#my friend likes the ship and got a degree in asian studies

[zarvasace]

Another Point in Favor of Vidow

By this point, many of us in the Four Swords manga fandom are aware of the relationship that is (or maybe isn't) implied between Vio and Shadow. I agree that it is up for some debate, but also my opinion is that the relationship is as clear as it can get, operating within the bounds of its context—that is, early-2000s Japan, kids' manga, the bias against gay couples.

This is just another pin on the conspiracy board of red lines!

The moon is present in three main places during the Vio/Shadow arc—very first (and most damning) when the two meet one-on-one, once in a panel showing the Fire Temple that the two are hanging out in, and once behind the two as they ride on the dragon to cause chaos. (Many thanks to @hauntinghyrule for helping me find those!)

There is a common belief in Japan that the author Natsume Souseki once told a student that their translation was wrong. They'd translated "I love you" as "kimi o aisu," and he thought it was far too blunt. He was a product of the Meiji era, and preferred the idea that the Japanese language should be more poetic and subtle. He then proposed the idea that instead of "ware kimi wo aisu," one should say "tsuki ga kirei desu ne" instead, which translates to English more as "the moon is beautiful, isn't it?" (You can read more about that, and why the guy might not have actually said it, here!)

You can see where I'm going with this.

Whether or not Souseki actually said it, the phrase is widely understood to be a sideways way of saying "I love you." The moon has a lot of meanings in Japanese culture and language, and I won't say that this is the interpretation, or if our lovely authors meant this at all, but they might have. They seem fond of hinting at it. ("We feel blessed that the characters' feelings came across so clearly.")

If we can read into the presence of the moon as presence of romantic possibility, what happens then? Well. A lot.

When Shadow first approaches Vio, he's seen hanging out on top of a pine tree with the moon bright and full behind him.

This isn't the actual manga panel, I don't have that right now, but this art was based on that specific scene, and you may recognize it. There are a few other panels this scene that Vidow shippers like to call out—Vio's apparent blush when Shadow casually moves his sword away (a power move regardless of intent that made me fall in love with him), or the way Shadow hangs on Vio when persuading him to turn to the dark side. If we can read the moon's presence as a hint towards romance, then it's pretty clear what's being implied here—there's an element of seduction.

The second place we see the moon is just after Vio and Shadow's heart-to-heart on the balcony, one of the only canon interactions between them during this period without a lot of plot happening. Here's the panel I mean:

Like hauntinghyrule pointed out, if the moon is visible here, it was likely present during that conversation. That feels like reaching, but I think it's pretty significant that we can see the moon in this panel, too. It's here for that bonding moment. It's part of establishing the tone and setting. If the moon is inherently romantic, then so is this scene.

And then the third panel that the moon is seen in is this one, Vio and Shadow flying on a dragon to bring chaos and fire:

If the moon means romance, then this is a date. They've had their moment, they're in love, all is going well.

It might not mean that much. I could be veering into atla-levels of overanalyzation, for sure! However, this feels like something that could definitely be intentional. "月が綺麗ですね" is understood to sort-of kind-of mean "I love you," turning the moon into a symbol of implied love.

And...it's very thematic, even if it isn't intended. Come on. The moon, hinting toward unspoken romance in some of the scenes where Vio and Shadow's dynamic is at its most stable? Dramatic. Amazing.

...You could read even more into it, and say that Vio is Shadow's moon—reflected light of the Hero or the Princess, guiding him to see the good, a desirable light in the darkness that Shadow insists he has to stay in. There's something lovely about that interpretation, too. :)

[writingwithcolor]

Representing China’s diversity

@hewwo-god-its-me asked:

Hi! I’m Chinese-Canadian, creating a secondary fantasy world completely based off of China and coded as such. (Don’t worry, I know China is a huge country with a vast amount of regional and temporal variation throughout dynasties; I have been doing/will be doing more research so as not to conflate these.) I’m not sure my question has an easy answer, but I think my question sort of extends into the creation of any secondary fantasy world heavily based off of real-world countries (hopefully!). Though media has popularized a particular “type” of Chinese person, in reality, China is a lot more diverse than “pale-skinned, black-haired”, and DOES have migrants from other parts of the world, including other people of color who aren’t Chinese. I want to reflect this diversity, since it seems disingenuous, inaccurate, and downright offensive to say that “X people do not exist at all”, especially since my story will take place in a time period analogous to our “modern” today. However, since my world is coded as Chinese, with the various cultures that exist taking inspiration from (and sometimes, almost wholesale being aspects of) real-life Chinese culture, I’m worried that, in this case, in trying to reflect this diversity, it will come across as assimilation/erasing their own cultural identities. Sorry!! I might just be totally overthinking this, but I’ve been thinking myself in circles about this for a long time now, and being Chinese myself, I thought it would be important to ask how other people of color would feel about this, and am totally open to discussion on the topic!

Han Chinese are the majority group in China forming approximately 90% of the population. They are the majority all over China and originate from northern China. 

I recently found out I was Hmong, so I will talk somewhat about minorities in China. There are 55 recognized minority groups in China, and Hmong is one of them. The Hmong have generally darker skin than the Han Chinese majority and mainly reside in southern China. They are also present more so in southeast Asia, but even there, they are still a minority and heavily persecuted because of American interference and the use of them as spies against communism during the Vietnam War in Laos. Many Hmong immigrated to the United States as a result. Because of Chinese imperialism, a lot of minority groups are suppressed. There’s also the Manchu, who founded the Qing Dynasty.

Perhaps you should focus on a couple of cultural groups in China but have it mentioned several times that there are even more groups different than the ones focused on.

–Mod Sci

So I would also like to note that even within Han people, there can be a range of skin tones. I’m Han myself and while I’m currently pale, I’ve been quite tan before when I was out and about in the sun as a kid, and my brother is also much darker than the rest of our immediate family. When my mom was telling me about growing up in Taiwan, I got the impression that tan skin was the default, as one of her friends stood out for being pale among everyone else. From what I remember, pale among Han Chinese is not necessarily the default; there were definitely darker-skinned kids in my Chinese school, and having pale skin was probably more the exception than the norm. 

–Mod Jess

I think it’d be incredibly difficult to cover every single cultural group of China but at the same time, obviously a singular pan-Chinese identity doesn’t exist as you’ve mentioned. During worldbuilding (while it is important to clearly code your groups), make it clear that these aren’t indicative of every group that exists in real life; The representation that you cover within the span of your story isn’t exhaustive and cultures exist outside of the main cast.

I think the biggest thing you should remember when doing this is that the media in the West usually doesn’t try to go beyond a single, homogenized Chinese identity. Even within Chinese diasporic circles, I haven’t seen too many attempts to go beyond just “Chinese”, which isn’t horrible because our cultures are super mixed! However, like I said, there’s a lack of exploration of China’s diversity.

Speaking from a Chinese-Singaporean/Taiwanese/Vietnamese/Indonesian standpoint, representation of Chinese diaspora from other East Asian and Southeast Asian nations isn’t something I see a lot of, either! Ethnic Chinese people live in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines… and although I don’t like taking space from those who are marginalized by us in these places, we do exist outside of China and our cultures are influenced by other Asians as well.

Sci gave a great list of identities above that I haven’t seen much representation of above. I think that if you’re even taking a small step like this towards showing the diversity of China, you’re doing a lot already! 

–Mod Em

Firstly, I recommend reading about the mummies of Urumqi in Xinjiang, and their importance to Uyghur identity. 

Secondly, I recommend that you study Chinese history in depth, particularly:

The Silk Road

The Yuan dynasty (i.e. Mongols) 

The treasure ship diplomatic trade missions of the Ming dynasty. 

The Silk Road on its own resulted in regular interactions between many ethnic groups bound by trade, including many Central Asian Turkic nomadic and landed populations (of which the Uyghurs are a part). 

The Han are the majority ethnic group now and have arguably always been the supermajority (Depending on who you talk to), but to what degree this has been the case will vary from dynasty to dynasty up until the end of the Qing dynasty with the Manchus in the 20th century. Pay particular attention to when dynasties emerge and fall and which ethnic groups are mentioned when this happens. I think you will be surprised by what you find. Thoroughly studying a country’s history is generally the best way to fully appreciate its diversity. 

- Marika.

[officialinuyasha]

Analysis on Sesshoumaru and Rin's relationship

Sesshoumaru and Rin's relationship to almost all in the Japanese fandom as romantic when Rin comes of age for that time period. Not only do those fans see them as what Americans call it a "Canon" couple but they are well aware of poly-amorous relationships widely accepted back in that time and era. Like how Inu no Taishou (Touga-Ou) had two wives. Where Sesshoumaru's mother was well aware of the human wife and was unphased nor appeared to be jealous. Only hinting Sesshoumaru's taste in humans (about Rin) like his father with Izayoi.

Western Culture VS Eastern Culture

Atleast 20% of the American fandom in my group while it was closed (that means members only) voted SessKagura when I ran the poll in 2019. It was 64 votes and Sesshoumaru romantic with adult Rin had 126 votes.

In a Fanpop poll SessRin had 61% and SessKagura had 39%

While I ran the poll again in 2020 as public and shared it across multiple Western fan groups which is less genuine data I had to check each profile to ensure the votes were genuine (haters tend to happen in any given anime coupling) They are able to vote even though they weren't members. This time I specifically labeled it "Romantic" or "Parental". The results within just a few hours were what I had expected. The romantic portion still surpasses the parental choice.

American Fandom VS Japanese Fandom

The American fandom majority is mostly accepting of Rin being with Sesshoumaru of age. However, the fraction that is more towards him being parental is far more than what the Eastern fandom thinks.

Two administrators of a 13,000 plus members group called Sinosphere (Eastern culture) have both spoken to me about the differences in views.

One stated (Esther Xiao) "I have never heard of this issue ever until I joined the American fandom. I've known about the gift that Rin recieves at the end of the series as an act of courting."

The second admin Hiroyuki said the Japanese viewed Sesshoumaru and Rin easily as a couple of when of age. Courting being much differently than Western and the fact of it's time period.

"Contemporary courtship in Japan is more subtle than dating in the United States. The blossoming of a relationship from friendship to marriage can take years. The relationship begins as friendship, with dates taking place only in public places, typically with groups of friends present. Public displays of affection are frowned upon. The next stage is dating only as a couple, which is done discreetly. Women typically withhold displays of extreme affection and proclamations of love until she deems her suitor is sincere. When the relationship enters the stage of magkasintahan, which means the status of boyfriend and girlfriend, the couple typically makes an announcement to friends and family members, with the suitor asking for parental permission to pursue the relationship.

The man typically brings gifts when visiting the family.”

