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eurydicees · 3 years

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top 10 ouran manga-only arcs

this is going to be such a long post i apologize in advance. the ranking system has absolutely no criteria other than "does this pass my vibe check.” bonus points were awarded if i could think about tamakyo while reading it; points were also awarded every time tamaki did something cool. this was a delight to make. anyways, without further ado, here are my personal top ten favorites, and no i will not be taking criticism.

1. THE TAMAKI EXTRAVAGANZA

(vol 16 chp 73 - vol 18 chp 80)

PLOT:

So much happens here that I couldn’t think of an actual name, and uh does it count as a single arc? Probably not, but I’m counting it as one because it has a single thread: Tamaki. My beloved. So. First, Tamaki finally, finally, finally moves into Suoh mansion #1, but when he gets there, he gets told that he’s only allowed to study the Suoh business and go to school and nothing else— meaning he has to quit the host club. Shizue threatens to out Haruhi as a girl and ruin her reputation— possibly losing her the scholarship— if Tamaki doesn’t break off all ties with her.

The Host Club disbands. Kyoya begins an Investigation™ into Tamaki’s mother— she had been incredibly weak and unhealthy when Tamaki was a child, but when Kyoya met her, she was pretty healthy. After some sleuthing, the hosts minus Tamaki discover that she probably had Bisco Hatori’s fictional version of lupus, which was cured by a mysterious foundation— which they discover was run by the Grantaine family, funded by the Suoh corporation, and actually researched by the Ootori conglomerate. Literally everyone is in on it. It’s fucking wild. Like. Huge “holy fucking shit I need to stop and take a breath” moment.

This information is suddenly released to the public, and then the Suoh corporation all vote Shizue out of her position, saying that she’s no longer fit for the job. She locks herself in her room and refuses to speak to anyone, breaking Tamaki’s heart. But now that she’s no longer top dog, Anne-Sophie can come to Japan— Yuzuru is super hyped and expects Tamaki to be as well, not understanding that Tamaki’s family fantasy includes his grandmother. Tamaki stops going to school and plays piano every day in order to cheer up the house, eventually luring Shizue out to listen to him play their shared favorite songs from J-dramas.

They begin to bond and Shizue sees that he’s not a failure because of his parentage, but it’s too late because Anne-Sophie is about to fly back to France. All is hopeless.

EXCEPT THEN. All of the hosts and all of the clients realize what’s happening and rush to help him get to his mother. They all adore him so much, and give their all into getting Tamaki to the airport. Shizue finally encourages him to go, realizing— with the help of Haruhi— that she has been bitter and selfish and Tamaki deserves better. They rush to the airport, and through a series of shenanigans that are no match for the combined power of the hosts and every single girl at Ouran, Tamaki makes it to the airport. They make it there JUST in time, and Tamaki gets a five minute reunion with his mother. Haruhi finally confesses to Tamaki that she loves him.

WHY I LOVE IT:

oh my God oh my God oh my GOD. Like. This is just. So much. So Much. We all know that I’m like. The #1 Fan of Tamaki Suoh. Like. President, vice president, treasurer, and secretary of the fan club, all at once. I love him so much, and this just gives him so much development. There is so much opportunity for him to grow and you not only really see who he is as a character, but you also see how much he’s grown as a person from his first introduction. You also get more of a glimpse into the world of Rich People, and the way that all of their families interact with each other, and then also with the way that they interact within their families. It’s just such an intense arc and it’s so beautiful and I love it so much.

2. THE SPORTS COMPETITION

(vol 10 chp 46 - vol 11 chp 49)

PLOT:

This one is HARD to rank, because I love it, but it also Hurts. Like. I genuinely cried over this one, though that’s not actually saying much because I cry at everything. So. Here’s what’s up. Tamaki gets into this idea of a sports festival, and then Kuze wanders in to fight Kyoya again, so Tamaki suggests a competition between the two of them. This is a very Tamaki thing to do, but Kyoya gets fed up with it and refuses to participate— until Kuze accuses him of being “Suoh’s pet” and that he’ll always let Tamaki win, and then Kyoya gets fired the fuck up.

But he’s still bitter at Tamaki for starting this, so the two of them stop talking and my heart breaks. This does not stop Tamaki from having heart eyes for Kyoya 24/7. Hikaru and Kaoru are assigned to competing teams, and begin their Very Long Journey into not being so codependent— Hikaru is on the red team with Tamaki, Haruhi, and Kuze; Kaoru is on the white team with Kyoya and Honey.

Essentially, each team goes through rounds of races in different areas that are like. Complete bullshit games, but whatever. It’s Rich People World. The white team gets ahead; the red team performs a scene from a Shakespeare show to rally their losing team together and begins to win, until they’re on even footing. The final race is between Kyoya and Tamaki.

There’s a heartbreaking series of panels of Tamaki just… thinking about Kyoya. I cannot get enough of it. Then there’s an even more heartbreaking series of panels of Kyoya just… thinking about Tamaki. You realize, alongside the other hosts, that Tamaki pushed for this race not really for benefit or fun, but to give Kyoya a chance to compete in something for real, without having to set it up so that Tamaki wins (as we see in the race for the central salon). It’s a chance for him to win and not put his family first. Tamaki still tried his best, because Kyoya would hate him if he threw the race, but he lost because Kyoya fought with the intention of winning for HIMSELF, and not just playing support to Tamaki or impressing his father.

Finally, in the last panel, it’s revealed that the class trip will be to France.

WHY I LOVE IT:

God it burns so good. So Good. The Tamakyo, the Hikaru & Kaoru character growth, the Kyoya development, the Tamaki being so so so good, the Kyoya being so brilliant, everything oh my lord. This is really one of the biggest points of Kyoya’s character development, and it’s the first place I’m going to point to when thinking accurately about who he is as a person. It shows who he is, and who he believes he is, and who he wants to be, and who other people see him as. It’s also just a Tamakyo goldmine, even though they don’t ever actually talk. It’s so beautiful and it makes me cry.

3. THE ORIENTEERING RACE

(vol 14 chp 66 - vol 15 chp 68)

PLOT:

In an attempt to make Tamaki realize that the hosts all love him just as much as he loves them, the hosts sans Tamaki put together an orienteering race. There are six checkpoints, each one with a task to be completed in order to get an ingredient that will make the best meal at the end of the race.

Hikaru and Kaoru play the return of the “Which one is Hikaru?” game, knowing that Tamaki has been able to tell them apart for a while by now; Nekozawa’s checkpoint is a quiz on cursed items, knowing that Tamaki is familiar with Beelzenef; Honey’s checkpoint is a game of whack-a-mole with little mini Usa-chans, knowing that Tamaki isn’t afraid of making him upset over a game, though all the girls are; Mori’s is a sword slicing thing to show that Tamaki will never give up on something; Haruhi’s is a “tell the truth or never pass” kind of thing; and Kyoya’s is a crossword puzzle of all the answers made up of things from previous club themes.

Tamaki pairs up with Konoya— who is in love with him and is the “perfect Haruhi” trope— and realizes that she’s incredibly different from Haruhi, and that he loves Haruhi for who she is and not who he thought he wanted her to be. He also realizes that— because the hosts have gone through all of this for him— they do love him for who he is, no matter what, no matter the bad parts of his personality, and they’re never leaving him.

WHY I LOVE IT:

Look. We know that anything about Tamaki is gonna make me happy. I am a simple woman and so easy to please. This is literally just three chapters about how much all of the hosts love Tamaki and want him to be happy. I cannot express in words how rewarding it is to watch Tamaki realize how important he is and how much he’s loved— because he is loved, he’s so loved, he’s so so so loved. This is also the arc with the building block / building a home metaphor, and it destroyed me both physically and emotionally (vol 14 chp 66). This is where the found family is really solidified, and we all love a good dosage of found family.

4. RACE FOR THE CENTRAL SALON / THE SCHOOL FAIR

(vol 6 chp 22 - vol 6 chp 26)

PLOT:

This is where the anime diverges from the manga, and I have to say that this version of the school fair is just so much better than the anime version. Like. Just So Much Better. Basically, the club is setting up for the school fair, and the best spot to set up— essentially, the spot that will get the most foot traffic form the parents— is in the central salon. To figure out which club is going to get the spot, they all compete in a literal race, both mind games and physical games and it just slaps overall.

The b-plot is that the Host Club is getting threatening letters telling them to drop out of the race, alongside blank papers that are sent with the notes; the hosts have to figure out who is sending the notes and confront it. This is the arc that introduces both Kuze and Yuzuru Suoh for the first time. Kuze is captain of the football team and Kyoya’s rival and also definitely his secret ex-boyfriend. Chairman Suoh is… just. A lot. Just. That’s it. A Lot. He’s A Lot.

Anyways, part of the winning race is capturing this crown that’s hidden on campus, which turns out to be at a swimming pool. The football team gets there at the same time as Haruhi, and Kuze pushes her into the pool and goes for the crown. Kyoya and Tamaki reach her at the same time— Tamaki’s instinct is to go for Haruhi, but Kyoya tells him to get the crown and thus the glory of winning, while Kyoya rescues Haruhi.

Later, it turns out that Yuzuru was sending the blank papers with harmless messages written in invisible ink as a prank to emphasize the literal hate mail that the hosts were getting. The follow up to the race is the actual school fair, where we meet Yoshio and Shizue. Fuck Shizue, not even going to get into that right now because I WILL cry, but just know that it’s even worse than it is in the anime. Yoshio, though, is eons better in the manga than in the anime— he is genuinely proud of Kyoya and says that he actually wouldn’t mind appointing Kyoya as heir.

WHY I LOVE IT:

Volume 6 does SO MUCH for Kyoya and Tamaki and we all know that I’m ride or die for the two of them. Kyoya finally gets a chance to shine as team leader and it’s what he deserves! Tamaki takes a little more of a backseat, which I don’t even mind, because Kyoya does such a good job of pulling attention here. The scene at the swimming pool is just so good— it really shows the huge amount of trust between Tamaki and Kyoya, and does a good job of setting up the relationship they need to have as Rich People, outside of their friendship, which is something that we don’t see a lot of. Overall, it’s a very Kyoya-centric arc, and it does amazing things for the development of his character and personality. It’s one of the biggest insights into how he functions as a kind of mastermind for the club. We also finally get Tamaki’s full-ish backstory, which genuinely makes me cry every time.

