![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingThis is a snippet from my Ithaca Paranormal universe, introducing Hikaru "Kari" Fitzroy, who is Takeshi Fitzroy's little sister. She has a masters in cultural studies, which is a cross-disciplinary thing she cobbled together; it includes Touched studies, women's studies, and also Asian studies. Kari is big on social justice, and also history and sociology. She was teaching at... I dunno, somewhere out in California, probably, and had trouble with some of the faculty and a couple student groups over various protests she organized and her habit of insulting people who couldn't or wouldn't understand her points.
Anyway, she was considering a suit for discrimination and/or harassment, though she knew there was only about a 50% chance of winning and also it would cost a lot of money she didn't have, but then Takeshi married Lia. Kari was not pleased; she doesn't trust Lia. (This is a very understandable reaction, as Lia is... well, she's guilty of manslaughter at the least, let's just put it that way.) So Kari put out feelers to Cornell and got a job offer, and quit her previous university without actually suing them.
Now she's in Ithaca, starting the fall semester. This ficlet deals with the first day of her class on Touched rights. (575 words)
---------------------------------------------
A Dream of Butterflies: If Not Us
---------------------------------------------
"This class is officially listed as a history of Touched rights, which generally means the Touched rights movement -- a subset of the greater human rights movement of the 20th century," Kari said, leaning back against her desk and and sweeping a measuring glance over the half-empty auditorium. She wished she'd gotten a smaller lecture hall, maybe something in Baker or Rockefeller, not this huge waste of space in Goldwin-Smith. She wanted her students to feel like part of a group, not isolated individuals in a sea of empty chairs.
Actually, that was easy enough to fix.
"We're going to talk about more than the human rights and social justice movements of the past two centuries, though," Kari continued. "Nothing in history makes sense without context, after all, so we're going to study the social roles and positions of the Touched in various societies as far back as we have records. Primarily, I want to focus on concepts of power and service, the sacred and the supernatural, fear of the other, and in-group vs. out-group definitions. I take a sociological approach to history -- I want to help you explore the ways humans conceptualize social boundaries and markers, and the ways we act upon those ideas.
"As such, I want to make you into a group, and we can't do that if you're scattered all to hell and back." Kari paused. There were a few stifled chuckles, which wasn't bad for the first day. Nobody wanted to look stupid in front of strangers, much less in front of a professor whose sense of humor was a giant unknown variable.
"That means come on down to the front," she said. "There are, what, forty of you? Fifty? I want you all in the center section, first ten rows. We're going to do a lot of talking, and I find that works best if you can see each other's faces and don't have to shout across a football field to make your points."
A few more chuckles this time, but no movement. Kari sighed. "Move it, people. I won't hand out your syllabuses until you're in the right seats."
Finally the scattered kids began gathering their bags and notebooks and laptops -- and their coffee and snacks -- and shuffling down the aisles toward the front of the auditorium.
"Good," Kari said, reaching to her side to pick up a stack of lime-green photocopies. "All lecture topics are clearly listed on the second page of the syllabus, with the required reading for each. I highly recommend you read the sections before class, since I'll usually use them as a starting point for discussion..."
She kept talking as she walked along the aisles, handing out photocopies as she went. It was far too early to tell how this would go, but at least she had some students, and some of them had laughed. She'd take that as a good omen.
Maybe this time she wouldn't have to call in NAPTR and the ACLU. Maybe this time people would listen, and learn, and go out and work to make America live up to its ideals. Even if they didn't, Kari wasn't going to back down and run. Not anymore.
Kari handed a syllabus to her final student, walked back to the front of the room, and prepared to fight the world again, one lecture at a time.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 5/10/10![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15_minute_fic word #138: serve
---------------------------------------------
I should note that while the National Association for the Promotion of Touched Rights (NAPTR) is completely fictional, the ACLU is very real.