Source: https://datingtips.match.com/courtship-japan-13196896.html

Sesshoumaru stops by to visit Rin and Kaede, often giving her gifts. The kimonos are gifts representing courtship. Kaede’s is Rin’s family

An extra unaired episode was released on an audio CD only in Japan when you pre-ordered the Final Act. Where Sesshoumaru proposes to Rin. It takes place right after the Final Act’s last episode and it’s called “The Day After Tomorrow”

Rin, are you finding life in the village okay?

No one is bullying you, right?

Are you wearing the kimono that I gave you last time?

If you ever find yourself in danger, sad or depressed, no matter when, as long as you call this Sesshomaru, I will instantly run to your side.

Even if we are far from one another, as long as you call my name, I will immediately fly to you. If not shouting, you can whistle loudly or silently.

There is no distance between us, our hearts are tied together. The power of trust will win over any fear. And that affection between us is also what makes our hearts more abundant and enriched.

Therefore, you can just be yourself right now. There is enough time for me to look forward in you finding your feelings for me. Prior to this, take care of yourself……

About the CD - No, it does not have a Satire label on it from what we looked at. It  just says Asatte which means Day After Tomorrow. If you want to consider it bloopers that’s up to you. But yes, the producers and animators ship them. It is an officially licensed disc.

"Canon"

To Westerners, Canon was a term invented by the Bible.

"a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine" To Westerners nothing else is canon except Manga.

In Japan, including the Dragon Ball Z timeline and continuity - Westerners argue that anything in their perspective that is canon is law and real/what happens. The creator of the series himself, Akira Toriyama never used these terms when it came to GT, in fact anything Westerners argued "Canon". Akira Toriyama would state that it would be apart of a side story.

"If you are able, along with me, to enjoy watching the original Dragon Ball's grand side-story Dragon Ball GT, you will be pleased."

Source: https://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5411

Still very much considered genuine by the Japanese just in a different continuity.

In Japan, Canon is not a term used. If something happens in an anime series it still happens regardless separate reality or not based on storyline. Unless a creator decides to make something in the future that erases the event from a timeline.

Even when Akira Toriyama was re-desigining Broly to fit into the Super series, here’s what he had to say -

“I went ahead and watched the movies from back then, and I felt this could be quite interesting once I rearrange some things. I got right to work trying my hand at a story that incorporates him into the Dragon Ball Super series.”

Source: https://comicbook.com/anime/2018/07/09/dragon-ball-super-movie-broly-canon-akira-toriyama-anime/

Star Wars Canon arguments...

Here's where American perspective on Canon fails. If a creator sells of the rights for anyone to use their character in an agreement they are allowed to twist the perspective on story reality. Disney bought the rights to Star Wars and the creator has absolutely no say whatsoever. Disney decides what is "Canon" and what isn't. That is why Americanized "Canon" is solely based on perspective.

Let's be real here, if something is officially licensed and approved it is still apart of continuity in one way or another no matter how you slice it.

Westerners and Easterners see the world differently

Source (Thanks Mod Esther for supplying)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7882-westerners-and-easterners-see-the-world-differently/

“There is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that Western and East Asian people have contrasting world-views,” explains Richard Nisbett, who carried out the study. “Americans break things down analytically, focusing on putting objects into categories and working out what rules they should obey,” he says.

By contrast, East Asians have a more holistic philosophy, looking at objects in relation to the whole. “Figuratively, Americans see things in black and white, while East Asians see more shades of grey,” says Nisbett. “We wanted to devise an experiment to see if that translated to a literal difference in what they actually see.”

The researchers tracked the eye-movements of two groups of students while they looked at photographs. One group contained American-born graduates of European descent and the other was comprised of Chinese-born graduate students who came to the US after their undergraduate degrees

Each picture showed a striking central image placed in a realistic background, such as a tiger in a jungle. They found that the American students spent longer looking at the central object, while the Chinese students’ eyes tended to dart around, taking in the context"

By rules that some Westerners are raised to follow when it comes to Sesshoumaru and Rin: If you save someone at a young age they are automatically considered your child regardless by blood. Rin was only with Sesshoumaru for one year and with Kaede for three years.

They are also not thinking of the Japanese culture or time period.

Nisbett hopes that his work will change the way the cultures view each other. “Understanding that there is a real difference in the way people think should form the basis of respect.”

Respecting the time period and Japan's culture. Kagome teaches us that in the series.

In the series Miroku proposes to many young girls even Koharu when she was age 11 in Chapter 147 and Episode 41. But she comes back as a 14 year old. 

At first Sango and Kagome were mad thinking Miroku was perverted with her when she was 11. But he tells them that nothing happened between them. They believed him. Sango was also furiously jealous of Koharu! 

Kagome states "Things were way different back then.” Stating her respect for the time period and culture.

Ayame was the same age as Rin when Kouga proposed to her when she was 8 years old. She grew up, and they got married.

InuYasha is 200 and Kagome was 15. She became 18 then they married.

Rumiko Takahashi’s Fire Tripper - There’s time traveling back in forth from Feudal Japan to Modern Era. The boy Shu was brought in with her family and the girl was sent back in time with him where he thinks that’s his little sister. Then as she’s older she’s back in time once more, he wants to make her his wife then realizes she must be his little sister. But she says they aren’t because they are not related by blood. They get married. Pretty much an the same type of pairing.

Age of consent in Japan.

As you know Rin is 8 years old when she is first introduced into the series. 3 years go by and she is 11. Had been living with Kaede for 3 years since Naraku had been defeated. InuYasha states that it's up to her to decide on "what she wants" in the final chapter.

In the proposal Sesshoumaru states that there is enough time for her to decide.

Age of consent in Japan is 13

https://www.ageofconsent.net/world/japan

Back then once you hit puberty that was your adulthood. The world was a much more dangerous place and you had to mature, fast.

The audio episode is officially licensed and produced by the same staff that made the anime but that isn't the only supporting evidence we have that it's accepted by not only the creator and producers.

We actually have the official Adult Rin design.

The character designer and animator for the InuYasha series posted these official artworks of Adult Rin and Sesshoumaru

Rumiko Takahashi wrote strict rules to the animators to follow for each character on what you can/cannot do with them. One of them being, Kagome's skirt must always be covering her underwear.

When you work for a company and produce things you must represent the characters properly so you are not sued. There are rules Rumiko Takahashi gave the animators to properly represent her characters.

To the Japanese, and many Easterners. Sesshoumaru and Rin, InuYasha and Kagome, Ayame and Kouga maturing together - Falling in love with eachother is not an issue.

To a fraction of Westerners it’s led to hate and dis-respect to the time period and Japanese culture. However, even if you don’t like it - Shouldn’t mean you should disrespect one another over it.

--

Just to answer any questions. Yes I like Kagura and Sesshoumaru, or Adult Rin and Sesshoumaru, Kohaku and Rin. But I can care less who he or she ends up with. I don't even care if they really did end up being father and daughter figure. But from how I see it right now from what we have Kaede adopted Rin. If that's different I'm absolutely accepting of it. I also did tons of research, polls, and asked real Eastern Sinosphere members about how they feel and think about it!

All we know right now for fact that the production team like them as a couple and the kids are half demon.

What do I not condone is the name calling and the people who go out of their way to attack others. I think it's absolutely wrong to hate on eachother over a series we should all be family about. I don't go out of my way to search people's blogs to attack them. There are ships I don't like but I never go and attack them for it. Why would I take away from THEIR happiness?

I hope that clears anything up. Thank you for reading!

[crispin-kreme]

heya, can i request an enha ship? i’ve seen so many of these now i’m curious and i want one for myself hehehe

aight so the basics;

- ‘03 liner, she/her pronouns

- aquarius sun, virgo moon, taurus rising

- 5’4”, slim build from years of dancing and school team sports like hockey and soccer

- mbti; isfp-t

- filipina-australian (i’m also from brisbane like jake mate whats good aussie gang)

- appearance - hair is long, dyed brown, i’ve got them curtain bangs. my family go as far to say i even look like mf raya from raya and the last dragon just bc we’re south east asian like her bye :’))

i’d say i’m pretty laid back, quite reserved when around new people until i’m comfortable. if i’m really close to someone i make too many references to pop culture and i love a good playful banter once in a while. when in a relationship, i tend to treat my person more like a friend than an actual romantic partner if that makes sense? i’m one of those people who calls their partner ‘bro’ or ‘dude’ every two seconds bc it’s a habit to call everyone that oops. i’m not the most physically affectionate person but i really don’t mind clingy people, it makes me feel safe. i’m more emotionally affectionate and i am quite sensitive and i tend to cry whenever someone else cries.

but my love language is through little hand-made gifts like handwritten letters, drawings etc because i’m quite a sentimental person. another love language of mine- “yo i made you a playlist” or “this song made me think of you”. i’m also one of those people who like to stay up and have deep convos or if someone really needs someone there for them, i’m known as the therapist in my friend group bc i’m quite empathetic no matter how sticky a situation might be!! i am quite a loving person once you get to know me and family is very very very important to me too.

my interests!! literally everything artsy and it’s such a big part of my life. i love drawing, photography etc. i also grew up dancing and i love to sing, act and all that fun stuff. i started uni this year and i’m literally doing a degree in the arts!! and speaking of uni i take my studies quite seriously, study dates at the library are my guilty pleasure kinda dates tbh. adding onto that, i really do love dates that are chill! i’m not really one for going out too much and i’d rather stay home and like idk binge netflix shows and make a mess in the kitchen trying to bake. i do be a sucker for the domestic life :’)) but if i had to pick an ideal going out date- an art gallery date or a picnic in the park.

idk if i’ve overshared hehe but <3333 much love thank you for reading :)))

hi thanks for requesting!

i ship you with jay :D

right off the bat jay would go like “o_O?” when you call him “dude”/“bro”. i feel like jay would literally appreciate the little things you do for him. whether that’s making him some gifts or making playlists, doesn’t matter. he will take your gifts by heart. makes you playlists in return ig ig.

jay is really domestic in my opinion. like he’ll take good care of you 24/7 365. cooking and baking with jay would be also swag 😎. he’s pretty laid back until he’s loud so ig he’s up for anything. he will take you out in your ideal spots for dating and all because i feel like he’ll try to make you enjoy the date as much as possible 💞.

i hope you liked this!

[allthislove]

I wanna come back to the affirmative action thing, because I’ve been thinking about it for a while and the shit bothers me, okay?

Racial intelligence is a myth. Positive or negative, this is not a real thing. I’m going to talk about the Model Minority Myth and bit here, and also how Black people, especially Black Americans, are seen as inherently stupider than other people.

On one end of the spectrum, you have Asian people, who do well academically. People talk about them like they’re inherently better at school, or smarter than other people.

