma Oni-chan. Her lawyer tried to get the video stricken from evidence as he couldn’t cross-examine the two heroes, but it was denied.

Her parents had been sitting behind her when they showed those videos. When her mother saw them, it was like she completely shut down. She heard her say that she wanted to leave, and Lila watched as her father helped her mother to her feet and lead her out of the courtroom without looking back. 

The judge had been absolutely disgusted with her, going as far as to call her a monster for willingly aiding a terrorist. Since she had already confessed to multiple counts of forgery, fraud, and reckless endangerment of minors, and would now be adding slander and other charges from her time in Paris, the most notable being terrorism; he declared that she would be tried as an adult and was likely to spend the rest of her life in prison.

She’d completely lost it at that point, screaming at the top of her lungs as she jumped over the table to attack the judge. She didn’t remember smashing the water pitcher against one guard's head, scratching another guard across the face, or getting tasered in the back. When she woke up, she was strapped to a bed by her wrists and ankles, her head felt really foggy, and there were a bunch of nurses and orderlies that were keeping keen eyes on her.

Lila Rossi spent the rest of her life heavily medicated in a maximum security mental health hospital. Most every night, the nurses would hear her plotting some kind of scheme to show everyone what a loser Marinette was, but then she would trail off about how she wanted to hear the song Jagged Stone wrote for her or the album she’d help Clara Nightingale write. When she saw people, she would ramble and lie about being a princess or a secret agent, and that she was only here to keep her safe until they came to get her. Over the years, it was all written off as the insane ramblings of a very disturbed girl that would be remaining at the hospital for the rest of her life.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “The Plan.”

Getting excited for tomorrow. I have had this idea for a while and am pleased to be able to execute it. Building up to something good :)

Dr. Krill, Adam, and Dr. Katie stood in the low ceilinged Vrul council chamber at the center of the city. The entire room was as Adam had remembered it, with large glass windows looking out at all 360 degrees of the city. At one point he had assumed it was just the selfish desire of the ruling class to look down on the citizens, but as he looked, he could now see that there was some utility to the tower, almost a watch tower over the city. The canals and structure of the city itself could be sectioned off if there was ever an emergency, cut like a pie into triangular sections that could be excluded from the force shield if it was ever needed. 

As soon as their historian had put forward her hypothesis, the Vrul council had been called to order, and a few other GA members were now sitting in on the meeting remotely. They would have come themselves, but upon hearing about the horrible creatures that were, even now, clawing at their walls, the council had ordered the shield sup for what must have been the first time in millennia.

Luckily for them, they had never let the shields fall into disrepair, and as he looked out the window he could see the shimmering blue purple nexus of power glistening in the sky above them.

It worried him thinking that the ancient Vrul had deemed it necessary to have a force field that went into the sky as well. Dr. Kell had had a ruptured helium sack when they brought him in, but that gave the assumption that, perhaps, he would still have been able to float in his infected state, which was not something that bare thinking about, though it WAS an important item to consider.

“Yes, all the evidence does seem to point to that.” The counselor said, their head turned towards the GA chairwoman as they spoke, “We have contacted the other cities along the central line and they report their cities are built in much the same way. Satellite imaging shows clusters of…. The nesting sights all over the world, though their greatest cluster happens to be around our city. If each circle has approximately seven of the creatures burrowed below it, we estimate about 49,000 of the creatures possibly burrowed below our landscape. The animals in the area seem to know to steer clear of the nesting sites. The larger animals have moved in great migrations towards the poles where there are few of the nesting sites, and the animals who have a lighter step are prone to avoiding the circle when they can. Zoomed in pictures DO show the occasional skeletalized remains of some creature or another, but it is hard to tell what they died from.

The GA chairwoman was nodding, “So you believe that the cities were built for a different reason than originally thought.”

There was a pause and then the council nodded, “Yes, it seems likely that Vrul lived in open cities before the outbreak began and then built the city in defense against the creatures. The Deltas, we have found are the main spreading vector, since they are stronger and faster, they are more mobile, but the disease affects everyone similarly causing acute aggression and infected pustules filled with sores that rupture and spread a cloud into the air.”