5. THE HITACHIIN FAMILY

(vol 10 chp 45 / vol 11 chp 51 - vol 12 chp 53)

PLOT:

So this is technically two plot lines, but I’m going to count it as one because it’s all about the twins, my loves. In vol 10 chp 45, we get a little insight into the life of the Hitachiin family and why the twins are as fucked up as they are. Quick rundown— their parents can tell them apart but pretend not to for whatever godforsaken reason; Kaoru admits he’s in love with Haruhi for the first time and Hikaru remains oblivious; Kaoru begins to realize how unhealthy he and Hikaru’s relationship is and how, one day, they aren’t going to be able to have all of the same things; there’s a cookie metaphor; Tamaki gets lost in the Hitachiin manion; it’s all a good time.

In volumes 11 and 12, we begin the actual split between the twins, where they realize that they can’t stay the way that they are forever. They can’t be one person forever. They realize this in a fight over Haruhi, where Hikaru suggests they “share” her as a sister, and Kaoru rightfully thinks this is bullshit. They get in their first— and only— genuinely real argument. Hikaru breaks down in Mori’s house, Kaoru breaks down at Honey’s place, literally no one is happy and I am crying.

Kaoru asks Haruhi out on a date, and then ends the date by explaining that he could never date her knowing that it would be hurting Hikaru. Haruhi is, understandably, very confused by this whole thing, and no one is telling her anything.

Kaoru then makes up with Hikaru, saying that he’ll give up on trying to pursue Haruhi, but tells him that they actually do need to live separate lives at some point— and that point might as well be now. He wants to break apart entirely, but Hikaru explains that while they need to break apart in a lot of ways and find their own identities, they can never fully forget each other. They agree that they can influence and love each other without depending on each other for a personality.

They keep up the incest ACT at the club, though. Bisco Hatori couldn’t manage to write her way out of that one.

WHY I LOVE IT:

So this one just. Really hits home for me. It’s a genuinely heart wrenching arc, and the progression of the whole thing was just so slow and so steady and it was so well done. The twins are two of my favorite characters in the show/manga, and their relationship is something that I can analyze for days, and this arc is a huge part of why it’s so interesting. It does amazing things for both of them as developing characters, but it does even more amazing things for their character growth as people. It also provides a nice catalyst for the Hikaru/Tamaki/Haruhi love triangle. Anyways, it made me cry and apparently that’s my only criteria.

6. THE FRANCE ARC

(vol 10 chp 46 - vol 12 chp 56)

PLOT:

On the Ouran 2nd year school trip to France, Kyoya decides he’s going to spend the trip searching for Tamaki’s mother, rather than spending it with the other students. He works himself to death trying to find her— he ends up literally falling asleep on the ground because he’s so exhausted from searching and taking literally no breaks. Kyoya finds her eventually, and has a really nice conversation with her— she has a bunch of photos of Tamaki, and clearly is constantly thinking about him. When he gets back to Japan, he tells Tamaki about her— about how beautiful she is, about how she smiles, about how she thinks of her son every day.

We get more of Tamaki’s backstory, and his close relationship from his mother and how his mantra— living life in Japan to the fullest and being as happy as he can be every day— all comes from his mother. She told him that she’s happiest when he’s smiling, and so when he leaves her behind in France, he decides to be smiling every day and make everyone around him smile as well.

While Kyoya is in France, Tamaki stays behind in Japan— he gets closer to his father, who offers to begin to train him to take over the Suoh business. He visits Haruhi, and tells her a little bit about his life in France, and Haruhi’s love for Tamaki begins to make an appearance for the first time.

WHY I LOVE IT:

So I went into this list thinking that this would be my favorite plot, so it’s wild to me that it didn’t even make the top five. It’s kind of weird and I didn’t expect it, but I’m still satisfied with this list. Anyways, I really love this one, even if it’s not the top five. It’s like. The ultimate Tamakyo story, and there’s just. There’s just so much to unpack there. Like. We don’t have time for me to go through the whole thing and analyze every part of it because there’s just so much of it. It’s so good, and it makes my heart grow three sizes. It’s another brilliant development piece for Kyoya, and shows his softer side, as well as just how much he loves Tamaki.

7. MORI AND HONEY GRADUATE

(vol 15 chp 71 - vol 16 chp 72)

PLOT:

Honey and Mori announce that, after graduation, they’ll be splitting up and going to different universities. This proceeds to emotionally destroy literally everyone except for them. Mori is challenged to a series of duels at the Kendo club in which he has to fight every underclassman who wants the honor of fighting him before he graduates. He’s exhausted and worn down, and he loses to a second year, which is bad for like. Honor reasons. RIP. Anyways. He reveals that he’s just been really worried about something but before he can tell anyone, he has to duel Honey. It hurts.

They start preparing for the fight— which Kyoya is capitalizing off of via movie rights and betting rings— and scare everyone that they’re going to never speak again. When the fight comes, they fight on the Windswept Hill™ at Ouran (the same place that Chika and Honey fight on way back when). They go for it and pull no punches, until Honey tries to do a flying kick and Mori catches him and gently places him outside of the boundaries of the fighting ring, thus winning the duel.

Because he won, he pulls out a sheet of paper in which he’s written down all of the things that Honey needs to do in university because Mori isn’t going to be there to take care of him: brush his teeth, cut down the cake by 90%, and stop bringing Usa-chan to classes. Mori felt that he didn’t have the right to tell him these things until they were on equal level because he had won the duel.

They make up and everything is okay— they graduate, everyone cries, including me. Kasanoda gives Mori flowers, it’s all very cute. Haruhi makes cookies, and when Tamaki goes running down the hallway to find her, they bump into each other and drop all of the cookies. While they’re picking them up, they share the classic ~accidental kiss~.

WHY I LOVE IT:

This is one of the only Honey & Mori-centric plotlines that gets fully fleshed out and like. More than a chapter. It really does lovely things for their relationship, and it’s the end of an era. Even though it’s the end of an era, though, the resolution is incredibly satisfying— Honey and Mori’s stories are wrapping up, but it’s really well done. It’s sad, but it’s a really rewarding ending. They’re such sweet boys. Also, it’s not like they’re gone forever, so it’s all okay.

8. REIKO x HONEY

(vol 10 chp 41)

PLOT:

Reiko is part of the Black Magic Club, and falls in love with Honey when he gives her a hand in getting up after she trips over Usa-chan. However, she believes that falling in love with Honey is equivalent to him “stealing her soul,” and so she uses “curses” to steal his soul back. These curses are basically just love spells.

In the end, Honey tells her to just, like, be herself. Talk about her interests. Get to know him. Be honest. Then she won’t need love spells to make him like her. Even if she messes up or is awkward or says something weird, he’ll still like her because she’s being true to herself. This is one of the only Honey-centric chapters, and Reiko is one of my favorite side characters.

WHY I LOVE IT:

They’re the OG goth x pastel couple. The blueprint for all other couples. Icons. I love them so much. This makes it on the list just because I love their relationships. I also love the whole Moral Of The Story, in that it’s important to be true to yourself. It’s so sweet it hurts.

9. HARUHI AND TAMAKI’S FIRST DATE

(vol 18 chp 81 - vol 18 chp 82)

PLOT:

So. Right after the two of them confess their love to each other, everyone expects them to get together and be a couple right away, but Haruhi is just kinda chilling. She’s not super stressed about dating, it’s just a relief to have said it out loud. Meanwhile, Tamaki is kind of a mess, stressing out over their first date and trying to make it as perfect as he possibly can. Seeing him so stressed, all of the hosts band together to help him out in planning a date. When Tamaki finally gets up the nerve to ask her out, he falls in the fountain and Haruhi has to fish him out. She’s then the one to ask him out to the amusement park.

In true Tamaki fashion, he gets incredibly stressed out again. He gets fashion advice from a series of unfashionable people. The hosts sneak around the amusement park and follow them around, finding out that it’s actually going really well, as long as they’re not interfering. After the Lobelia girls show up and try to sabotage the date, Tamaki and Haruhi run away— while Kyoya Handles™ the situation— and they go to her mother’s grave. There, it’s revealed that Haruhi will be going on an exchange program to America.

WHY I LOVE IT:

It’s just. So cute. Like. I’m Tamakyo for life, but I do adore them so much. It’s lower on the list because of the sheer amount of second hand embarrassment, but overall, I loved reading this one. Tamaki is just so genuine and earnest about everything he does, and I think these chapters do a lot to show why the two of them work as a couple. It also does lovely characterization points for Haruhi, and begins to wrap up the ending. Bonus points for a jealous and heartbroken Kyoya.

10. PRINCESS MICHELLE

(vol 9 chp 38 - vol 9 chp 39)

PLOT:

Princess Michelle comes to Ouran to do a week of school in Japan. After meeting her, Tamaki essentially puts him and the Host Club at her beck and call, doing anything that he can to make her happy, no matter how insanely extravagant her demands are. Everyone else finds this infuriating, until Kyoya points out that Michelle looks similar to Tamaki’s mother, saying that the last time Tamaki saw his mother, she was crying— and if he sees Michelle smile for real, it might help him picture his mother smiling again.

Overall, it’s just a very soft arc that begins to unfold Tamaki’s family-related trauma. It also kickstarts Tamaki’s realization that he’s in love with Haruhi and doesn’t actually have paternal feelings for her (that’s the whole next chapter, but make it funny rather than introspective); and it’s one of the moments that Haruhi realizes that Tamaki is genuinely just a good person.