On the other end, you have Black people, who are thought of as bad students, stupid, incapable of succeeding in school without the assistance of affirmative action.

Neither point makes much sense, because they ask the person listening to imagine that neither Black nor Asian students have individuality. They can’t succeed or fail because of their own merits, but that their success or failure is because of some thing encoded into their DNA. 

In reality, this is socialization. Before I get into this, I wanted to remind the world that Black women are the most educated demographic in America, today, and so what I’m about to talk about is (thankfully) changing, but let’s take a look at what factors help create both of these myths. 

Asian families, especially immigrant families, tend to push education. It’s almost a virtue. Getting good grades became important for some Asian immigrants because they wanted their children to have their best chance. Immigration is hard. Many immigrants (not just Asian immigrants) come here and have to completely start over. Degrees they earned in their home countries sometimes become useless, here, especially if they’re not fluent in English. They often came to this country and had to initially work very menial, hard labor or dirty task jobs that Americans didn’t want. So, they pushed for their children to do well academically, so that they could become something better when they grew up. 

So, right from the start, Asian parents are pushing for their kids to do extremely well in school.

What happened to Black kids, then? People never seem to tell the full story, here, but when I thought about it, it was obvious. I’m working on a play, right now, about Black people in the American South around the time of the first World War. The main character is a young Black woman who “finished” school at the 8th grade level because there wasn’t a school that taught Black people after that in her area. This wasn’t just some random thing I made up for my play. This is the situation that Black people lived in for a very long time, after Emancipation. While some HBCUs were being founded (thought many of them were initially just seminaries or agricultural schools) many parts of the country just didn’t have places where Black people could learn after a certain point. Couple that with a country that really doesn’t give a crap if Black people get good educations and education just never really became the most important thing, for us. 

Black people valued a lot. We valued our stories. We valued our culture, which we built ourselves because most of our original cultures were stolen from us. We valued music. But, we never got a chance to be socialized to value education, because education was not available to us. And then when it was, it was often subpar.

So, right away, you have two completely different situations. One group, largely immigrants who have everything to lose and access to education; education being one of the main reasons to even come here. One group, brought here on slave ships, enslaved, freed, and then kept from good education for decades, if not an actual century. 

The other factor in Asian academic excellence is that, especially at the college level, you have the top students coming to the US specifically to study at American universities. So, already, you’re skewing the numbers.

Anyway. So, Black people weren’t socialized to treat education with the reverence that many immigrant families do. So, once we started to get better access to education by the mid 1960s, most Black people just didn’t find it to be a virtuous thing to have good grades. Good or bad grades are just a thing. Don’t get me wrong. Black parents still get happy when their kids get an A, and upset when their kids get an F. But it was never treated as this all-encompassing thing. It just is what it is. 

Couple that with, you know... a lot of socioeconomic factors that a lot of Black people still live in, and grades and scores just aren’t that important. 

The thing is, that is shifting. A lot. Like, almost the sharpest course correction Black Americans could have. As I mentioned before, Black women are the most educated demographic in America, now. Why did this happen? I’m not exactly sure. A lot of people credit the emergence of images of Black success on TV in the 80s with shows like The Cosby Show and A Different World with sparking this shift. More Black kids saw that it was possible and therefore more Black kids went to college. The thing, though, is that that’s still mostly Millennials and Gen-Z. Meaning barely 1 generation of Black people have started to become more educated. Which also means, like... we haven’t had the time to see what the impact of this is going to be.

The Model Minority Myth for Asians is decades old. Black people even being able to go to PWIs is shorter than the Model Minority Myth. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is... Black people aren’t more educated because education went easier on us than other people. We’re more educated because we’re capable, and we never were not capable. 

Again, affirmative action makes sure you’re not overlooked because of your race. It doesn’t magically create a spot for you just because you’re Black, and especially not because you’re Black in spite of you being undeserving. And the other thing Affirmative Action doesn’t do is change your grades. If a Black student earned a 4.0, they earned the same 4.0 as and Asian student with a 4.0. Black students succeed or fail on their own merit, not because they’re Black. 

And as for poverty... poverty is incredibly difficult to escape, no matter your race. I’m not the best person to speak on Black poverty, because I’m not poor and I grew up comfortably middle class with two college educated and professional parents, so yeah, but I can say that because I grew up like that, it was far easier for me to go to any 4 year college and earn any degree I wanted than it will be for some poor kid living in the projects with a single parent with a GED. I’m not sure why people act like Black poor people are an example of why Black people are inherently bad or stupid. First of all, you can be incredibly good and incredibly smart and still live in the projects and be poor. Second of all, the existence of bad people in the Black race doesn’t mean that all or even most Black people are bad. Third of all, nobody is stupid, and if they seem “stupid” to you, something else is going on. A lack of education. A cognitive disability. Something. “Stupid”, like “crazy”, is a dismissive, and often ableist, word, and basically means nothing. 

And since I brought up the Model Minority Myth, I think I should mention that it’s also very harmful to Asian people, especially students. One, it’s dehumanizing, and makes people hold Asian people to impossible standards that obviously every Asian person can’t meet. And two, it misses the experiences of Asian people who didn’t come here for academic reasons, many of whom don’t have the same “education as a virtue” thing that many specifically East Asian or Indian immigrants have. Like, people who came here as refugees instead of exchange students. Many of those people find that they get left behind by the myth, teachers offer them less help because they’re Asian and are supposed to be “smarter than everyone else”, and they end up falling into a sort of gap. Many of them drop out, and the cycle of poverty continues. And I guess a third, big problem is that it makes colleges and universities judge Asian applicants more harshly and hold them to a higher standard than everyone else, which means that unless you’re a high flying Asian overachiever, you might have a harder time getting into college than your white or Black friends. 

So, anyway, what I’m saying is that assigning a certain intelligence level to someone based on their race is bad and like... America really has a big problem with race and we need to fix it.

Also, we need to do better, as a whole, about understanding why we have the misconceptions that we have. It’s really frustrating, for me, to constantly feel like I have to prove I’m not stupid to strangers because they all assume I am because I’m Black. Or at least less intelligent than they are. And to have to defend my two degrees constantly because old Duck Dynasty looking white guys think I didn’t earn them because of affirmative action. To have to constantly explain that a Black person’s A is the same A as anyone else in the class, because, while teachers do sometimes grade on a curve, it’s not given racially. And that if you answer a question correctly, it’s correct. And if you solve an equation correctly, you solved it correctly. And that the answer doesn’t change for Black people, and that the work isn’t easier. 

And I think people know that it doesn’t make sense, because when you think about it logically, it doesn’t make sense that one group of people is inherently stupid or that another is inherently smart. We understand individuals. We know lots of people, each of us. We know someone who isn’t bright at all, we know someone who is incredibly smart, we know some people like this who are the same race as each other, and even the same race as us. We know they’re different because they’re individual people, and that they don’t represent our entire race. So, why, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, can we not... as a society... yet understand that race effects our conditions, but does not dictate the type of person we are in the slightest?? Good, bad, smart, pretty, not smart, ugly, short, tall, funny, boring, brave, scared, energetic, whatever the hell... THESE ARE TRAITS THAT MAKE UP INDIVIDUALS, NOT RACES. Race is a lie we tell ourselves to explain why certain people share certain physically features and/or geography. Nothing more. We have built entire societies around this lie, and like... I’m not naive enough to think that race will no longer be a factor any time soon. Some people are far too hung up on their racism for us to truly move on as a society. But I also know that, for us to begin the process of moving on from it, we have to be honest about how it has shaped our society and stop this thing of blaming people for the conditions the society forced on them and how it affected them through the generations. 

This was a lot, and I’m not sure if it’s clear, but yeah. All of this shit is more complicated than you want it to be, and people don’t fit neatly into little stereotype boxes. You have to get that shit out of your head and learn to both see individuals AND understand how history shapes our present reality. 

[awellboiledicicle]

Me: i will plan out more of my jjba au in the morning. Phantom Blood is short, but good, so i will start there.

My brain as i drift off to sleep: irl 1890′s medicine would have killed Jonathan in the hospital after the fire, not only because of infection but because the treatment for burns back then could very well have been deadly on small burns let alone most of his body. Erina coming home to Liverpool with her father--and her father being a doctor excusing her being a nurse without raising eyebrows--and then promptly finding out her childhood crush was hauled out of the burning husk of his family home, let alone how much he was burned, would be a living nightmare for her. Jjba 1890′s medicine seems to have decided that bandages and cleaning wounds were good though, so he’d be slightly less likely to die. He was also probably on just, so so much opiates or other painkillers to not feel everything. The secondary option there would be that the burns were deep enough that his nerves were damaged to the point he couldn’t feel how bad it was and his recovery time was only as short as it was because he has some form of excess hamon that helped him out before Zeppoli thwacked it into action. Honestly Johnathan should have been attracting crowds as a medical curiosity because people just flat out didn’t survive that kind of thing, not for long anyway, and they certainly didn’t go on walks about the countryside a few months after. Erina honestly should have been pushing him in a wheelchair. The fact that only Dio--the one with the ability to feed on people and regenerate pretty fast--is the one in a wheelchair is odd. 

me, staring at the ceiling: brain

My brain, continuing to attempt logic into jojo: It might be that, given Dio was more prone toward studying the natural world while in college and thus would probably have put more focus into medicine than Johnathan, he was convincing himself that even having surplus blood to feed on wasn’t enough to fully combat the severity of his wounds. I assume he realized he was healing just fast enough he could will himself to regenerate faster--similar to how he just up and decides to start doing things with no real proof he can do them. Johnathan, on the other hand, may well have simply powered through it with some “indomitable spirit” that jojo characters seem to have when fatally wounded. Honestly the fact he then goes on to get into more damaging fights before death, and even once again calmly sitting through the ship exploding, supports the idea that his nerves were probably rather damaged but not totally so. 

me, trying to sleep: brain pls

My brain: George Joestar was probably getting equally poisonous things from his doctors trying to treat his mystery illness, in addition to being bled regularly. The only real reason whatever it was Dio got a hold of was considered terribly suspect in all likelihood was because the English doctors attending didn’t approve of the ‘Asian’ medicine beforehand. Honestly if he’d obtained something from the local apothecary for gout or something, not a single person would have known something was up. That said, he could damn well have sent Johnathan himself for something totally harmless in the doses doctors would use--ok not HARMLESS but close--and then just ramp it up so much that everyone just assumed George gave out. This all rests on the fact that, while Dio is good at being persuasive, he’s terribly short sighted. If he’d played at being a friend to Jonathan since the beginning and didn’t show his hand, he could have avoided all this work and just patiently waited for Johnathan to die of malaria or a fever of some kind while out on a dig somewhere. But Dio is petty and not a great planner, and he’s been fooling himself into thinking he’s a grand chessmaster when he’s been up against--though his own mechanization--a man who’s response to a wall not going down with a shove is to start ramming into it with his head so to speak. This isn’t to say Johnathan isn’t a bright boy, he’s just smart in a way several degrees to the left of Dio’s intelligence and thus they assume the other is simultaneously foolish and smart. 