Anyway, she was considering a suit for discrimination and/or harassment, though she knew there was only about a 50% chance of winning and also it would cost a lot of money she didn't have, but then Takeshi married Lia. Kari was not pleased; she doesn't trust Lia. (This is a very understandable reaction, as Lia is... well, she's guilty of manslaughter at the least, let's just put it that way.) So Kari put out feelers to Cornell and got a job offer, and quit her previous university without actually suing them.
Now she's in Ithaca, starting the fall semester. This ficlet deals with the first day of her class on Touched rights. (575 words)
---------------------------------------------
A Dream of Butterflies: If Not Us
---------------------------------------------
"This class is officially listed as a history of Touched rights, which generally means the Touched rights movement -- a subset of the greater human rights movement of the 20th century," Kari said, leaning back against her desk and and sweeping a measuring glance over the half-empty auditorium. She wished she'd gotten a smaller lecture hall, maybe something in Baker or Rockefeller, not this huge waste of space in Goldwin-Smith. She wanted her students to feel like part of a group, not isolated individuals in a sea of empty chairs.
Actually, that was easy enough to fix.
"We're going to talk about more than the human rights and social justice movements of the past two centuries, though," Kari continued. "Nothing in history makes sense without context, after all, so we're going to study the social roles and positions of the Touched in various societies as far back as we have records. Primarily, I want to focus on concepts of power and service, the sacred and the supernatural, fear of the other, and in-group vs. out-group definitions. I take a sociological approach to history -- I want to help you explore the ways humans conceptualize social boundaries and markers, and the ways we act upon those ideas.
"As such, I want to make you into a group, and we can't do that if you're scattered all to hell and back." Kari paused. There were a few stifled chuckles, which wasn't bad for the first day. Nobody wanted to look stupid in front of strangers, much less in front of a professor whose sense of humor was a giant unknown variable.
"That means come on down to the front," she said. "There are, what, forty of you? Fifty? I want you all in the center section, first ten rows. We're going to do a lot of talking, and I find that works best if you can see each other's faces and don't have to shout across a football field to make your points."
A few more chuckles this time, but no movement. Kari sighed. "Move it, people. I won't hand out your syllabuses until you're in the right seats."
Finally the scattered kids began gathering their bags and notebooks and laptops -- and their coffee and snacks -- and shuffling down the aisles toward the front of the auditorium.
"Good," Kari said, reaching to her side to pick up a stack of lime-green photocopies. "All lecture topics are clearly listed on the second page of the syllabus, with the required reading for each. I highly recommend you read the sections before class, since I'll usually use them as a starting point for discussion..."
She kept talking as she walked along the aisles, handing out photocopies as she went. It was far too early to tell how this would go, but at least she had some students, and some of them had laughed. She'd take that as a good omen.
Maybe this time she wouldn't have to call in NAPTR and the ACLU. Maybe this time people would listen, and learn, and go out and work to make America live up to its ideals. Even if they didn't, Kari wasn't going to back down and run. Not anymore.
Kari handed a syllabus to her final student, walked back to the front of the room, and prepared to fight the world again, one lecture at a time.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 5/10/10
15_minute_fic word #138: serve---------------------------------------------
I should note that while the National Association for the Promotion of Touched Rights (NAPTR) is completely fictional, the ACLU is very real.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-15 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-15 03:30 am (UTC)I do not feel that I have anything remotely like enough relevant experience or cultural sensitivity to write that set-up without failing right, left, and center. But I do like the idea. And I am very fond of Kari.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-17 04:15 am (UTC)This story and its background sound fascinating. Is it something you hope to have published one day?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-18 02:45 am (UTC)"A Dream of Butterflies" is one of four urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels I have loosely outlined, but which I have not started writing in earnest. I may try using one of them as a NaNoWriMo project this year. At the moment, all I have posted are two snippets from one of the other novels -- "Cobweb Maze," which is about Takeshi and Lia -- and an alternate universe version of "The Lady Is the Tiger," which ignores all the Touched except for shifters and uses a hidden world trope rather than having the weirdness be public. If you're interested, they're all here under the Ithaca Paranormal tag.