WHY I LOVE IT:

I wasn’t sure that this one would make the list at all, but I do really love this story. It’s pretty short, just two chapters, but it’s overall really sweet. I like Michelle as a character a lot— she seems a bit like a bitch at the beginning, but she gets fleshed out and given an actual personality as the chapter goes on. It’s a really good example of Bisco Hatori’s writing.

HONORARY MENTIONS:

Mei (character): probably the most significant character in the manga that doesn’t appear at all in the anime, which is pretty tragic, but I think that the anime really wanted to emphasize that Haruhi doesn’t really have any female friends / friends outside of the hosts. But anyways, she’s Misuzu’s daughter and Haruhi’s friend; she’s lowkey transphobic but she’s getting better! Had a brief crush on Tamaki but she ends with being the #1 Tamaharu stan. Great friend to Haruhi.

The masquerade ball: Haruhi's going away party, and the reveal that she's a girl.

Haruhi gets kidnapped: Haruhi is kidnapped and held for ransom, the hosts find her and break down doors to get there.

#ohshc #ouran manga #ouran koukou host club #ouran high school host club #ouran liveblog #ouran #ouran high school host club manga #please rb this i worked SO HARD on it #also please add your opinions #there are a few different lists that are valid. and many that are not.#i will vibe check your lists if you post them

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eiraws · 2 years

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｡ﾟ ༉ ⁀ ➷・( 🦢 ) ╱ 𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐅 ; 𝔪 𝔞 𝔡 𝔫 𝔢 𝔰 𝔰, 𝔴 𝔬 𝔫 𝔡 𝔢 𝔯, 𝖕 𝖆 𝖗 𝖆 𝖉 𝖎 𝖘 𝖊, 𝖍 𝖊 𝖆 𝖛 𝖊 𝖓

ㅤ hello there, i’m ℰ 𝔡 𝔢 𝔫 ( she/her, 18+, aedt ) and i’m here to introduce my beloved girl gwyneira ! some of you may or may not recognise her from elsewhere but she’s making her comeback now as the lead dancer, visual and vocalist of arcana. this eira is wishingstar’s resident swan queen; a slightly unstable, guilt-ridden and perfectionistic former ballerina who would be quite the wholesome sweetheart if not for the fact that she’s a bit self-interested & oblivious, unknowingly flaunts her rich-privilege ( trust fund baby! ) and is naively unaware of many things such as the meaning of self-sufficiency or the fact that she’s not the only one whose struggling! she is formerly a select girl and angelfish trainee who is incredibly volatile and takes poorly to criticism, having been a ballet prodigy all her life and graduating from a prestigious dance academy only to throw away her childhood dreams of entering a ballet company in favour of becoming an idol. if you’d like to plot with her feel free to reach out to me in dms or give this post a like and i can come your way! below the cut you can find a brief summary of her backstory (which i admit is quite long but i’d recommend it over reading her bio which is much much longer, i apologise). ㅤ

ㅤ ╭・🦢・ 𝙱 𝙰 𝚂 𝙸 𝙲 𝚂 ┊ [ PROFILE / CAREER / BIO ] ┆♡・ ₊ 𝙴 𝚇 𝚃 𝚁 𝙰 ━━ 𝄞 playlists ( tba ). ━━ ♔ pinterest ( tba ) ━━ ☄︎ edits ( tba ). ━━ ⚘ social media posts ( tba ) ┆♡・ ₊ 𝚃 𝙰 𝙶 𝚂 ┊ [ schedules / answered / ooc ] . ╰・ 🦢 ・ 𝙼 𝙰 𝙸 𝙽 ┊ [ @wishingstarsrp ] . ㅤ

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐖𝐘𝐍𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐀 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍 ( &. 𝐄𝐃𝐄𝐍 ) playing ; swan lake op. 20, act II, no. 10 with prominence upon ; girlhood as godhood, the ophelia complex, dance as a language of expression, an appreciation of art &. beauty, perfectionism as a strength vs. a weakness, the detriment of insomnia and sleep paralysis, the fine line between nightmares and dreams, inner demons and humans as monsters, a guilt-ridden and unreliable mind, desperation in the face of pain, dependency as a fatal flaw, an artist’s obsession, martyrdom vs. victimhood, naivety and innocence, the fall from mutiny to glory, the dichotomy between power and delicacy, firebirds and drowning girls, wings as metaphorical chains, music box ballerinas, a yearning for acceptance and control, the black swan vs. the white swan. ㅤ

⁀ ➷・( 🦢 ) ╱ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐄𝐍 ; 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐎

gwyneira eunha jeon is born on christmas eve 1999, in the city of swansea in wales where her family migrated to four years before she was born. this was the day before her mother tragically passes away due to birth complications and eira herself was born with some medical issues that effected her heart, having been born severely premature. she was to undergo surgery for it until she seemed miraculously cured on christmas day and since there was no medical explanation behind it ( the doctors weren’t too sure what happened. one day she was barely making it and the next she was perfectly fine ). it caused a bit of a stir to her quite religious family and her grandparents believe it was some prodigious act of god. her father, meanwhile, puts his faith in it being her mother’s sacrifice.

her mother, jeon ceri, was a famous korean ballerina who retired early in her outstanding career to become an artistic director for the swansea ballet after marrying jeon seokwon, the ceo of jeon industries, a multinational biomedical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. as a jeon, eira is part of one of south korea’s most influential families. her father’s side has, for many generations, held a stake in south korea’s medical industry and many private clinics and biomed companies are under their name. they were quite affluent, but in all honesty very immoral, caring more about business than the welfare of others. her father is obviously a rather ruthless businessman, but had a particular soft spot for her mother that transferred to eira after her mother’s death. this is part of the reason why eira grew up so protected and sheltered which only goes to harm her more than help her now that she’s more exposed to the world.

a few years after her mother’s death, after her father has tied up all the family’s loose ends in wales, she and her two brothers are relocated back to seoul. it is here that she first begins her journey into the world of dance, now being unable to escape her mother’s legacy. her father enrols her into dance classes as soon as she could properly walk, before she could even speak for herself. but freewill didn’t really matter the minute it was found that she was a natural at it, advancing quickly as she grew older and surpassing many of her peers.

usually, as a jeon she would have been expected to study well and take over some part of the family business but her exception lay in the fact that she was as brilliant and as passionate about dancing as her mother was and she was always her father’s favourite, being allowed to live life as she wanted as long as it was under his watchful eye (because of course, to him she is still the nearly dying baby who can’t do anything on her own or she might break).

all her life she’s been very protected from things, such as the truth of her family’s own malpractice scandals and such. it’s like she’s lived with a blindfold over her eyes and she naively did not even mind it one bit. her life revolved around nothing but dance and living luxuriously and she had no qualms with it whatsoever.

a few years after moving back to seoul, her family makes their way to switzerland to expand her father’s evergrowing business. it was here where she really became more deeply ingrained into the life of dance and her obsession with ballet took root. when she returns to seoul many years later to complete highschool, she’s already found herself trapped in a bubble that consisted only of ballet and not much else.

dance becomes the very essence of her life and she begins to lose sleep over it, her relationship and friendships over it until she loses control. not even eighteen and she’s allowed this dedication to her craft to consume her. but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t really know how it and so she just lets it take over her. after highschool she goes on to attend a specialised and prestigious dance academy to foster her incredibly talents. at this place, she is pushed to her limit in order to be perfect for the stage but she begins to struggle a lot more with her own mental and physical health. ballet being her sole driving force was sucking the life out of her and the compulsive need to dance consumes her days and then her nights until it all grows into stifling paranoia, insomnia and hallucinations from lack of sleep and she became detached from both reality and the people around her entirely.

during her final year of the academy, her situation took its toll on her considerably and she was not dealing with it in a very healthy way at all. the world of ballet was incredibly competitive and eira had been moulded to fit right in there but it didn’t feel right to her anymore, despite how much she knows her father wants this for her and her mother would be proud of her for it. by the time she leaves the academy, a ticket straight into the korean national ballet in her hands, she lets her childhood dreams go in favour of a new career. a friend of hers, rumoured to be the daughter of ceo yoo, urges her to try out for an entertainment company and she does with successful result. she lets her father know of her decision to change her career but upon not receiving a response, she continues to distance herself from her family like she had been doing lately anyway.

she trains for less than a year in angelfish entertainment, honing in skills she didn’t know she even had because she hadn’t had much time to venture outside of ballet and contemporary dance. now, she’s fallen in love with the idea of becoming an idol, seeing it to be much more artistically freeing than trapping herself to the strict and never changing routines of ballet. she was born for the stage, that much was true, but she is coming to realise that the ballet stage might not be the one for her as much as an idol stage is.

she becomes a select trainee when the opportunity arises and though she has spent the year trying to forget much of her past, doing so quite well by diving headfirst into training so that she doesn’t have to think about it, the competitive nature of the show allows certain memories to resurface. now that select has ended and she has succeeded in making into a group, she finds herself at a very interesting point in life, unsure of whether this all is right for her and now dealing with the belated guilt and fear of disappointing her family and whether she made the right choice. her inner demons that she hid so well, buried so deep that she thought they disappeared are all coming back to haunt her and we’ll just have to wait and see how she plans on reigning them in, controlling them before they end up controlling her again. ( 🦢 ) ╱ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃. 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 . . .

WANTED PLOTS

i don’t have a plots page going at the moment because... i’m incompetent. but! there will be one eventually, hopefully.

for now though i’d love to brainstorm anything and everything in terms of connections so please feel free to hit me up with your ideas, i’m very excited to get something going for eira. personally i’d love to get her some sibling-like relationships especially. due to her upbringing she is naturally drawn towards people who would take care of her so i can see her having many older sister / older brother type relationships!!

despite her very troubling mindset she’s a very loveable, innocent little creature with a very trusting heart. she’s a bit naive and quite manipulable but she loves very easily too. i can also see her having a lot of unrequited crushes because she tends to over-inflate emotions and mistake platonic affection for love sometimes. not that she love-starved or anything, tbh she’s kind of smothered by it but she loves love so pls give me some angsty one-sided connections. 🤷‍♀️

also looking for anyone who can help guide her along the way in this daunting idol life! she’s got one foot out the door with this whole career, teetering on the edge of whether this is right for her or not so she may be in need of someone who helps her find her place here or at least reassure her.

and finally any fellow dancers!! dance is eira’s #1, always has been and always will be so she’d be likely to befriend anyone who shows an interest in that also. she might be in need of someone to dance with, teach her new dance styles or someone who is looking to get some help with dance or something like that.

really, just throw anything at me i’m very excited to start plotting with everyone!