Me, face down in a pillow: pls

My brain, now also tired: So basically he probably was tripping balls when Zeppoli showed him hamon and i can only assume Erina thought him surviving literally any part of this arc was a god given miracle. also Speedwagon, a man who has many scars and has seen many wounds on the street, is probably totally aware of how fucking wild Johnathan surviving was. And is rightfully impressed. He was also probably going to say his goodbyes when he saw Erina and Johnathan having a moment and let them be-- though he probably had to process that Johnathan was awake at all. So Johnathan most badass jojo confirm

[inspiruseducation]

                          Study Abroad & Your Career Will Thank You

In November 2010, on a cold wintry morning I was standing on an anchorage on the Magellan Strait in Punta Arenas about to board a German research vessel. There was nervous excitement in the air as I walked towards the ship. The heavy gusts of wind, the overcast sky, the smell of the briny strait and the stench of decaying seaweed brought about an uneasy calm in me, much like before a storm. Among all the thoughts running through my head of what the next three months will bring forth, I was most excited of the icebergs that my colleagues and I will encounter on my way to Antarctica passing through the stormy Southern Ocean on the R/V Polarstern.

I had felt the same nervous excitement, in August 2004, waiting to board my Lufthansa flight from Delhi that will take to study abroad in for Germany at the Jacobs University Bremen. The anxious tinge on my face and the edgy beating of my heart was not because this would be my first time traveling abroad, but rather I was traveling alone without my family members accompanying me. All the communications with the university was through email. My host family, who I have never had a word before or even know their name or what they look like, would have received me at the airport in Bremen. All the arrangements seem very un-Indian and yet I was excited to experience something new.

As soon as I got my visa and passport checked, passed the airport security protocols of an international traveler, I sat on the airplane wishing myself to sleep to be fresh for all the things to come. I landed in Frankfurt and at once, I noticed the alien weather, odd language, tall, fair and big people, somber food, pink money, green and yellow direction signs and funky electronic billboard advertisements. I decided to explore the airport as I had a few hours before my next flight and got on the sky train. I noticed very soon that the flight gate numbers reached triple figures and it was getting difficult to find my way around. To put it plainly, I got lost.

Fast forward to a frantic run at pace and illegible spurts of huffs of broken German asking for directions, I did manage to board my connecting flight to Bremen, much to the chagrin and amusement of the Lufthansa flight host. As I sat on my seat and broke in to a sigh of relief, little did I know that it was the start of multiple such assays, prepared to test the core of the international student characteristics in me!

I landed at the airport in Bremen, but there was no sign or presence of my host family.

The bag handle broke somewhere midair, I presume for forcefully stuffing 30 kilos of my belongings. The orientation emails from the university were very organized and told me how to reach the university from the airport in such a situation, but being in a foreign land and in that jiffy I was unsure of how to read the metro and train maps to reach Jacobs University Bremen. I made some enquiries but it was too complicated, which I later found out it indeed was! It required me to take 2 metros, a 20-minute train ride, a bus trot and short 10 minute walk.  

Instead, I started profiling prospective international students who might have landed at Bremen airport to study at Jacobs, and therefore maybe find a way to hitch a ride with their host family. On my third conversation with strangers, much to my relief, I did find one student from Ghana in Africa, who was heading the same way.

I landed on a Sunday when university officials were mostly away and offices were closed, except for a few student volunteers and the university guards. I was given my room key and the guards showed the direction towards my accommodation. My transponder key read D-211 at the Mercator Building, which I later discovered was recently erected, and was the root cause of further stress for the day. Even with the help of the student volunteer, I could not find Block D in the building. After searching for about an hour in the stinging rain, and coming up trumps with Block A, B, and C the umpteenth time, we decided to go back to the main gate to complain about its inexistence. Luckily, a Masters’ student from China showed us that Block-D is very much an integral part of Mercator; and is the connecting blocks of A, B, and C, (duh!!) and are usually reserved for the Master’s students. I had no complaints, as the room was bigger than the rooms given to Bachelors’ students and was single occupancy.  

The next day, during the academic orientation with my academic advisor, I discovered that I was registered for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Major and not my preferred Earth and Space Sciences. It did not however take long to change my Major and my international student journey was finally underway. Or so it seemed! Whether good or bad, ups or downs, I have never had an uninteresting day in my time as a student globetrotter.

From my orientation week at the Jacobs University until the day in 2010 on the anchorage, it had been a learning experience like never before. I was able to travel to 30+ countries, interact with people from 150+ nationalities, learn a new language, try multiple different cuisines, research about Earth’s past and its climate, explore the cold ocean in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and achieve a UG degree.

Most importantly, I failed multiple times at things that I tried and classes that I took, but I passed even more times.

I also learnt to teach English as TESL / TEFL and learnt how to mix drinks professionally, to earn my pocket money.

I also lied in my CV that I know programming to get that summer job at the university to make ends meet, and crammed learning programming late into the night while I was impersonating an expert programmer during the day at the job.  

I took classes in Renaissance Art and Architecture, Victorian Poetry, studied about Biochemical Engineering, Drugs and Naturopathy, Astrobiology, as well as Psychology of our Senses and Perceptions and Decision-Making, along with my core courses in Earth and Space Sciences.

I learnt how to drive a boat, use a crane on a liner and swim with Jellyfishes and Seals without incurring their wrath.

I learnt that during long sea expeditions, you could get fresh food for only about 2 weeks, and live the rest on meat, pasta and cold cuts.

Through my friends from the humanities majors and social outreach work with the UNICEF, I also learnt how the United Nation works and how countries such as Germany and the Scandinavian countries plan their budgeting and investment in education research programs, which the whole world is trying to emulate.  

I heard lectures and talks from Nobel Laureates and other famous people and I watched the Champions League and World Cup football games live.

I was also penniless many a times and sometimes survived on eating just rice, onions and tomato puree for whole weeks on end.

I learnt the value of banking and financial security, as much as, the pitfalls of spending too much money through credit cards.

I learnt about student loans and about how to pay them back, slowly but securely.

I learnt that it is important to keep up and find time with your hobbies and passions, whether it is chess, theater or cricket.

I learnt that good research is gold and written communication is diamond.

Even more so, speaking articulately and networking is platinum.

I learnt that human emotions are fickle and true friends are hard to find.

I learnt about various religions and about atheism through the perspective of friends and acquaintances who follow them.

I played cricket with my other South Asian friends, from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

I learnt that living away from home for a long period would make you question your own families’ beliefs and culture.

But no matter, how far you are, I also learnt that your family will always remain your biggest and most important support.

I learnt that honesty is strength.

I also achieved an MS degree from the public University of Bremen in Germany, where education was free of cost.

Earlier in 2012, again and for the third time, I was feeling the same nervous excitement, as I stood at the Guwahati airport, having returned from Germany to India for an indefinite period. I was unhappy because the PhD program that I wanted to embark on, did not work out for political reasons, and I sought time in the security of home. The warm and humid breeze, the thundering sky, the smell of the wet earth and the stench of spices and cow-dung brought about an apprehension of whether I will succeed, having come back to Assam after 12 years away. Among all the thoughts running through my head of what the next few months’ sabbatical will bring forth, I was encouraged and comforted by the thought that among all the skills I have learnt in my time away from India, adaptability and flexibility has been the foundation of them all. I was thus prepared to face all challenges head-on through an international perspective.

Eight years have passed since my study abroad in Germany experience, and I have only stopped to reflect on what I should be doing to find solutions to my challenges at hand rather than rummage deeper on my problems. This philosophy has helped me stabilize my journey in exploring my pedigree in education and counseling. In my time as an international student, I have always learnt that today I should be a better version of myself from yesterday. Therefore, one must always think big and create a dream big enough that your community can thank you for it. My dream is to bring such worldly awareness of opportunities through education and counseling to not just the North-East of India but the entire South-Asian region. This steadfast philosophy has catapulted me straight from being a teacher, to a counselor, and now to an Entrepreneur of sorts. I can only thank my international student experience that gave me the belief and foundational support.

Should I have studied abroad in Germany? Unapologetically, a definite Yes!

– @Abhinav B Gogoi

    Vice President – Eastern India | Inspirus Education

    Email – abhinav@inspiruseducation.com

[sleepycoffins-and-benhargreeves]

TumblrFrostbite's AU Question: Regarding your OTP (Josie and Kazuya)'s child, how similar and different from their parents would they be growing up?

OHMYGOSH I CAN’T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE INDULGING ME INTO THIS CRACK SHIP RARE OTP OF MINEbhsdbj. You are heaven sent bruh

Also, this got a little too long so I’m sorry ;w; I just have these two’s story written out so much in my head that I can;t help but, explain in so much detail ;w;

Okai, so Josie and Kazuya getting married and having a kid is a BIG WHAT IF or just a heavily implied AU. Because seriously, we’re talking about Kazuya here. The dude with serious daddy issues, mommy issues, child abuse, and trust and abandonment issues.  Hell, he is clearly a textbook sociopath from the books I read. 

But, let’s say he’s just a really heavily scarred man that can stray away from his past issues and can actually break away from said textbook sociopath. I imagine some life-threatening event happened first to either him or Josie before they actually got married. He’d be all like, screw world domination and destruction, if he can have a chance of a happy life with Josie, then he’d try to change. If that thought seriously came to him tbh.

So, if this were going to happen, I imagine him and Josie having deep talks and months or even a year of planning first before even considering having a child at all. Kazuya would bring up the past a lot and the devil gene. He probably already has it ingrained in his skull that his family was always meant to betray and kill each other and that would be fine for him, if Josie wasn’t in the picture. I imagine Josie trying to soothe out Kazuya’s past traumas herself until they eventually come to a time where they have couple/marital consultation and family planning consultation. But of course, entirely private at the confines of their home and no, they will not talk about the devil gene with the therapist.

This was probably suggested by one of Josie’s friends or advisors of Kazuya. I imagine the dude actually having advisors or something. Although, they’re usually for business, but since Josie talks to them, they caught up on the problem and tried to help. (Besides, Josie helped them with Kazuya actually coming close to below average nice.)

So, after months or a year of planning and consultations you’d think Kazuya would be ready for that shit but, no. This would be one of those very rare moments where Kazuya would feel a mixture of nervousness and joy and fear all at the same time.