Dr. Krill stepped forward just then to cut into the conversation, “Dr. Katie and I have examined the infection under controlled conditions, and it is clearly a disease that originated on this planet. It does not have the structures you would assume from a viral or bacterial infection common on worlds where the creatures are more animal than plant. In this case the subject does seem primarily interested in infecting our species. The disease is transmissible primarily through respiration where the spores enter the body and into the lungs, as it were, where they are dissolved and the toxin spreads directly through to the brain. It will then destroy most of the decision making and memory centers of the cortex, amp up aggression, and then start germinating more spores in those packets that we have seen.”

“So it isn’t contagious to other species.” The Chair woman asked 

Krill shook his head, “I did not say that.  While it is a disease that is meant for plant-like liforms, any creature with lungs similar to ours are also under direct fire of infection. Humans for example send blood directly to their brain from the lungs, and have cortical centers that are generally analogous to our own. Of course, humans have the blood brain barrier that would be much less likely to allow that to happen, so I don’t see a mental breakdown as part of its affect on humans, but I do imagine they could develop sores that could burst and be contagious.”

“I see, than what is your plan?”

Another of the council members took the moment to step forward, “Clearly we restrict movement outside the city. It worked for us for four thousand years and it shall work for the next four thousand years.”

There was a murmur of agreement around them before.

“You’re not fucking serious.”

There was a pause as the entire council chamber turned to look at him, Admiral vir standing just before the window and staring down at the city.

The human looked on in absolute consternation.

“Do you have a problem with that, human.”

Admiral Vir drew himself up, “Damn straight I have a problem with that. You have an opportunity to take your planet back. You have all the weapons and all the allies in the galaxy and you won’t even fight for your own planet. Living in your air tight cities and using it as an excuse to bring down even greater restrictions on a group of people who have never known any sort of freedom before.”

“Watch your ton-” “No, I am not one of your citizens, and I won’t be silenced for my opinion. At the end of the day it IS your decision, but you have to understand. The Vrul home planet is one of the greatest sources we have of natural gas and yet Vrul economic power is at an all time low, and that is because the group of you wont leave your cities to harvest it. Now we learn that there is a reason, a stoppable reason, and you just want to sit here and do nothing about it always watched by the fear of what if something happens, what if one of them gets in somehow, what if the strain changes, what if what if what if.” He looked around the room, “not to mention that if you took control of these things, you would be able to expand your cities, which would mean no more termination orders for those who are deemed, by the government mind you, to be useless.” he gave a very pointed look at Krill, “You would have had the doctor dead if it wasn’t for my intervention, and then as soon as something went wrong you called him back. I think that is a perfect example on how this system just isn’t working.”

The Vrul council stared at him, and it was pretty clear that they weren’t a fan of the words coming out of his mouth. There was one problem though, there were other citizens in the room than weren’t going to keep their mouths shut. There was Krill of course, who they had already discredited, but the Admiral had waited for the perfect opening, the the psychologist was there, the historian and more than a few other assistants, who he could see were Betas.

He knew from what Krill had said that Betas were insufferable gossips. So anything that happened in this tower was likely to get out.

With grudging slowness the council grinded back into movement, “Than what do you suggest, Admiral? We are not well versed in military tactics which is what this would require. You  can hardly blame us for turning back to the one thing that has always worked.”

Good job hiding behind being pathetic he thought to himself.

“It is a good thing that I am Admiral of the GA armada and have some experience with the tactical side of warfare.” He turned to look around at the others, “We will want to continue doing our tests on these creatures. I want to know what their weaknesses are, and I want to know how to kill them. This is to hoping that bullets do the trick, but I also want to know what they are attracted to. Some of you have suggested vibrations in the ground, in which case, I can use that.

Krill and katie agreed with him.

And he walked with them as they stepped from the room.

“You are really toeing a line the way you speak to them, I think.” Katie whispered quietly

He leaned in, “I have a feeling that the Vrul weren’t always like this. The traditions of government they have now are based on martial law that was present during a zombie apocalypse four thousand years ago. They don’t want to give up their power, but my duty isn’t to their government, it is to their citizens.”

Krill hummed his agreement from Kati’s opposite side, “The Admiral is right, I believe. The more I think about it, the more I have come to a conclusion that we are not as….. How shall we say…. Fragile as the council would make us believe. A lot of what they say is based on the idea that we need to be protected, but I think that ideology is something that was passed down from when we actually DID need to be protected. What other truths about the Vrul don’t we know because we haven’t been allowed to look into it further.”