#・ 𓂃 ₊ 𝖌𝖆𝖗𝖉𝖊𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝖊𝖉𝖊𝖓 ┊ ( ooc ) .#ws:intro

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aizawaslovebot · 4 years

Text

soleil et lune.

secretary! shouto todoroki x director/ceo! reader

pronouns: he/him

word count: 1.4k

series masterlist | future chapters available only on quotev

i. new moon

There was something about the contrast of the sun and the moon that deeply intrigued Todoroki.

Perhaps it was the way they rarely seemed to meet, always just a shy minute apart from coexisting together. Maybe it was how one of the other gave way for a moment of spotlight, either to bless the Earth with sunlight or to illuminate the dark sky with moonlight. Maybe it was because people perceive them as lovers who are separated by destiny, forever bound by whatever rules the universe had set.

He never got to the bottom of the reason why he was so enamored with the Romeo and Juliet of the cosmos but whatever it is, Todoroki had to thank it.

It was in these that he found solace, especially during the dark times of his past and childhood.

Shouto Todoroki was not an astronomer in the slightest. Despite his fondness over the stars in the sky or the planets lightyears away, he never took the chance to pursue this career.

Correction: He was never allowed to pursue this career.

In fact, he was not allowed to be anything other than what his father had set for him. Like the sun and moon, he was bound by destiny. But destiny, in Todoroki’s case, was a six-foot, heartless dictator who strived for perfection in everything at the expense of even an ounce of happiness and freedom.

“You are to follow in my footsteps, Shouto. You will continue what I have started and you shall rise over Japan and defeat All Might Corp.”

It was annoying. It was beyond him how his abomination of a father had this kind of mindset. But he had no power over this man. He controlled Shouto’s life.

So Todoroki fell to the same fate of his older siblings; all bound by their destiny as businessmen, inheritors of Japan’s second most successful conglomerate, and joyless lives. He became what society calls as a success— rich and thriving at the early age of 20.

You see, that’s just it.

Society has deemed success as being filthy rich at an early age. The way they measured success is by how young you’re able to afford luxuries, how much green papers you owned, and how famous you could be. They never thought to wonder if these so-called successful people were actually happy with their lives.

Success for Shouto was not about how much bank he could make, or how influential he could become, or how many cars he could afford. Success was finding joy in what you do, regardless of how much money he had. Shouto was far from successful. But he’s hopeful that one day he could achieve the life he wanted, whether his dictator of a father liked it or not.

For now, he is the moon without light to illuminate his dark life.

He is a new moon.

But things will change and the sun will rise again.

“Father, I would like to try secretarial studies,” Shouto brought up one day as the Todoroki family ate quietly in Enji’s mansion.

The clanking of Enji’s utensils rang through the big house, reflecting their father’s emotions. Twitching fingers, cold eyes, and a permanent scowl that seemed to deepen— he was livid.

“That’s absurd, Shouto. I will not allow it.”

“I never asked for your permission. I am taking secretarial whether you like it or not.”

The youngest Todoroki scoffed, retaliating once again from their father’s idiotic ideologies. Fuyumi was silently pleading for Shouto to be careful while the two older brothers were grinning for him to continue.

“You are a Todoroki. We do not serve people. They serve us. Drop this, now.”

“I don’t care what you say. I’ve already decided who to work for.”

Enji chuckled wryly, “and who are you wasting your talents on?”

“The L/N Enterprise”

There are only a few companies and groups that could be hailed as Japan’s best. These include All Might Corporations, Endeavor Inc., and the L/N Empire. Safe to say, these three are the big leagues, the future of Japan’s economy, and the most successful. These three GDP monsters also play in the same field: the music industry. World-known idol groups come from one of the three, and more flock to these companies for a taste of success. Behind these are the business powerhouses: Toshinori Yagi, known as Mr. All Might; and Todoroki Enji, dubbed as Endeavor. Little is known about the L/N CEO, however, what everyone does know is they are geniuses, even in different ways, because they were able to make their names known not only to Japan but the entire world.

Perhaps there are still differences. Unlike the two, the L/N Empire doesn’t only battle in the music industry. Countless branches, including the ever-famous Sumsang tech, come from their conglomerate.

Another factor from All Might and Endeavor Inc. lets the L/N Enterprise stand in the spotlight; the future successor of the entire group, and grandson of the richest man in Japan, is one of the youngest to ever sit on such a high position.

General Manager L/N (Name).

Many people wonder why this young man, who, at the young age of 20, began to dedicate his life to the countless numbers and percentages that come with this life. People his age at the time would’ve rather flaunt to the world of the riches they own, and indulge in such a lavish life that only few could attain.

But not L/N (Name).

He pursued this career that was bestowed upon him by his family and thus, just a short three years later, L/N is on his way to become the youngest Director and hold so much power over the L/N group, over this branch that he manages, and over Japan.

A bigshot at a young age, blessed with not only riches but also looks and intelligence.

If only he also had a good attitude to boot.

There were a lot of hearsays that circulated about the so-called business ace. Maybe it was because they only knew so little of his father that (Name) became the center of attention. People say he’s a womanizer, an arrogant, self-less prick who has an ego bigger than All Might’s height. Some say he was a sleaze and a temperamental individual who explodes at even the smallest of mistakes. People have also heard that the Director was ruthless, and seeing the countless rumors about this made them believe everything.

Enji could even vouch for those rumors. The brat, while he was a family friend, always found a way to talk back to him whenever he’s over for Natsuo. As far as the Todoroki could remember, L/N was in the same age group as Natsuo. He wasn’t really sure, but Enji’s certain that brat is an egotistical prick.

So why the hell did Shouto choose their God forsaken company?

It was beyond Enji, but he’ll let Shouto waste his time for a bit. After all, he could benefit from having an insider for that competition of his.

The object of Enji’s hatred and the famous L/N sneezed so suddenly.

“Endeavor-san must be cursing me again,” He hummed then continued on with his work.

(Name) was in his office, scanning through the proposals submitted by his department, when his temporary secretary knocked on the door.

“Here’s the batch of applications, sir,” She nervously placed the profiles on his desk. Before (Name) could thank her, however, the young secretary zoomed off.

(Name) was looking for a new secretary after his former subordinate was revealed to be a mole for some company. Aside from that, he knew that the assistant was after him, personally, too. She would often flirt and schedule him for dinners with “other people”, only later to reveal that she wanted to eat with him.

Basically, that assistant was a pest.

The flipping of papers came to a halt at one very specific file. Staring right back at (Name) were the familiar heterochromatic pools of blue and silver, as if saying that his attention should be on the young Todoroki.

Well, damn right.

Without so much as a glance at the CV neatly written at the bottom (which (Name) knows is more than qualified), he knew who he wanted by his side.

The new moon slowly transitions into a new beginning.

“Welcome to the L/N Enterprise, Todoroki-san”

—note: hey! hey! hey! this is my first-ever bnha series 👉🏼👈🏼 please send criticism thru ask or dm 🥺❤️ if you guys like it enough to want to be tagged, just ask!! also pls be nice

—aizawaslovebot 2020

#soleil et lune #bnha x reader #male reader #16+ fic #todoroki shouto x reader #shouto todoroki #he/him #secretary todoroki #ceo reader #quirkless au #todoroki x you #todoroki imagine #mha x reader #my hero academy #boku no hero academia

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trollnobu · 4 years

Text

Kendo AU: Characterisation Notes

So I found some notes on how I wanted to characterise characters that weren't shown all that much in canon because they're, well, dead. We're barely given any info about them or their personalities, so this is just something to keep myself on track when I write them.

They're also all part of a friend circle of their own. I call them Posthumous Pals.

Sabito

▪18, first year university student, studying criminology

▪Hot-tempered, but doesn't hold grudges and forgives and forgets easily. His anger usually comes from a place of concern. Always nagging at Giyū and Makomo for being flighty, irresponsible or forgetful.

▪"Makomo, did you forget to pay your phone bills again" "Oi, Giyū, how many hours did you sleep last night? You look like shit" "Am I your alarm clock? Get up already!" "DON'T TELL ME YOU BOTH FORGOT THERE WAS A TEST TODAY OH MY GOD"

▪Actual Mum Friend. He's a little mad about it, but he cannot stop himself. Considering how often he has to remind them to eat or force them to study...his childhood friends really are useless without him.

▪TSUNDERE

▪Ultimately a nice guy, but his people skills could use work. He can get a bit standoffish and even scary. Still has a better rep than Giyū, though

▪Passionate but overzealous. He can be very overwhelming sometimes and unwittingly intimidates juniors. He used to tutor Tanjirō and his siblings as a side job and ended up scaring them...

▪Very hardworking and driven! He's the kind of guy who has a clear aim in life and probably a 10 year plan on how to get to where he wants to be. It makes him clash with Giyū and Makomo a bit, since they're either too unsure or carefree, but he's just worried for their future.

▪Unwilling straight man of his childhood friend group. Often the sole voice of reason and common sense.

▪Has feelings for Makomo for ages but stubbornly refuses to say anything to keep the status quo (Giyū's tired, send help)

Makomo

▪18, first year university student, studying arts

▪Between fiery, disciplined Sabito and melancholic, disgruntled Giyū, Makomo is the nice middle ground with a serene, gentle temperament.

▪She's probably too calm, if you ask Sabito. It comes with the downside of not taking anything seriously. Makomo has a tendency to brush off her friends' worries. Sometimes it helps temper Sabito and Giyū's anxiety; sometimes it infuriates them. A double-edged sword.