In my head filled with fanfiction stories, I headcanon them having 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl. (PS: This fanfiction will never be written because not only do I not have the time for it but, I also know nobody would be interested enough to read it lol)

Their first child was a boy, which is why Kazuya was also reminded by Jin. Their first kid looks nothing like Jin(except maybe for the eyebrows), most of the baby’s features leaned towards Josie, even the skin colour and hair. So, he cried because he has mix feelings of wanting to protect the child but, also being heavily worried because what if this child would grow up to be just like him and Jin?

Kazuya is strict, more strict than, Josie could ever be. Having grown up from a traditional family of “Are you worthy enough to carry the name Mishima?”, all of those expectations and not to mention his own molded personality of being cruel; he has a hard time knowing which is punishment for the child and which is being a cruel father like Heihachi was to him.

Josie agreed on their child learning the Mishima fighting style as long as the kid also gets to learn Arnis and Yaw-Yan. Their children’s fighting style is a  mixture of those two. Josie is your strict Asian mother that’s like “Your grades and all this blah blah blah must be high”, although she’s just a model and professional kickboxer, I imagine she’s also a college graduate with a degree somewhere in the field of medicine or engineer. She takes studies and extra-curricular activities very seriously and is always on full-on support to whatever her child loves to do.

But, she can also be a very doting mother who’s easy to give in to her child’s wants. But, It’s something like a reward system of “If you finish your homework then yes, we can go to Disneyland afterwards.” type of thing. Josie quite easily fit into the rick lifestyle since her family was already above middle-class before marrying Kazuya.  Also, how she raises her children is exactly the same as to how she was raised, only with more expensive tastes.

Kazuya never realizes or most of the time doesn’t realize when he’s being too harsh and pushing their Mishima heir too hard. The kid would be in tears and he’d only think of it as “Inheriting the cry baby trait from his mother.” thought.

Him and Josie would have constant fights about how Kazuya is traumatizing their child. Kazuya tries to listen of course but, he always gives the rebuttal of “How can he be a Mishima if he can’t do this and that” kind of thing or “If he doesn’t become strong enough, his devil will consume him!” and the only way for him actually see that he’s in the wrong is when Josie tells him that he’s turning into his father. Kazuya would never want to be like Heihachi so, they make up with that and more therapy for Kazuya ensues.

Kazuya only got to be really close with their kid when Joshua (Yep,their kid’s name. Something like Joshua or Junichirou because it’s a Mishima thing to be named after their mother) was around 5 years old. Yes, they had their playdates together and Kazuya wanted to be home more often because he wants to see his family (But also protect Josie and see if the kid’s devil gene would active early) 

Josie always explains to their kid how Kazuya is a good man and he just has a hard time understanding others so she asks for their child to be more understanding of his father. Joshua always tries to win his father’s favor by training hard, doing good academically, and trying to be an affectionate son by giving letters, handmade gifts, and cooking with his mother. More often than, not Joshua breaks down from pressure and high expectations from both of his parents. They’re both very demanding so, I imagine Joshua getting a therapist even at a young age.

That and also because I love the headcanon from Kazuyagoddamnmishima that the devil gene gives you chronic nightmares. Kazuya is used to it, but ever since he and Josie got together, they’ve lessened. He can’t teach his son how he coped with them so, they brought him to a therapist instead. Even though, Joshua hasn’t activated his devil gene yet, the nightmares still happen because of the pressure and expectations. They all stay up together to keep Joshua company (Kazuya is quite reluctant at first but, eventually gives in and it becomes a family routine to sleep together from time to time)

On the less angsty side of this though, is that Kazuya and Joshua play baseball together and bond over their shared loved of collecting sneakers. Their love for sneakers got them to spend more time together; shopping for sneakers all over the world. Kazuya had already forgotten how fun it was to actually not think about anything and just enjoy being a sneaker head with his son.

Their favourite family trips would have to be either playing baseball or basktetball (Josie kinda pushed for it because it’s a well loved sport in the Philippines and Joshua likes it too) or going to beaches. They make sure to always visit the beaches in the Philippines so their kid could also spend some time with his grandparents. 

Also, Kazuya buying every game console known to mankind and inviting the Rizal family over to Japan so the relative’s kids could play with Joshua. That or they bring everything to the Philippines and it somehow worked out with them renting a whole hotel because their stuff could not fit inside the Rizal family home.

When Kazuya’s defenses against Joshua eventually crumbled down, they decided to have another since Joshua was already 5 or 6 and Josie really wanted a new baby, especially a girl.

They had twins. Kazumi is older by 2 minutes to Alfonso (named after Josie’s grandfather). Josie gets to name their children because Kazuya isn’t good with them in a sense that he feels uncomfortable with it. Joshua only got the second name Junichirou because he’s going to inherit the Mishima Zaibatsu one day. He’s happy with the Filipino names though and there was a time where they thought using real Filipino names (because most are either Spanish or Ameircan names in the Philippines) but, they decided not to do so because family tradition. They both come from families where you hand down an old family name to the children or well, in Kazuya’s side the feminine or masculine version of the grandparent’s names.

Kazumi looks like Kazuya, hence she looks a lot like her grandmother Kazumi Mishima. The only thing she inherited from Josie is her wavy hair, almost morena skin colour and short stature (both Joshua and Kazumi are on the rather short side. 5′5/5′6 and 5′3 respectively) whilst Alfonso is a mixture both of his parents, Kazuya’s hair and eyes, Josie’s eyebrows and nose, Kazuya’s lips, Josie’s cheekbones, and out of all the siblings he has the lightest skin colour. Alfonso stands about 5′9 to 6′0.

When Kazumi and Alfonso were born that was the moment Kazuya felt like a real father whom was protective and would do anything for his family. Kazumi was like a precious little treasure to him and was pretty much at shock for the feelings of becoming a father to a daughter.

When the twins were born Kazuya started to really drill into Joshua about the family and inheritance. He trains both Joshua and Alfonso hard and when it comes to Kazumi, he doesn’t realize how soft he becomes until Kazumi herself points it out to him. 

Out of all the siblings, Kazumi  inherited Kazuya’s rather dark and stoic personality. Although, Alfonso has that scary unapproachable aura to him, people should be more afraid of Kazumi. She’s as cruel, unforgiving, and sadistic as her father(Josie eventually soothes it down from her). Joshua and Alfonso are the softy cry babies that are more like, Josie(They grow out of it unlike, Josie though. But, they have what we call Pusong Mamon-literal translation sponge cake heart, where you’re a cinnamonroll softy that cries even at the smallest saddest things and love helping people out like a saint-). And yes, they all inherited Kazuya’s sense of humor. Very dark.

All in all, the Rizal-Mishima family is a cute coping family that goes on routinely scheduled therapy. Except for Kazumi, nobody knows how she can keep herself normal with the nightmares. There is a small fear in Kazuya that she’d end up like her grandmother but, they all pray it won’t happen. But, it just so happens that there is a strong personality trait like that in the Hachijo clan that Kazumi inherited.

They’re all Roman Catholic btw, the kids and Josie. Kazuya doesn’t believe in religion but, Josie does and that influenced their children and made them accept their devil gene a little more easier in a sense that they could use the power for good. Alfonso has yet, to active his devil gene till he reaches somewhere around 20. Joshua activated his when 13 and Kazumi 5.

[the-ocfeedback-gal-blog]

Yat-Sen Tay Review

TW: Anxiety, depression, eating disorder, mention of self-harm.

The-OCfeedback-Gal’s notes will be italicized.

Physical Description: Around 1.80 m (5'11") and 62 kg (136 lbs). Slightly dark, warm skin. Slim face with high cheekbones. Freckles on his nose and cheeks. He usually has a small stubble. A beauty mark on his right cheek. Full, arched lips. Very upturned, double-lid, hooded eyes. Long, dark lashes. Clear, light brown eye colour. Full, straight eyebrows that arched at the end. Hair is usually pretty curly (Type 3b) and it falls into his eyes, but he straightens it and styles it back for work. Hair colour is dark brown, his eyebrows match his hair. Bottom heavy, top slim. Prominent collarbones. Slim neck, shoulders, arms and chest. Thicker thighs, butt and legs. Average feet and hands. He shaves most of his body once a week. He wears glasses, he has two pairs. One pair is big and round, the other is the hipster style frame. He wears the second one to work. Wears a silver ring with a red jewel on his left hand and a silver watch with a red display on his left wrist. He wears a lot of burgundies. His style is usually lazy, button-up shirts with shorts and socks at home. At work, he wears formal sweaters or cardigans with cotton trousers and dress shoes.

I have a clear idea in my mind from this description.

Name: Yat-Sen (given name) Tay (surname) 

Flows off the tongue pretty well.

Species/Race: He’s a black Asian from Singapore!

This is interesting, since I know that many people who grow up in Asian countries but don’t look 100% native tend to have a very hard time feeling like an outsider and never being accepted by their own people. Does he ever have problems like this?

Age: 26. His birthday is 8th of September 1991, so he is a Virgo and Gold Goat. 

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Questionable, but probably aromantic asexual.

Friends: He has a few colleagues he gets along with and some high school buddies he gets together with from time to time, but he usually prefers not to meddle with other people. He does get acquainted with a lot of people throughout the story and even gets deeply involved with a few, but that’s later on.

Family: He has a good bond with his older sister after having patched things up with her from when he was still a teen. His dad was never really a person he could close to, a typical businessman. His mother is still bitter about the past, so he doesn’t want to make the effort to talk it out anymore since it always ends up in a fight and a lot of stress for everyone. He was close with his grandmother, but she died when he was thirteen. She would usually resolve all the quarrels between him, his mother and his sister. Pets: He finds a Fennec fox at a river in the beginning of the story. When he was little (5 years old till 13 years old) he would take care of the hedgehogs in his grandma’s garden.

A fennec is highly unusual, as they are from Africa, and the Sahara no less. That being said, they aren’t endangered so I could see one somehow getting shipped in as part of the exotic pets trade and escaping a pet store or something similar. They are very cute and likely to be sold as pets.

Hobbies: He used to like reading and writing. After he moved out he also started to enjoy cooking for himself. He’s very obsessed about his weight, so he works out a lot by jogging in the park that’s nearby his apartment and going for a swim in the pool where he is signed up at.

Sounds good in theory, but is can be hard to avoid crowds/touching people during peak times of the year at swimming pools. Does going to the pool and being in front of people in nothing but swimwear make him nervous?

Likes: Sleeping and eating healthy food. The tired and burning feeling he gets after a good work out. Water, drinking or swimming. Thunderstorms at night. Warm, scented baths. The flowers he takes care of at the park. The smell of books. Soft clothes. Doing household chores.