Adam tapped his fingers against his crossed bicep, “The maximum age of a Vrul for one. I read a paper that said that the average age of a Vrul before termination is only around thirty or forty years, but if what they are saying is true about these zombie vrul, than it is likely they are around four thousand years old.” He glanced over at Krill, “how old does this make you past your termination order/”

Krill shrugged, “I was evaluated early, so I am only considered 35 in your human years, a little bit older in the Vrul reckoning of things, but that does pose an interesting hypothesis. I have never actually seen a Vrul die of old age. But it would make sense with the termination order. If we were forced into cities, than it would make sense that they would do these things out of a need for population control, that is assuming that we can live forever, a thought that seems ludicrous to me, but still.”

Adam nodded, “Starting off though, I want to know what kind of music does what to the creature.”

Dr Katie looked at him skeptically, “Music?”

He nodded, “Music.”

“What are you planning, she said suspiciously, looking him over with a critical eye.

He smiled, “Dealing with the hoard all at once, but if we can do that, and use music against them, well then I would want to use all of my inherent advantages now wouldn’t I?”

Katie nodded with some thought and motioned him onward.

They went back to the chamber, while he and some of the marines went back to the wall, where the group of ravening Vrul were still tearing at the base.

“Lower the shields.” he ordered on of the Betas.

The creature looked at him like he was nuts, but the look on his face made clear, in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to argue and hurried to do as Adam ordered.

The small section of the field opened, and he leaned out over the drop looking down at the creatures still clambering at the wall.

“Huh, Maverick, come here.”

Maverick trotted over behind him, rifle bouncing in a sling against her chest and she skidded to a halt next to him, “Yes Boss.”

“Think you can shoot one of them in the head from up here?”

She paused, frowned but then shrugged, “I mean…. yeah , probably.”

“Go on, target practice.”

She looked at him a bit confused for a second, before shrugging and leaning out over the drop. He grabbed her by the back of the shirt just to give her that extra bit of security while she got a good angle.

There was a small pause, and then a sharp subsonic crack as the rifle fired. The Vrul flinched at the shockwave and Adam’s ear’s rang. Damn idiot forgot to put in some hearing protection before she did that, but what was done was done. Not even a millisecond later there was a sharp explosion as the Vrul in question shattered into its component parts. It cracked open like an egg and the strange, and deadly pollen ruptured out before falling back onto the ground.”

Maverick drew herself back inside the shield which shut quickly.

“Huh, that worked better than expected.”

“Yeah, but did you see the polen?”

He frowned and nodded, “I did. I don’t think any Vrul should be going on this mission with us, and as for the humans. IT will be full suits and respirators for everyone. I want to see how long these spores can last in the environment by themselves. Hopefully it isn’t long, because if it is then that puts my whole plan out the window. I also want to see how long it can last in the air, because that is going to be super important.

***

When he returned to the lab later on after coordinating his original idea Dr. Katie and krill were waiting for him with their results.

“So, what did we find.”

“A couple of things.” Krill announced, “FIrst of all, the spores last a very short time outside the host, maybe twenty four hours at most, though that is only when provided with the perfect condition. They cannot infect the surrounding plant life or the soil. The spores themselves are rather heavy and so they don’t stick around in the air longer than the wind can keep them up, and they seem to be neutralized by water, or water ruins their infectivity when outside a subject, so that is also good news. His helium sack would still work if it was not for the tear, which means that these creatures can float, and we know that the deltas can burrow to some degree.”

Adam was nodding slowly, “And how about the music?”

“Ah, that we found is interesting. A steady and predictable beat does cause them confusion, so most human songs will get them. Anything without a measured beat isn’t an issue, like classical music for the most part. Songs that have no drumline don’t confuse them as much, and songs where the drum line isn’t as noticeable also don’t affect them as much. A good predictable drumline as seen in many rock songs will get them nice and confused, but your best bet for neutralizing them is a hard rock or metal drumline with additional patterns coming from the guitar and vocal track.”

“Hard rock and metal to save the day then.”

They looked at him with a curious expression as he grinned at them.

“What are you planning.”

“I am planning to kill zombies, and I am planning to do it in style.”