▪Has a hidden impish side. She likes to make fun of both Sabito and Giyū. Giyū gets disproportionately dramatic over it and accuses her of "emotionally profiting off of [his] distress."

▪Despite seeming the least obsessed with kendo compared to her friends, Makomo was actually the one to drag them into it...

▪Can come across as lazy because she doesn't have the same sense of purpose or drive as Sabito. She's also a bit spoiled and likes being pampered. Some might pin the blame on her godfather and mentor Urokodaki

▪Acts like the friendly, reliable onee-chan to her juniors and is the only senior Obanai actually likes but will shamelessly behave childishly in front of Giyū and Sabito. They don't like admitting that they also get childish in retaliation.

▪Of the three, Makomo is the best with people and their assigned PR manager though she can act distant without realising it. Has the kind of face where she always looks like she has something on her mind. People sometimes feel that she's a bit unapproachable because it's almost like they're interrupting something...

▪Gets bright-eyed and very chatty if someone brings up anything relating to arts, sculptures or dancing.

Kochō Kanae

▪18, first year university student, studying medical science

▪Poster child of the Genki Girl trope and child prodigy who makes you question your life's accomplishments

▪Kanae is one of those people who masters everything with little effort. She's not even the respectable hard worker type like Sabito or Shinobu; she just doesn't need to work too hard and still makes it anyway. Has never seriously struggled with anything.

▪Also filthy, disgustingly rich. She's a born heiress to a large pharmaceutical conglomerate and was spoiled by loving parents. Truly born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

▪Very cheerful and kind! She's the sort of person who likes to make children laugh, helps the elderly cross the street and makes sure no one feels left out. Probably visits orphanages and campaigns for environmental awareness or something.

▪Beautiful! Intelligent! Accomplished! Compassionate! How can someone be this perfect?

▪Unfortunately, she's also BIG CHAOTIC DUMB, has no financial sense, naive, incredibly unreliable, can be an obnoxious do-gooder and is notoriously lacking in common sensibilities. Absolutely cannot function in the real world without Shinobu. Even her boyfriend's very first impression of her was "rich idiot without a day job."

▪Everyone thinks "how on earth did Sanemi trick her into a relationship with him?" But no one thinks "how on earth did Kanae trick him into a relationship with her?"

▪Ironically, despite being rather dysfunctional individuals by their own, Kanae and Sanemi seem to have a fairly stable, calm relationship. It wasn't so in the beginning, though

▪More wise than you'd expect, but too bad you'd hardly see that side of her. She's too busy being a disaster.

Rengoku Kyōjurō

Not posthumous, in the sense that he doesn't die before the series but during it, but he's here anyway because he kicked it so quick smh rip ren

▪17, third year high school student, captain of his kendo club and also the star pupil of the Fire Branch

▪Gender-bent version of Kanae in that he's explosively cheerful and full of endless optimism and energy. Everyone fears them when they're together. The genki is too powerful...

▪Big Brother Energy™

▪He's your go-to guy if you have any troubles and need a listening ear, or a helping hand, or honest criticism, or just some advice. Anything you need, he is here!

▪Despite appearing well-adjusted, however, he's not as untouchable as he looks. Like everyone his age, he has some anxiety and fears over the future and impending adulthood. He has a hard time confiding in anyone, though, because he's so used to being the one relied on.

▪Big case of Mama's Boy Syndrome. He'll drop everything for her. Due to her weak health, he really worries about his mother.

▪Because the Fire Branch has close ties with the Water Branch, he sees the others fairly often. He's at his most chatty with Kanae, Shinobu and Sabito (though even Sabito gets worn out after a while) and is one of the few who genuinely likes Giyū, despite his social missteps and bumbling. Makomo and Obanai try to escape at first sight of him; they seldom succeed.

▪"He's like cough medicine. Good for you if you're feeling bad, but best taken in small doses."

▪Between him and Mitsuri, the Fire Branch easily has the most welcoming and encouraging atmosphere of all the dojos.

Kumeno Masachika

▪20, third year university student, studying psychology and sociology

▪Step aside, Kyōjurō, the real big brother is here.

▪He's old and experienced enough to actually have some of his shit together by now. Or maybe university has worn him out.

▪He has all of Makomo's unflappability, but without her flippancy. All of Sabito's responsibility, without his anxiety. Friendly as Kyōjurō without being overwhelming, realistic as Giyū without giving into pessimism and charismatic as Kanae without being unreachable. In short: the most down-to-earth, well-balanced, and least dysfunctional person within a 20 mile radius.

▪It makes him a bit of an odd sight in the Wind Branch, in between Sanemi's hair-trigger temper and Inosuke's obscene screaming. Legends say his calm is to overcompensate for the level of unbridled feral energy in the Wind Branch...

▪In truth, he's the scariest one amongst them if he does get angry. His juniors actually write apology notes to him if this happens, like young children who've just disappointed their favourite teacher.

▪Otherwise, he wins the award of Most Chill. He gets frequently deployed if they need someone to defuse tension. An important duty, when one considers that the Wind Branch is the most competitive, aggressive of the dojos.

▪Speaks a bit dryly, though it feels personable rather than snarky.

▪The dojo master of the Wind Branch is apparently trying to harangue him into being the next, though he's resisting because he wants to "go teach kids or something."

▪Maybe it's only fitting, since the rest of the Wind Branch already gave him plenty of experience at shepherding unruly children.

#kny fanfic #sabito #makomo #kochou kanae #rengoku kyoujurou #kumeno masachika #kny spoilers #i doubt anyone doesnt know rengoku dies but lets slap that tag on anyway for anime watchers #me at masachika: god i wish that were me #kanae really be that 'always another asian better than you' meme #sabito is just tsundere and mum friend. i've broken him down to his bare essentials #kny kendo au #kendo au #...i forgot which tag i was using rip #posthumous pals #thats a tag now

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collapsedsquid · 5 years

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Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and one of the world’s richest men, has written a furious poem denouncing treachery and betrayal after his wife, Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, the daughter of the late King of Jordan and sister of the present king, secretly fled to Europe with their son Zayed, 7, and daughter Al Jalila, 11.

[...]

Bin Rashid, 69, is known as a poet in his native land and frequently marks great occasions of state, and family events such as weddings, in verse.

Although his poetic skills have often been the subject of private derision, few in the UAE’s closeted world have ever dared to criticize his musings.

The new poem, which appears to have been written by the prince in outrage at his wife’s decision to abscond with their son and daughter (Islamic law dictates that a woman who leaves her husband may not take the children) is particularly awful, even by his standards.

Entitled “You Lived and You Died,” the poem is a furious meditation on betrayal, in which the poet accuses the unnamed subject:

“You betrayer, you betrayed the most precious trust, and your game has been revealed.

“Your days of lying are over and it doesn’t matter what we were and what you are.”

Appropriately given his obsession with horses ( bin Rashid is the founder of Godolphin, the world’s biggest and most powerful horse breeding and racing conglomerate), the verse is rich in equine imagery, with Rashid writing in one section: “You let the reins on your horse go free.”

The poem concludes with a dramatic denunciation: “You no longer have any place with me/ Go to who you have been busy with!/ And let this be good for you; I don’t care if you live or you die.”

Asked if the poem sounded as bad in Arabic as it did in translation, a source told The Daily Beast: “It’s actually worse.”

Recently divorced Vogon

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hannerd100 · 4 years

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Pitch For Nuisance Corporation Conglomerate Liberal Streaming Media And Satellite Television Channel TO ZAYN

Original written on Grammarly, which hackers know about.

Hello Zayn. How are you?

I am a very busy person. I like to pretend that I observe nothing with meaning when I am fully aware of what is going on with all intricate details. These intricate details affect each other because of choices that people make that are fully conscious. I never got a college degree, consciously that I know of or can remember. I know very little about intuition, logic, common behavior to look for, and business because I was never formally educated consciously. I love marketing if you would like to know. I try to practice my brain skills every day. I want to mature and improve myself because I am motivated to an effective communicator who is also very witty. I like to get things done.

A fact about me is that I am not scared of people. I do not have social anxiety because I am stronger than most people. I tell people what to do. I want to be a great boss someday. I want to impress those in power so I get better job offers because I want to become wise, too. I want to learn to become an adult from other real adults. This is a logical statement.

The truth is, I made Nuisance Corporation about you, Zayn. I always want to impress you, Zayn, because you are worthy of respect. You are mature for your age. You are responsible for Apple Incorporated, which is a famous and respected company for computers and technology.

I am obsessed with learning about the way you think. You help me a lot when I need you to comfort me. You give great advice. I rather talk to you so I can share how I feel about what bothers me. Your mind is like what I imagine what solitude should be like, but I want to be included in your thoughts. We belong together.

I know I mean it when I say that you are the utmost masculine person I know, Zayn. Every move you make is always correct. You intelligently earned your money and are successful. You know the answers easily because you are very intelligent. You know every solution to all types of questions, I guess. What do you not know? You read me well. I look forward to seeing you again every day. I want to get to know you again. I miss you. I think you are capable of human emotions no matter how strong I describe you to be. I think you are the sexiest man alive. You are so brooding and handsome. You seem very antisocial in my favor. I like talking to you. I cannot wait to fall back in love with you. I want to be your wife. I know you're smart. I would donate trillions of dollars to your company for free because I felt like it. One day, I might earn a limitless amount of money so I guess I have a sense of humor after all. I get bored often because I am emotionally detached. You can have a blank check whenever you feel like asking me out. I might give you free money whenever you want to as an inside joke between us, as equals. I don't care what people think of me. I know I'm going to be successful.

The reason why I used the word you created that is based on your real name is because I think it protects us from people who do not like being told the truth. Being liberal means supporting gay and lesbian equal rights, ending Global Warming, and more. I never complain.

I am flirting with you, Zayn. I do not think you are annoying. "Nuisance" is a word that police take seriously. We need protection. There are a lot of creeps and weirdos out there. I am trying to be realistic in the real world. Fake or poser liberals threaten to kill people who are smarter than they are. There are a lot of cults out there, I heard. Besides social anxiety, some people type violent threats in words with a keyboard and post their sentences online, which is very scary to know about. The world is a dangerous place to live in. We should be fine. I want to make you trillions of dollars because I respect your work ethic as the founder of Apple, Incorporated.