Dislikes: Lots of noise. Small talk. Nosy people. Crowds. Physical contact, especially from strangers. Messy rooms. Grease. Being wrong. Asking for help and needing it in general.

He seems like a very sensory focused person, which is pretty cool.

Personality: Yat-sen is a soft-spoken introvert, who is violent minded. He hates conflict and strong emotions, so he avoids situations that could cause either of them. He tends to pent up his frustrations and when he needs to vent he goes for an extra long jog or He always has been someone who is heavily dependent on routine and planning, so he makes a to-do list every evening for the next day. He likes being knowledgeable about everything, so he leaves time open every day to do research about something he found interesting that day.

He struggles a lot with his weight, because he used to be pretty overweight when he was younger and that caused a lot of very unpleasant situations. He also struggles with depression since a couple of years, it was never a suicidal sort of depression though. He can’t find enjoyment in his hobbies and even when he tried switching up things a lot, nothing seemed to excite him. He gave up on trying to find a new hobby and he just fell back into his old rhythm, he does most things on auto-pilot now.

He works well under pressure, but after he is released from it, he feels very anxious and stressed, so he also tries to avoid pressure as much as possible. He has a fondness for small animals since they calm him down. He spaces out a lot when he is doing something that does not require his 100% attention, so he takes long to finish things, also because he’s a die-hard perfectionist. He is a coward that avoids everything he doesn’t like instead of overcoming it. He gives up on people and things quickly if things don’t work out perfectly off the bat.

A couple things that seem to conflict. Why would someone who works well under pressure and even becomes upset when not under pressure avoid pressure? Most perfectionists and workaholics I know actively seek out tasks and problems to keep their mind busy. Giving up easily also doesn’t seem to fit into the perfectionist mindset. If anything perfectionists tend to put too much effort into things.

He is very good at building and keeping habits, but they’re hard to get rid off. He easily gets addicted to things, they don’t always have to be bad things, but he knows he’s susceptible so he is cautious of trying new things he doesn’t understand completely.

If he’s good at building habits, which a perfectionist probably would be, why is he bad at putting effort into things that aren’t inherently perfect? It seems weird that he’s willing to put in so much effort into himself but not really anything else if he is labeled as a perfectionist. Maybe self conscious or hard on himself would be a better term for him.

History: He used to be a very fat kid, so he was shamed and shunned a lot by his family and classmates. He developed an inferiority complex and an eating disorder which never really went away. He grew up in Singapore for most of his life where he learned English and Mandarin. Mandarin was the main language used in his neighborhood, but since almost everything was taught in English at school in Singapore he grew up Bilingual. He was an overachiever at school and genuinely enjoyed studying, so he always got good grades. He was really interested in literature, however, so he told his mother he wasn’t planning on becoming any sort of doctor, lawyer or whatever she wanted him to be. He already had anxiety problems at a young age so he didn’t want to be involved in such high-pressure jobs either way. He said he wanted to be a literature collector and own a bookstore, so he was going to earn an English and business degree.

Specifically an English degree or a literature degree? Since this takes place in Singapore I’m not very sure.

This was one of the many disputes between him and his mother besides his weight. He also tended to have some interests that his mother saw as too feminine, so she accused him of being gay and tried to ‘fix’ him. They also fought a lot because he was brought up as Taoist, but he accused his mother of being a fake believer and such since she was always so hateful and judgmental according to him. His grandmother from his mother’s side lived very close so he used to go there all the time to relax and hear some of his grandmother’s stories. She also educated him about Taoism and helped him read the Tao Te Ching, so he was very fond of her and he loved her very much. She gave him all the love he was missing at home. He fought with his sister mostly about stupid things, like who ate the last cookie and such, but sometimes the remarks would be very nasty. On both sides.

Taoism is a very interesting religion and learning directly from his grandmother would help explain his vastly different opinion on things from his mother, who sounds like she might be more influenced by the general opinion in Singapore on things like Homosexuality and weight. The fact that you admit that Yat-Sen was not innocent in fighting with his sister is good, as sibling fights are rarely one sided.

When Yat-sen was sixteen he lied to his sister An about seeing her at the time boyfriend cheating on her to get back at her for something, but he didn’t know they were just about to get engaged (his sister was 21 at the time) and she got into a big fight with her boyfriend which resulted in a break-up. When Yat-sen finally came clean about it, she wouldn’t talk to him at all and did not keep contact with him after she moved out two years later. Only after three more years when Yat-sen sincerely apologized and they talked it out could she forgive him. Mostly because it turned out the ex-boyfriend was only after her because of their father’s money because he was deeply in debt from gambling. He got thrown in prison for stealing money from seniors by pretending to help them carry their groceries to their home and then taking their savings and running off.

You mentioned earlier that he and his sister get along very well now and that there seems to be no hard feelings between the siblings, which I find hard to believe. Even if Yat-Sen, with all his heart, felt remorse for his actions and even if the boyfriend turned out to be a bad person, I know that if I had been the sister, I would not have fully forgiven him. It’s a strong mark of character to potentially ruin two people’s lives as an act of revenge and the fact that all is forgiven because the boyfriend wasn’t very nice after all feels rather cheap, like there was no negative effect and Yat-Sen is almost rewarded for doing something that is honestly a horrible thing to do. Like, the sister can forgive him if she chooses, but to have absolutely no hard feeling about it at all is quite strange. 

“…forgiveness does not mean you become best friends with the person who wronged you. Forgiveness is not saying what happened was ok. Forgiveness is not saying you accept the person who wronged you. Instead, forgiveness is choosing to accept what happened as it happened rather than what could or should have happened. Forgiveness can mean that you let go. Forgiveness can mean you love from a distance. Forgiveness can mean you step into your present rather than anchoring in the past.” -Psychology Today, The Psychology of Forgiveness, Sept. 16, 2014

Yat-sen’s dad was almost never home because he usually worked overseas and traveled a lot as a representative in a big firm in Singapore. When he was home, however, the talk was mostly small talk and very basic questions, like “How is school?” and “So are there any girls you like?”. Yat-sen thought his father didn’t even try to make an effort to get to know him because he kept asking the same questions, even over the phone when he would call his mother.

The truth was that his father did try to get to know him, but he had nothing to start with since he had become so estranged from his family over time. He did not know what to ask and he did not want to make Yat-sen uncomfortable, so he quickly stopped after a few minutes of talking since it was very obvious Yat-sen did not like it. He also did not know of the tension at home, which escalated after grandmother died.

After the death of his grandmother, Yat-sen fell into a cycle of anxiety and self-harm by starvation and things at school become worse. By age sixteen he had lost so much weight he was clinically underweight, but his mother was happy to finally not have to be ashamed for her fat son. When he finally turned 18 he left for college and decided to live on campus to escape the toxic situation at home. He went to study Marketing and Business Development. Marketing took 4 years for a Bachelors degree and Business Development 3 years, so he was 25 years old when he finished.

During his studies he took on various part-time jobs to start to pay for his own apartment and bills, so he wasn’t so dependent on his parents. After his studies, he kept his job at one of the bigger libraries that are also a part of a bookstore a few blocks further, for experience and he got upgraded to a full-time employee. Now he shifts between the library and the store during the week, but he doesn’t mind that too much.

Overall a very well thought out backstory and personality. You clearly put a lot of thought into both his positive and negative traits, which is very good! I can see him being a solid character to build a story around. The mother seems a bit one dimensional, but if we are seeing this from the son’s perspective that’s not unusual.

Any Extras?(For example: A Harry Potter OC might talk about their wand or a Naruto OC might talk about their jutsu): Don’t think so, if you have any questions, you can ask away!

Most of any questions I might have I typed out while reading the character sheet.

Final Notes: I’m so sorry this is so long and that the way of describing is so all over the place. I didn’t know if I should stick to a telegram-style of writing, in the end, it got scrapped, haha.

It’s all good, as long as it is somewhat easy on the eyes for reading I can handle it.

I have a bit of an idea on what he probably looks like based off of the description you gave but just to be sure when you get some pictures of him feel free to send them in if you want the “First three OCs submitted get free art” offer. Sorry I didn’t have more to say, without the context of a fandom I have to just go off of what I can gather from the character sheet without knowing anything about the world or surrounding characters, so I hope you’re happy with the critique.

[eclecticanalyst]

We’re Expecting You...To Boldly Go

[or, a fun exercise in comparing The Love Boat to Star Trek: The Next Generation]

I’ve always had a fondness for shows that aired several decades before I was born. When I was a kid, I loved the TV channel Boomerang, because it broadcasted classic cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Snorks and The Jetsons. As I entered my preteen years, I graduated to live-action, checking out DVD box sets of The Facts of Life and Fantasy Island and The Love Boat from the library.

I don’t know if other people in my generation are familiar with The Love Boat—it was a television show that ran on ABC from 1977-1987. The show took place on a cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, and a typical episode would begin with the Princess leaving out of its home port of Los Angeles, proceeding to such stops as Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta before ultimately returning to Los Angeles at the end of the hour. The Love Boat’s claim to fame was its rotating roster of guest stars (with a new lineup in each episode), who were a mix of contemporary actors/celebrities (like Jim Nabors, Florence Henderson, and Sonny Bono) and old Hollywood/Broadway royalty (like Gene Kelly, Ethel Merman, and Zsa Zsa Gabor). These guest stars would provide the Pacific Princess with its passengers. There was a regular cast of characters that helped anchor (pun intended) the show—Merrill Stubing, ship’s captain; Adam “Doc” Bricker, ship’s doctor; Burl “Gopher” Smith, assistant yeoman purser; Isaac Washington, chief bartender; and Julie McCoy, cruise director. Vicki Stubing, the captain’s teenaged daughter, was added to the cast in season 3. In the final few seasons, Julie was replaced by her sister Judy, and the ship gained a photographer in Ace–full name Ashley Covington Evans. (Also, every so often, a guest star would play a member of the crew, like the gift shop manager or the chef, rather than a passenger.)

A standard episode was divided into three storylines that played out simultaneously over the course of a cruise. The vast majority of the storylines were romance-based, but there were others that consisted of family drama or old friends getting together. The regular cast members would participate in the passengers’ stories to varying degrees, sometimes being an integral part of the plot and sometimes only existing on the sidelines. The storylines would all get resolved by the time the Pacific Princess returned to Los Angeles, and the passengers would (almost always cheerfully) disembark, usually never to be seen again. Plotlines did not carry over from one week to the next, and even if a guest star returned in a later episode, chances were they would be playing a completely new character.