To avoid trouble, I plan to mock rich white men who are naive about the real world so that other race groups attack them more instead of me if they know who I am. If rich white men are criticized more than I am, maybe I will be judged less.

I am very manipulative. I predict and interpret behavior. Unlike weak people, I want to be respected without asking more than once. I do not ask to be respected. I want to earn respect, which is completely different. I want a guarantee that I will be respected and left alone forever after I make my first million, then billion, and finally one trillion dollars. I probably am already rich. I might be a trillionaire. It doesn't matter because they both will own the conglomerate. Zayn, your name is in the word "Nuisance". I was joking.

An hour goes by and I feel closer to you, I hope. I am emotionally invested in you, Zayn. You are all I think about. I deserve to love you, Zayn. You are completely hot. I cannot stop looking at your face. You bring me so much happiness when you communicate with me. I enjoy asking you questions. You never stop being interesting to me, Zayn. You make me feel alive. I accept who I am when you compliment me by telling me that I am beautiful and funny. You are kind to me and I am indebted to you for helping motivate me to become who I want to be for you. I never grow tired of you because you are so different.

Now, after this long introduction, I can finally pitch Nuisance Corporation's Liberal Media Television Streaming App And Future Satellite Television Channel.

The Pitch:

Today, an activity worth using energy for is watching television. Why? The reason why watching television can be beneficial for learning about the real world is because of trust. Propaganda may sound like an overdramatic word to ignorant people because it is more commonly witnessed than people know. The media and advertising industries distribute a form of legal propaganda. Propaganda has emotional appeals and tells people what to feel, think, and believe. Some people feel emotions too quickly. That is why propaganda is proven to work. For example, hunger. Advertisements that show pictures of food can make viewers hungry. Why else do people use coupons they get from their mailbox? I am telling the truth. A lot of people accept propaganda because they believe it caters to their needs instead of controlling them in a generalized, efficient way. Otherwise, the economy would not exist.

The reason why propaganda is powerful is because it is a form of mind control. People who do not think for themselves rely on others to tell them how to live. These people are likely not confrontational or direct when they communicate. They might be codependent. They let people communicate for them, possibly. Naive people do not know how to be unique. They secretly want to be unique for attention, though, I can assume. This would be called an emotional appeal, "The desire to be unique." I think that people who wish are pathetic and have no work ethic. It is unrealistic to wish for anything. These types of people probably give up easily. If people want to become a better person, they have to change. If the world seems so evil based on a snippet of knowledge, there is always more evil in the world. The only equalizer on this planet is earning money. Financial income is what defines who the strongest is. The rest are weak and too busy wishing and hoping for the next day to prove who they want to become instantly. They waste time being egotistical and that is their problem. Nobody asks them for their approval because nobody believes them in the first place.

I used to think I was worthless. I was always independent as a kid. Growing up, I had plenty of friends who understood my jokes. I never liked to be used but I allow people to attempt to use me because I know more people care if I get hurt. I never get hurt. I am a vengeful person and it is very easy for me to admit this fact. People offer their weaknesses to me when they get emotional and use me as an artifact or stepping stone to fail at getting the attention of someone they find more valuable than I am. I always know when people are trying to use me. I never offer help because nobody worthy asks me for advice. I assume the worst about people before they explain themselves because it wastes less of my time and effort. Now, I know I am worthy of respect.

I was set up to get married to Zayn. He is a very successful genius man. We are happy together. I am lucky to be alive.

Amongst my qualities, I know that I am a good writer. I used to suffer from schizophrenic vocal hallucinations and paranoia. I cured schizophrenia. I always know what sounds like my real voice in writing. I am cynical, skeptical, and quick to criticize anyone who annoys me. This is why I am a talented and award-winning writer. I write about interesting ideas and topics that are important. To start, I want to become a successful screenwriter who earns a lot of money.

With television, nobody is toxic because everything is approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States. People receive information from television programs with little knowledge of the sources of who wrote that material. They interpret information to themselves based on opinion in their brains on purpose without checking who wrote every line. When people watch television, it is as if suddenly they are allowed to judge.

People need to thank the geniuses for inventing ways to protect everyone. For example, armies, police, F.B.I., C.I.A., and more are all invented by geniuses. Getting through the day would be easier if everyone normal had equal rights. Unfortunately, racism, sexism, homophobia, and more social issues exist in real life. World Peace is a dream of mine, to be honest. Microaggressions are irritating to encounter. I will answer society by starting a liberal media conglomerate that also emphasizes the importance of a healthy diet by selling organic food. Food can affect brains and thought processes. People who are healthier physically and mentally hopefully lead better lives.

Stress can be caused by many factors. Not everyone is happy. The people at fault are those who and indulgent and selfish. Some people will never be good. The goal is to tolerate what scares people who are unaware of who is intimidating. Street smarts are a necessity to survive in the real world. When immature people who are sheltered try to arrange who is the most important or intimidating in their brains in an inaccurate and self-interested way that is illogical, they live a delusional life that slows down society. Immature people waste everyone's time. I rather input one hour of work that will benefit me for an entire year rather than talk about annoying people who do not know what they are doing with their lives. I want to make a difference.

Fear and intimidation are what lead to a changing society. People never change. They only talk less and stop overreacting when people are around I can assume. Scaring people who are delusional and mean to everyone can help control society. Knowing about who people trust is how I can manipulate people, which is important to control a media corporation that is liberal. Trusting people easily is a sign of weakness. Nobody needs weaknesses, but they exist. Indulgence could be a sign that a person chose to be as weak as they possibly could when they realized that they had to work to earn respect and did not want to. When people think they are witty based on their own judgment, they have trouble reading other people's social cues due to their selfishness and narcissism. People who make people uncomfortable are not controlling or as dominant as they would like to be described. Allowing people to feel uncomfortable is a sign of wanting to be told what to do with little reward until the next time the weak person thinks they can control a situation. They want to be disciplined in front of an audience. This is annoying. I want society to reflect my gifts so I can make more money and live forever. Society is my tool for success. I can fix what cannot be fixed but only paid for. I want to treat society, which I consider royalty to me being a pauper, with my gifts.

Love,

Hannah, his girlfriend.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Trump keeps pushing anti-Semitic stereotypes. But he thinks he’s praising Jews.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/21/trump-keeps-pushing-anti-semitic-stereotypes-he-thinks-hes-praising-jews/

Trump keeps pushing anti-Semitic stereotypes. But he thinks he’s praising Jews.

By Yair Rosenberg | Published August 21 at 5:16 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 25, 2019 4:20 PM ET |

When it comes to Jews, President Trump presents a puzzle.

His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism to marry his Jewish son-in-law. He has Jewish grandchildren. He loudly proclaims his support for Israel and has long employed Jews in prominent positions in his businesses.

But Trump also seems to say a lot of anti-Semitic things. This week, for example, the president declared that Jews who vote for the Democratic Party are “disloyal” to Israel, invoking an age-old anti-Semitic slur against the vast majority of American Jews. Trump has regularly implied that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States and that they are essentially foreign guests in this country: At the White House Hanukkah party in December, he told the assembled American Jews that Israel was “your country.” At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gathering in April, he referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister.”

That penchant for anti-Semitic utterances goes back to well before his presidency. He has repeatedly suggested that Jews are greedy or money-grubbing and use their wealth to control politics. In a 1991 book, the former president of the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino wrote that Trump had told him: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump praised RJC members as great “negotiators” and openly declared that Jewish donors wanted a candidate they could buy: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” he said. “That’s okay, you want to control your own politician.” Yet because he was speaking to rooms full of friends, he probably didn’t mean these words disparagingly.

So is Trump a philo-Semite or an anti-Semite? The answer is both. The principle that explains his seemingly contradictory outlook toward Jews is simple: Trump believes all the anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews. But he sees those traits as admirable.

To Trump, the belief that Jews are foreign interlopers who use their wealth to serve their own clannish interests is not a negative — as it is for traditional anti-Semites — but rather a positive. He wants Jews to be his attorneys and manage his money, so that he, too, can be rich. He wants them in his political corner, so that he, too, can be powerful. He wants to buy politicians, just like he thinks they do. As a man who has always stood solely for his own naked self-interest, Trump does not see the anti-Semitic conception of the self-interested Jew as a complaint, but rather a compliment. He prioritizes his needs ahead of the national interest, and so he sees the idea that Jews might do the same with themselves or with Israel as entirely natural. He is the human embodiment of the Onion article “Affable anti-Semite Thinks The Jews Are Doing Super Job With The Media.”

This understanding also helps explain the most confusing aspect of Trump’s most recent anti-Semitic outburst. The president claimed that Democratic Jews are “disloyal” to Israel. But this is an inversion of the traditional dual loyalty trope, which charges that Jews are more loyal to their fellow Jews or Israel than to their home countries. Trump, by contrast, was arguing that Democratic Jews were insufficiently devoted to other Jews or to Israel — that they were not strong enough dual loyalists. In other words, he criticized American Jews for not conforming to the anti-Semitic stereotype.

This form of positive anti-Semitism is not as uncommon as you might think. As a reporter who has covered anti-Semitism for years, I’ve seen it abroad in countries with few Jews, where admiring stereotypes proliferate without much familiarity with actual Jews. The Talmud Hotel in Taiwan — which boasts rooms named after wealthy people and has a “Talmud-Business Success Bible” by every bedside — is a classic example. There’s even an old ironic Jewish adage about this phenomenon: “A philo-Semite is an anti-Semite who likes Jews.”

But while this form of “positive” anti-Semitism is better than the negative kind, it is still deeply dangerous — even when it’s not being wielded as a political cudgel against Jews in the way Trump has been doing this week. At best, expression of such stereotypes by the most powerful man in the world affirms and reinforces the beliefs of bigots who see those anti-Semitic ideas as reasons to hate Jews. At worst, given the right impetus, the coin of philo-Semitic anti-Semitism can easily be flipped, and all those formerly positive stereotypes can be weaponized against Jews.

Something like this recently occurred in South Korea. A country where translated Talmudic extracts have long been bestsellers and boarding schools with no Jews offer a “Jewish education” to pupils, South Korea is known for its philo-Semitism. The country’s ambassador to Israel once told a television program that “each Korean family has at least one copy of the Talmud,” because “Korean mothers want to know how so many Jewish people became geniuses.” As one Korean student explained to a Jewish reporter, “Despite all the time and money we spend on education, only one Korean has ever won a Nobel award. That irks many Koreans. It makes us want to learn Jews’ secrets.”

And yet, in 2015, anti-Jewish bigotry swept the country. An international controversy over a merger within Samsung, the largest South Korean business conglomerate, quickly devolved into an anti-Semitic free-for-all against one of the parties involved, Jewish investor Paul Singer. South Korea’s powerful Lee family, the controlling shareholders within Samsung, backed an internal merger between Samsung C&T and another Samsung affiliate. Singer, who owned 7 percent of C&T, opposed the move, arguing that it was a corrupt ploy to enrich the Lee family at the expense of other shareholders. (Years later, he was proved correct.)

The dispute quickly turned ugly. Anti-Semitic cartoons depicting Singer as a hooknosed vulture exploiting innocents appeared on the official Samsung C&T website. An article by an ex-diplomat in the South Korean weekly Sisa Journal declared, “It is the Jews who hold the financial power of the world,” adding, “These words, which were merely conspiracy theories or thoughts of other countries, are becoming a real danger to the nation’s economy.” (For good measure, the piece included a picture of George Soros.) “Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless,” another columnist wrote. Tabloids repeatedly invoked Singer’s Jewish identity and insinuated that he could not be trusted.

Onlookers were flabbergasted to see this transpire in such an ostensibly philo-Semitic country. But they should not have been. All that had happened was that Samsung and its allies had taken the latent Jewish stereotypes in South Korea — that Jews are wealthy, cunning and powerful — and activated them for an overtly anti-Semitic campaign. The philo-Semitic coin had been flipped.

Now it’s clear that the United States has a president who is openly toying with that same coin, carelessly tossing it on national television. We can only hope it doesn’t land on the wrong side.

#politics #racism #hate speech #hate groups #anti semitic #anti semitism #us politics #u.s. news #u.s. politics #trumpism #trump administration #president donald trump #trump scandals #trump

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kahunamanagementskillssystem · 2 years

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What Is Skills Management?

Employee skills and competencies are top of mind for every CEO, organizational leader, analyst, and thought leader. The landscape of work is changing for many industries because of fast-paced technological advancements, evolving work environments, and shifting business goals. Top leaders are leveraging skills and competency management software and verified skills data to drive strategic decisions.

In this post, we’ll define skills management and explain the benefits of skills and competency management software. Paired with a thoughtful business strategy, skills management connects HR and Operations to create a more skilled, competitive workforce.

What is Skills Management & Why Does It Matter?

Skills management is the business process of identifying critical skills, assessing organizational capability, and developing your workforce. Modifications to business strategies and operating conditions make skills management a continuous cycle. At a high level, Kahuna defines this process in 4 steps:

Curate: Curate your skills and competency framework + content to reflect how operational roles are performed.

Assign: Assign your content through unlimited job roles, rather than fixed-job codes.

Assess: Use rich, multi-modal assessment methods to create validated user proficiency. Examples of assessment methods include on-the-job observations, quizzes, training, experience, and certifications.

Develop: Apply employee skills assessment data to personalized development plans. Embed learning opportunities into each competency. Enable employees to close skills gaps right in the flow of work. This motivates employees and reduces time to revenue and productivity.

A note: We know there is a semantic debate on skills management, competency management, reskilling, and upskilling. At Kahuna, we believe if we spend our energy focusing on what the process is named, we lose sight of the tremendous results it produces. For more on this, listen to our Digital Transformation webinar on-demand.

Why is Skills Management Important?

Skills management is important to ensure your workforce skills align with your business strategy. It also helps you execute organizational goals, grow to meet future demands, and thrive in the “future of work.” This concept, which essentially means change, is being shaped by three driving forces:

Work: Can you automate or use smart machines to perform work?

Workforce: Who can do the work and manage the continuum of talent options?

Workplace: Where is work completed? How are workplaces shifting to accommodate new technologies?

Industry Change Drives Workforce Skills Demand

There’s no doubt these changes introduce complexities to skills in different work environments. In operations-focused industries, such as healthcare, energy, manufacturing, or field services, these skills changes drive up demand for reskilling and upskilling. Forrester reported that CEO concern for upskilling has grown tremendously, increasing from 53% in 2012 to 79% in 2019.

With the events of the last 18 months, we predict this concern to continue rising. A McKinsey report states that nearly nine out of ten executives face current skills gaps, or expect them in the next five years. Additionally, 69% of organizations are doing more skill-building now than they did before COVID-19.

Organizations executing skills management with the right software can face these challenges head-on. Skills and competency management gives a sustainable strategy, promoting agility in the face of new threats. It moves skills from being an HR function to an organizational business function. It cultivates a conglomerate culture of learning, development, safety, quality, and execution. This is where the enduring effects of skills management occur and how organizational transformation begins at every level. For more information on bridging the gap in HR and Operations, check out this report by Josh Bersin.

Why Do I Need Skills Management?

The future of work is changing, and the changes are happening fast. When they impact your organization, how will you respond? Will your workforce be able to adopt new technologies, learn new systems, deploy to new locations, or transition to new roles?

Equipping your company with skills management is the proactive approach in facing the future of work. It enables quick and confident responses to change. It informs upskilling, reskilling, hiring, and managing your people in line with business needs.

A skills strategy implemented with skills and competency management software enables employees, managers, and executives to view skills data from disparate systems (i.e., HRIS, LMS, Training, Scheduling, etc.) in one place. Validated data leads to informed business decisions about talent and business capability. It does this all while meeting and exceeding business goals no matter the industry circumstance.

Following Kahuna’s skills management process, you’ll use trusted skills data to inform Talent Identification – finding the right person for the right job at the right time – and Capability Planning – aligning your workforce to meet future skills demand.

Building a Skilled, Competitive Workforce

In conclusion, your workforce skills are critical to organizational success. Kahuna’s process of curate, assign, assess, and develop, combined with our skills management software, produces trusted workforce data to guide your workforce decisions today and in the future.

Building a sound foundation for skills management ensures you have the right person in the right job and are capable of meeting current and future industry demands. Both of these are key to executing your business strategy and being successful as an organization.

#Skills Management Software #Skills Management System #Competency Assessment Systems #Competency Management Software #Competency Management System

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anthonybialy · 3 years

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Reviewing What Was Reviewed

Being told what to do blows. Everyone should agree. Sure, there are a couple laws that are probably wise to punish fraudsters and participants in unsavory violence against things and others. But an era where governors issue unilateral orders that lead to gleeful submission has rendered autonomy controversial. Diktats have helped our health except for the health part. Please notice the precedent.

Begging for protection from life's challenges is as understandable as it is idiotic. Avoiding adulting is no more appealing when it's attempted to be achieved by law. Overreach makes everyday nuisances worse in one of those cruel ironies voters never learn from or cherish. Don't you like being surprised?

A quick overview of federal operations might help those who've forgotten or never learned. Take how the Senate is supposed to chill out, which is a surprise to those who continually elect shrieking hotheads. The ostensibly dignified wing is not just at-large long-term congressmen. Representing states is important if anyone's confused why they don't see lines like on the map while driving. It's so mean how Wyoming gets two senators, as if each subdivision was important in our system or something.

The collection should bend to the will of the people, bitch those who want to impose policies that would ruin same people's lives. Constitutional scorners don't like the idea of Texas vying with New York any more than they want prices to drop with competition.

Proclamations are supposed to be a way around needing pesky legislation, at least if you tire of this endless procedure of approval. As for opinions on another division, deciding if the Supreme Court is awesome depends if it's infringing properly.

The antidemocratic cabal is viewed as horrid if it reaffirms individuals possess natural rights. Or, the guardians of humanity receive accolades if they discover an insurance mandate in a document dedicated to limited federal power. Wish good luck to the self-professed selfless who adore or loathe an institution based on if it does what they want.

Those who live here and hate everything here is about are either disingenuous or honest about how ignorant they are. For a clear example, there's a debate what packing means even though there's no debate. It's a specific term involving adding Supreme Court justices, not keeping the same quantity and adding to them as prescribed by the Constitution. Anyone using the phrase otherwise is at best ignorant, which would explain everything.

The real case is against checks and balances for those looking to streamline authority. Those looking to expand membership lust after getting their way with force that circumvents limits, which at least makes them consistent. Those upset that they lost by the rules naturally try to change them.

Super America fans don't care for the Constitution or what's been added. The amendments they don't particularly like coincidentally show the same attitude toward this nation's principles and human autonomy. Liberals would loathe the Tenth if they knew what it said.

First Amendment loathers found a way to shut down speech: they just had to control conglomerates they allegedly despise. Monolithic ether applications get to decide whether or not you can broadcast your ideas. Every notion that Hoxha believed is permitted. You can still say anything that comes to mind, silly: it'll just be to yourself. Businesses are diabolical unless they're banning Gina Carano.

I've got bad news about criminals disobeying the law. Trusting people to be armed is impossible for those who can't imagine guns being used for good. Sure, the diabolical will get weapons regardless of the rules, so it's best to let their intended prey discourage attacks. And regular people owning guns is just how this country went independent. But that's just so old white rich male slaveholders could exploit everyone else.

Violating rights for the common good is uncommonly bad. Infiltration is philosophically and practically disastrous. The pernicious framing that force is cool if it only saves one life serves as a constant excuse for confiscating rights. Disposing of the need for a warrant would result in seizing many illegal goods. I shouldn't give our overlords ideas.