Although the guest cast took up the majority of the screen time, I was always more invested in the regulars, and wished we could spend more time with them—learning their backstories, exploring their dynamics with each other, and watching them actually do cruise ship work instead of pal around with the passengers. Because of The Love Boat’s near-anthology setup, not much effort was put into any sort of ongoing character development. Intense romances on the main cast’s part one week would be completely forgotten the next week, family deaths wouldn’t be brought up until it was relevant to that episode’s storyline, and new details about the crew’s past would be added as plot points, even sometimes directly contradicting a previous episode.

(The Love Boat had other issues that have less to do with my criticism of the writing and more to do with an adherence to certain flawed social practices, like how Isaac's love interests were always Black, or how single mothers were greeted with raised eyebrows, or how people of Asian or Latino/a descent were accompanied by specific musical cues–but these issues are not the point of this post so I won’t get into them at this time.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered the year The Love Boat went off the air—1987—and ran until 1994. I only got into Star Trek in college, and TNG was my first series as it was easily available on BBC America. Although it had been several years since I had watched The Love Boat on a regular basis, one day a connection was made in my mind, and it occurred to me that there were a great deal of parallels to be drawn between a certain rom-com/drama at sea and a certain sci-fi adventure in space. I kept this observation in my head for years, but now that I have a blog (and because I have been rewatching a few episodes of The Love Boat in the past few weeks), I have decided to write out all of these parallels in detail.

First: the basic setup. The main cast is the crew of a ship, but we only really meet a handful of the hundreds of actual crew members needed to run the ship. In The Love Boat, for example, we don’t see the engineering crew, but the Pacific Princess must certainly have one in order to function, and although we do sometimes see Captain Stubing hanging out on the bridge, we don’t even know the name of the first officer. As I mentioned above, occasionally a guest star would play a crew member in an episode, acting as if they’d been there the whole time, but we would never see them again after that one appearance. A few times, one of the main cast would interact with an extra portraying a crew member—Julie would ask a steward to escort a guest somewhere, or Isaac would ask a waitress to carry a tray of drinks over to someone—but for the most part it seemed like our regulars did all the work on the ship. When Captain Stubing would have pre-cruise preparation meetings, it was always just with the main cast, who were not necessarily the people a real cruise ship captain would be meeting with right before sailing. (Take Gopher—he was only the assistant yeoman purser, and yet he was in all those meetings while the chief yeoman purser was not. Actually, I’m pretty sure the chief purser never made an appearance in the entire ten years the show was on the air. I believe Gopher got a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it promotion to chief purser in later seasons, but he was definitely assistant-purser-with-odd-authority at first.)

In TNG, the same sort of thing would happen. CMO Beverly Crusher claimed to have other doctors working under her, but beyond a Vulcan named Selar who showed up in one episode of the show, we didn’t see them. Missions that seemed suited to one of the science departments of the Enterprise, like xenobiology or astrophysics, would be carried out by senior staff members—also known as the main cast. There were a few more named recurring crew member characters on TNG than on The Love Boat, like Miles O’Brien and Reg Barclay, but for the most part our bridge crew did pretty much everything. And while it makes sense on TNG for the senior staff to interact with each other a great deal, they should also be interacting with their respective teams—and yet we don’t really see that happen. Geordi and Data are more likely to address an engineering problem on their own in a given episode than Geordi and the actual engineering staff, and we don’t really see Worf running his security teams through drills or target practice. On The Love Boat, Doc and Isaac for some reason are often seen checking passengers in at boarding, when that should not be in their job description at all and what we should see is Gopher supervising his staff doing those duties.

Both shows are more plot driven rather than character driven. Our main cast members in both shows are meant to serve as respondents to new situations brought aboard their respective ships, rather than personalities to be interrogated in depth. The main cast is defined enough that the audience can have a favorite character and know how a Picard story differs from a Worf story, or a Gopher story from a Julie story. But all in all the draw and focus of TNG was more “What is the crisis on the planet of the week?” or “What common ground can be found with this new alien species?” or “What commentary on the human condition can be extrapolated from this shipwide invasion?” rather than, say, Beverly’s mental and emotional state as a widow working under the man who ordered her husband to his death or the nuances of Troi and Riker’s no-longer-dating-but-still-sort-of-in-love friendship. Meanwhile, The Love Boat was preoccupied with “What sort of antics will this week’s cast of characters bring on board?”. Doc joked regularly about his multiple ex-wives, but we never got a character study about how Doc seemed to like falling in love more than maintaining a romantic relationship in the long term.

The Love Boat’s regular cast were pretty much the same season to season—Gopher was accident-prone and quick to goof around, Doc maintained his Lothario status, Captain Stubing was quick to both rebuke and advise. I didn’t really watch the post-Julie seasons, so maybe some character developments happened that I missed, but generally the passengers were the ones transformed by their time on the ship, not the crew. TNG characters did have a bit more of an arc than the crew of the Pacific Princess—Data got more in touch with his humanity and Picard relaxed more around his personnel, for instance. But that didn’t apply to all the characters—I’m hard-pressed to think of any sizeable developments in Geordi’s character beyond being promoted to Chief Engineer. Speaking of that promotion, once the show found its footing and everyone had the positions they would come to be known for—Geordi as Chief Engineer rather than the helmsman he was early on, Worf as Chief Tactical Officer post-death of Tasha Yar—nothing really changed for our main characters’ situations. The status quo was strictly enforced despite events unfolding that would have naturally led to transitions. After “Best of Both Worlds,” it would have made sense for Riker to ascend to his own command, but instead he stayed first officer season after season. Worf resigned his commission to fight in the Klingon Civil War, but once that was over, he strolled back onto the bridge without even any extra paperwork.

That aversion to long-term change was in keeping with the episodic nature of both shows. Nowadays, we’re used to the need to keep up with each season’s developments in a television show and watch every episode lest we miss some important revelation. In the case of TNG and The Love Boat, for the most part, you can drop a new viewer into any given episode and they’ll be fine. The stories are largely self-contained, and everything is pretty much resolved at the end of the hour.

This TNG/TLB comparison, however, is not resolved just yet...stay tuned for part 2!

[foresthillsirisgardens-blog]

Trails End Iris Gardens 3674 Indian Trail, RR#8 Brantford, Ontario N3T 5M1 Canada (519) 647-9746 E-mail: bob@trailsendiris.com website: trailsendiris.com

Notes: Over 600 varieties of iris. Shipping within Canada only.

Irises By Name

                   May / June Sale: "Buy Three; Get Fourth Free!

                   While supplies last, buy any three Sale! irises from the list below;

                 choose another Sale! Iris of equal or lesser value "FREE"

                 This a limited time offer. Sale orders must be received and

                 paid no later than Tuesday, June 12th. Happy Shopping!!

A

Aardvark Lark

Above The Rim

Absolute Star

  Sale!    

Absolute Treasure

Action Packed

  Sale!

Adriatic Waves

Advanced Degree

  Sale!

Advanced Features

Afterlife

Alas

  Sale!

All ABout Spring

 New!

All Mixed Up

 New!

All The Right Reasons

 New!

Alpine Lake

Always Lovely

Arts And Crafts

Asian Plum

Autumn Circus

Autumn Embers

Autumn Jester

Autumn Riesling

B Bad Boys Ballerina Pink Banded Rose Bangles Banshee Bargain Hunter Be Brief Be My Baby Beauty Becomes Her Beckoning Before The Storm Being Busy Belgian Princess  New! Believe In Tomorrow Berry Fulfilling Big Squeeze  New! Black Lightning Black Magic Woman Blackalicious  New! Blackcurrant   Sale! Blend Of Blue   Sale! Blessed Again Blowing Kisses  New! Blue Harmony Bluebeard's Ghost   Sale! Blueberry Bliss Blueberry Tart Body Painting Boink Bold Fashion Bollywood Boot Scoot Boogie Brazilian Art Bright Sunshiny Day Brilliant Bauble   Sale! Broad Shoulders Broken Pattern Bumblebee Deelite Bundle Of Love Burst Of Joy But Beautiful

C Calgary Call To Worship  New! Calligrapher Canadian Kisses Care To Dance Casual Joy Cat In The Hat Cat's Eye Celebrate Challenging Harmony  New! Change In The Weather Changing Seasons  New! Chariots Of Fire Cherry Blossom Song  New! Chianti Classic Chuckwagon Cinque Terre Clarence Class Clown  New! Class Ring  New! Classic Navy Classic Sunrise Clear Blue Sky Clouds Go By Cloudscape Code Of Honor Color Blind Color Glory Comic Connection Copper Fusion Cordoba  New! Country Picnic Cranapple Crank It Up   Sale! Crowned Heads Crow's Feet Curious Orchid Curry Road Cut Above  

D Dakota Smoke Dance The Night Away Dancing Star Dandy Candy Dangerous Liaison                           Dark Passion Daughter Of Stars   Sale! Dawn To Dusk Dazzling Death By Chocolate Decadence Delightful Woman Delirium Desert Snow Devil's Delight Devoted Diabolique Die Laughing Dipped In Dots Dividing Line Dollop Of Cream Don't Stop Believing Dorothy Davenport Double Your Fun   Sale! Dragon's Nest Dream Team   Sale! Dusky Challenger Dynamite

E Easter Candy Electrifying   Sale! Elysium Endless Moments Epicenter Eramosa Miss Eramosa Ridge Eramosa Skies Exceedingly Strange  New! Extraterrestrial Eye Of Sauron Eye Of The Tiger

F Fanciful Whimsy Fancy Stuff Fast Forward Feature Attraction Fernie Bridge Fiery Temper Fire Down Below   Sale! Flamingo Frenzy Fleece As White Flirting Again Florentine Silk Flying Circus Forever Blue Forever Violet   Sale! Fragile Design Fragrant Breeze French Riviera Frilly Molly Frimousse Frisky Frolic Full Figured   Sale!

G Game Player Garden Bride Garnet Slippers Gate To Paradise Giorgio Glitzorama Going Dotty   Sale! Golden Panther Good Morning Sunshine Got Milk Grand Canyon Sunset Grapetizer Guardian Angel Guatemala   Sale! Guilt Free Sample Gypsy Lady   Sale! Gypsy Lord Gypsy Romance

H Happenstance Hasta La Vista Haunted Heart Hello Darkness High Chaparral   Sale! Hollywood Nights Homebody Honky Tonk Blues Hope For Peace Hot News   Sale! Hum

I I Stand Out  New! Icon I'm All Shook Up   Sale! I'm Back Immortality In Your Dreams

I - continued Indigo Seas Ink Patterns Insaniac Inspired Intergalactic Intermediary Intoxicating Island Pearl   Sale! Italian Ice  New! It's Amazing It's Not Over

J Jamaican Dream   Sale! Jazz Band Jot Joyful Skies Judy Mogil Just Kiss Me

K Kaching                             Kathy Chilton Keeno King Tush

L La Scala Laced Cotton Land Down Under Lavender Stardust   Sale! Lecture Leopard Print  New! Limonada Look Inside Lookout Sunshine   Sale! Lost In Love Love Is All Around Love Power Lovers Holiday

M Magical Moment Majestic Ruler   Sale! Mandarin Morning Mango Passion  New! Man's Best Friend Many Mahalos Mardi Gras Dancer   Sale! Mastery Matador's Cape Melody Of Spring Melted Butter Merry Amigo Millennium Sunrise Miss Fluffy Mister Mistoffelees   Sale! Money In Your Pocket   Sale! Mostly Ghostly   Sale! Music Musician My Cher My Cher Of Happiness My Generation

N Naples Neat And Tidy New Face New Leaf Nickel Ninja Turtles No Other Love No Place Like Home   Sale! Note To God

O Oblivion   Sale! Oh So Sweet Old Black Magic   Sale! Orange Juice Other Voices Oui Madame Our Katy Girl Out And About  New! Out Of The Dark  New!

P Padded Shoulders  New! Palace Symphony Parisian Dawn Patriotic Heart   Sale! Paul Black                                                         Pearly Whites Peebee And Jay Peggy Anne Perpetual Indulgence Persona   Sale! Petite Charm Photogenic  New! Precious Moments Presto Change-O Princess Grace Pulsator Purdue Pete Purple Study   Sale! Purple Zinger Pursuit Of Happiness Pussycat Pink

Q Queen Dorothy Queen Of The Mist  New! Queen's Circle

R Raindance Returns   Sale! Raspberry Tiger Ravissant Razzleberry n Cream  New! Ready For My Closeup  New! Red At Last Reflections of Love   Sale! Revved Up Rose Rimaround Ring Around Rosie Rodeo Girl Rosalie Figge Royal Sterling   Sale! Ruby Eruption Ruby Passion Rustler's Rhapsody                                                         Ruth's Choice

S Safari Sunrise Santa Savoy Jazz Scrambled   Sale! Sea Power Seaside Lemonade  New! Secret Service Sharp Dressed Man Silver Ice   Sale! Slovak Prince Smoke And Thunder Smooch Social Graces Soleil Sorbonne  New! Sordid Lives Speckled Spring Spiced Lemon Spiced Peaches   Sale! Spring Into Summer Spring Madness Stairway To Heaven Star In The Night   Sale! Starwoman Still Thinking Stolen Sweets Sun Fun   Sale! Sweet And Innocent   Sale! Swingtown Swoosh Syrian Hills

T Tail Hook   Sale! That's All Folks Thunder Quay Thundering Ovation   Sale! Tic Tac Toe   Sale! Tiny Titan   Sale! Tom Johnson Tomorrow's Child Toronto Total Recall Touch Of Mink Trusty Blue Twist Of Sheree  New! Twitter   Sale!

U Ultimate   Sale! Ultimate Desire  New! Undercurrent Up In Flames

V Vanity Venetian Glass Very Very Good Vibrant

W War Chief Watch Me Shine Wench What About Me Whispering Spirits  New! Wings At Dawn  New! Wink And A Smile Winterfest Wintry Sky Wish Upon A Star Wonders Never Cease World Premier Worry Wart

X

Y

Z Zooboomafoo

http://www.trailsendiris.com/irises/by_name.htm

[lookingformyron]

never straight forward.

well off families wants to marries their kids of to secure their empire. it was a business marriage for the two families. but the kids are not the ones to be placed here and there w/o putting off a fight. 

its been a 2 years since his parents passed away. Ron was struggling to keep the company afloat with what was left. all the stock holders are pullling out b/c they can’t trust their investments on a 25 year old something to make their monies grow. He’s only got a few years in the bussiness, still green if you must. But Ron, like his parents is a business genius. he didnt need those ppl who didn’t have faith in him anyways. but having the rumors that he was going to marry his fiance that was set by his parents only did his company good. he was their wish for him to marry her. he didn’t mind every much, not her or getting married. Ron was the type to not be bother by stuff such as love or affections. its not like he had a bad childhood or anything. but that was just the way he is.

He’s met Mr. Le two years ago at this parents funeral. He knew that man is going to be his father in law one day. Ron was okay with it. He was indifferent. Mr. Le helped Ron stayed afloat and rebuilt his empire, he wanted his daughter to live a comfortable life. although Mr. Le was a cold heart business man, he loves and cherishes his daughter above anyone else in the world. April is now 23 years old, and just finished her undegrad. It took her a while, b/c unlike Ron who had to mature quickly, she took her time growing up. If it wasn’t because Mr. Le pressuring her to finish her studies, she would’ve stilled be in school. April doen’st have any plans for the future. One thing she definately didn’t have in her future was getting marry. 

Mr. Le set his daughter down and gave April the news. 

you want me to marry this 27 something man, that i’ve never met? what if he is abusive? what if he treats me like his servant? even worst... what if he was UGLY? -april  he’s not abusive, nor will he treats you like a servant. and base on everyone around him, he seems to be decent looking. top of the crop for my daughter of course -Mr. Le  but why? i LITERALLY JUST graduate. dont you want me to be independent, find a job. -april  you can do all that even if you’re married. this is not debatable. -Mr.Le is the company in trouble? is that why you’re marrying me off? -april  no, the company is fine. I just want to keep my promise to my friends who’s passed away. Ron is fine young man, with only a little bit of my guidance, he was able to run his parents company into sucess. and with every little knowldge of the bussiness. He was mid-way thru med school when his parents passed. He dropped everything and came back. isn’t that admirable? -Mr. Le stop trying to sell him to me. I dont want to get married. -april  i bought the tickets for you, he’s been over seas for the past comple of years. and i think he’ll be over there for a few more years. Im sending you over there to get to know him first. and if when you guys decided to come back, you still dont want to marry him, then we’ll talk then. how does that sound? -Mr. Le  where is ‘over seas.’ you dont love me anymore, you want to ship me off! is that what it is? -april  vietnam -Mr.Le ARE YOU KIDDING ME? you want me to spend a few years in VN. what am i going to do there? -april  you leave tomorrow at 3. we’ll have lunch before you leave. the maid has already prepare your luggage. if you’re  missing anything, you can buy it over there. if you need anything, he’ll take care of it for you. i’ve already told him that you’ll be arriving. he’ll pick you up. -Mr. Le

and like that april was set for VN the next day. Our princess however had different plans for herself. After bidding her father farewell, april was heading to the airport. but she was not going to VN. April decided to be  make something of herself so that she does not have to reply on her family anymore. what what is she going to do with a biology degree? she didn’t exactly planned it through when she graduate. She just decided on a degree needed the least amount of credit to graduate with. and it was biology. why did she take so many science classes? b/c most of her nerdy friends are pre-med. and she was there to hang out. 

She could be a zoologist, a highschool teacher, or continue with her education. med school? -not smart enough  something in the medical field thought, April always wanted to be a doctor. with that, she decided to apply to optometry school. luck was on her side when she got accepted. and like that she went off grid and started optometry school. 

tha day, Ron was at the airport waiting for his ‘fiance’ to arrive. she never showed. Ron check the flight, she never got on. 

i guess she didn’t care for this marriage as much as myself. That’s good, b/c i can’t afford to babysit some little girl right now. -ron 

he was worried that something might happened to her on the way to the airport. the thing about rich children is that they always have to be careful of being kiddnapped for randsom. he’s experienced it a few time as a kid... since then his parents are every careful with the help they hired. Ron was also enlisted in multiple self defense classes. he hired a private detective to see what his ‘fiance’ is up to. as much as april thought she was ‘off grid’. she wasn’t. it only took the PI a few days to find her. after Ron learned that she enrolled in some graduate school in arizona. and will be there for the next four years. that was to the extend of his knowledge. its a win-win situation for the both of them. 

i guess she’s not that spoiled type to sit idle on her princessy throne like the other girls. 

he was impressed with her. he hired to PI to check up on her occasionally, and only to report to him if anything’s changed. after all he can’t let his fiance run loose. he owns his ‘father in law’ that much. he lied to Mr. Le that day that april has arrived safely. and that he need not to worry. April is in good hands. Besides from learning that her name is apirl, Ron has no idea what she looks like. pretty or not, it was none of his business, its not like he’s can reject her b/c she doesn’t look good. But Ron was not superficial like that. (april might be a little bit)

3 years pass --

April is now in her 4th year and is about to graduate. [she gets loans for the school, living on loan money was a bit of an adjustmnet for her. She cant afford all the nice things like before, but those things never matthered much to her. She do miss the good food, which she splurge on once in a while. so life has been okay for april] she’s relocated to el-paso for a rotation. it was just another ordinary day. when her Mr. Le called... 

fk fk fk, i was able to pretend that iwas in VN for the past 3 years via txts and emails. but why does my dad suddenly have the time to call! and in the middle of a sunday as im in the laundry room!! 

hi dad. how are you? -a  im good, where are you? a few days a go, an old friend of mine said he saw you on his business trip to el paso. and i said no way, your’e in vn. or did you make a trip back and not tell your old man? -Mr. Le el paso? bahaha, your friends are getting older by days. im in vn with my fiance like im suppose to! dont worry. -a are you with him right now? it should be 9am over there, he’s home right? let me talk to him -Mr. Le you want to talk to him... urrr... he’s in the shower. how about i tell him to txt you in a little bit -a  i’ll wait, i need to talk to him about some business stuff anwyays. it’ll be too troublesome via txt -Mr. Le 

shit shit shit. wtfff do i do. -April

as luck as it, there was a asian looking man at the time in the laundry mat. 

are you vietnamese? -april  urr yes -ron  thank the lord almighty! brother, help me out. take this call.  its my father. pretend to be my fiance. just do superficial greetings i beg of you -april 

this girl is mental... -ron thought but before he could say no, april has already pushed the phone aginst his ear

i havn’t heard from you in a while is business good? -mr. Le.  urrr. yes, sir -ron  thank you for taking care of apirl, i know she can be a handful. she’s been spoiled by me ever since she was a kid. i hope you can be understanding. -Mr. Le yes -ron okay, i wont bother you both anymore. come visit when you get a chance i miss my girl. and you guys need to get married officially. its not good to live together for too long w/o getting married if you understand. -Mr. Le.  yes. good bye - ron 

omg thank you so much. that was a close call. -april  if you dont mind me asking, where is your fiance? -ron  idk. i’ve never met him. i ran away before i could see what he looks like. and it doesn’t seem like he cared, to tell my father. so im just going to go along with it. i know its hard to understand, and i dont expect you to. -april  you’d be surprise how much i DO understand. -ron 

and that was their first encounter for a every winding road to find ea. other.