Letting people sort it out themselves frightens planners even more than executive pay. The overarching principle leads to negotiating wages and prices, which works out for both sides. Similarly, trusting the virtuous to defend themselves instead of thinking paperwork between them and rights will keep criminals from acquiring weapons.

A snotty reply to anyone calling America a democracy about living in a republic nonetheless is valuable beyond pedantic triumph. Our government is designed to balancing representation with the realization that majority rules would mean voting for robbing rich jerks.

Those who claim they're deeply into caring about the people sure love imposing alleged solutions on same people. Proclaiming that free humans are compelled to buy garbage insurance hasn't helped heal any more than allegedly free college makes enrollees smarter. If you seek something universal, check awful results from deciding a government limited by nature should get to make your choices.

Bitching that the nation is designed to be oppressive is awfully peculiar for one with a Constitution that imposes strict limits. They're on government and not us, for the record. This is the one place in the world with specific tasks permitted for those reluctantly granted power. Its shrillest critics then do everything to confiscate liberty. A self-fulfilling prophecy is the only thing horrid meddlers can make come true.

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shohanurrahmanx · 3 years

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The problem with Business Ethics, and how to be more ethical

By Dustin Sartwell

The biggest forms of human interaction all involve exchanging goods and services in one form or the other: business. However, from the conscious cradle of man transacting and communicating, there has been the need for better business practice and inter-person interactions in business.

· How do customers view my brand?

· How does my brand relate to the consumer?

· What drives people to my brand and vice versa…

Questions like this and a hundred others should be on the lips of every employer. There are flaws in the business models. And that is why brands and companies spend thousands of dollars trying to recruit HR, PR managers, Social Media marketers, brand influencers, and so on.

So, why do companies have to spend so much trying to fix their public reputation and business?

Decisions are getting more complex

In previous years, it was easier and clearer to make business decisions. The market was smaller; the shareholders were more analog and moral.

Now, the growing trend of trying to outdo each other, adaptation of technology, and maximizing profit is increasingly affecting business ethics. It goes from the mines in Africa to the poor labor conditions in Asia, and so on.

As a result, business decisions are no longer as simple as they used to be.

Prolonged legal battles

Dustin Sartwell posits that the current business models, justice, and legal systems mean that business legal suits on infringements, bad practices, monopoly charges, and so on, can drag for years.

When there is no prompt and adequate check on such business policies and ideas, the smaller company bow to high legal costs. It makes the bigger companies more brazen and unyielding in their disregard for business ethics.

The play-ground is uneven

The business model of this day is systematically uneven. While technology, IT, and Digitalization is trying to reduce the gap, the divide is just too significant. The current business models mean the rich and powerful business groups will continue to receive more but unfair market advantages and government patronage.

In the end, it leads to the shrinking of smaller businesses, and the market is skewed.

Lots of Bureaucracy

These days it is not uncommon for big conglomerates to lay off hundreds of their workers at a glance. The intricate company structures mean more bureaucracies, paper works, and so on. It is one advantage of the "smart" business model over management.

Too many bureaucracies mean suffocating progressive ideas and encouraging tyrannical business values.

Where a brand gets too big, buying off of other competitors and swallowing the market becomes inevitable. In the end, we are back to poor business ethics.

The goal is consumption, not satisfaction

Are customers satisfied? No, but they sure consume these goods and services. The days are long over when businesses focused on satisfying customers. Now it is a "push to the market" system where consumers get the barest minimum.

Dustin Sartwell, a popular critic of the current business system calls it “fancy quantity over quality”

How to improve your business ethics

Some never believe that business and ethics can both co-exist. To them, the presence of one begins the departure of the other.

Your business does not have to murder ethics, and vice versa. You can be smart about it.

· Stay through to your business goals

Is your business objective to sell healthy mouth wash to the public? Stay true. Do not go about lying about the amounts of “phosphorus” or “magnesium” or other ingredients. While these may give you better marketing, it stains your business goal. And this is why having a business goal is important.

· Employ smart business systems

Why does a crucial memo have to go through many computers before it gets to the top management? Why does employment have to be only about certifications, even where you need skills?

Employ skills where skill is needed, and expertise where needed. Interchanging the two causes lots of problems

· Customers should always be your goal

Most brands are airily chasing market shares when they should be focusing on their consumers. When you build a satisfied and happy customer base, your market shares will grow exponentially. The old rule of business applies; referrals are the best advertisement.

If satisfying customers is your goal, then you will respect all business ethics.

· Trust and integrity attract investors

Asides from ROI, dividends, promising stocks, investors want to trust your brand. They want to be sure that their resources are safe with you. It is terrible business ethics to falsify records, balance sheets, or revenue records to attract investors.

These kinds of scams do not last long, and once investigators expose the fraud, your brand is in the drain.

· Be a good citizen wherever your business is

All this does not go without saying that good business ethics hinges on being a good citizen wherever you are.

Pay your taxes, avoid unsafe practices near residences, make your employees comfortable, shun slaving and other unfair practices. Doing all these improves your business ethics and brand image.

Why good business ethics?

Why should anyone even bother about good business ethics? Profits are more important, my customers are happy, and so on…

Good ethics help the market longevity in the long run. While your hype may drive customers to you in the early stage, the market will continue to weigh its options and choose the right one at the end.

Good business ethics will attract investors and shareholders faster than a company with the hype. At the end of the day, investors will always make rigorous research about how they throw their dollars around.

Wrapping Up

Dustin Sartwell still believes problems of good ethics in business are not necessarily the big wolves, but the intentions of hidden key players in the market. It depends on things a company focuses on, like:

· How a brand prioritizes the customer and investors

· Views the market holds

· What it invests in

· The brand associations

· And many other similar criteria

In the end, the best business model always lasts long.

My name is Dustin Sartwell; I am married to Elizabeth Sartwell. Our wedding day was July 28th, 2012. I have two daughters, Piper Jane Sartwell and Haylee Sage Sartwell. I enjoy the following activities: dirt bike riding, camping, swimming, playing tennis, riding bikes, relaxing, and spending time with my family. I am a licensed contractor who owns D&M Construction in California who primarily does work on public work projects. My most recent project completed in 2019 was Pacific High School in Ventura. I did gas and water replacement for the entire Campus. I also installed a new relocatable building at Mound School in Ventura. My wife and I own a salon in Thousand Oaks, California called Born Vogue Salon and Spa. We also own the Public Barbershop in Westlake. My personal accomplishments have been opening up all three businesses and raising two daughters with my wife.

Please enjoy the following links to other websites, blogs, and social media of Dustin Sartwell:

DustinSartwell.net

Dustin-Sartwell.com

DustinSartwell.org

AboutDustinSartwell.com

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your-dietician · 3 years

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Gates Split Casts Harsh Glare on $170 Billion Money Manager

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/markets/gates-split-casts-harsh-glare-on-170-billion-money-manager/

Gates Split Casts Harsh Glare on $170 Billion Money Manager

(Bloomberg) — For almost three decades, Michael Larson has quietly shuffled around one of the world’s biggest fortunes with a chief priority: Keep his fabulously wealthy bosses out of the headlines.

The conservative bets, the nondescript office, the investment firm’s generic-sounding name; they were all carefully designed to shield Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates from criticism and produce steady, if seemingly unimpressive, returns.

The couple’s divorce announcement last month cracked the curated image. Unflattering details spilled out, including a report that Larson had allegedly harassed and bullied some employees.

On Monday, a spokesman said that Bill and Melinda Gates Investments — the 100-person strong team led by Larson that’s overseen their personal fortune and the endowment of their namesake foundation — changed its name to Cascade Asset Management Co. The moniker closely resembles Cascade Investment, which historically has been the part of BMGI that manages the Gateses’ personal wealth.

The rebranding is the latest step in the unfolding story of what will happen to one of the world’s largest fortunes when Gates and French Gates finalize their divorce. Larson was hired by the Microsoft Corp. billionaire in the mid-1990s to oversee that wealth.

The sprawling portfolio under his purview, estimated by Bloomberg News to be valued at about $170 billion, has over the years generated returns that beat the broader stock market by about a percentage point, according to financial filings and people familiar with the matter.

The record illustrates the priorities of the uppermost strata of the ultrarich, where investment horizons span generations and riskier bets often don’t outweigh the value of a good reputation. Part of Larson’s job was to help Bill Gates uphold his image as a wonky billionaire devoted to fixing the world’s challenges, rather than make bold moves that could draw scrutiny.

“The price some of these guys are willing to pay to stay out of the news is high,” said Tayyab Mohamed, co-founder of family office recruiting firm Agreus Group.

Story continues

The divorce and recent revelations about Cascade’s workplace culture, reported by the New York Times, raise questions about what’s next for Larson and the fortune he oversees. A spokesman for Cascade said BMGI is changing its name “to allow for the evolving needs of the Gates family and their philanthropic work” and that the group’s investment strategy and organizational structure won’t change.

French Gates, whose name was added to BMGI in 2014, has been in focus after Cascade transferred equity stakes worth more than $3 billion to her, leading some in the industry to speculate she’s in the process of claiming an even larger control of her share of the riches. Their combined wealth stands at more than $140 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Larson, 61, has admitted that he sometimes used harsh language, as alleged in the Times reporting, but denied that he mistreated staff. A Cascade representative has said the matters were examined and didn’t warrant his dismissal. A representative for Gates didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mohamed said it’s of little surprise that Larson has remained in his role after the allegations, given his decades-long tenure with Gates and the loyalty it has likely engendered.

“Had Larson not had the professional impact he had, it would be a simple yes, he should resign,” said Mohamed, whose company helps family offices fill leadership positions.

Larson, often clad in a pink shirt, shies from the limelight and rarely attends conferences for family office professionals. A former bond-fund manager, he won Gates’s loyalty by delivering consistent returns and instilling in employees the notion that their primary focus was to protect their benefactor’s good name, according to people familiar with Cascade, who asked not to be named speaking about the company’s inner workings.

The manager had broad leeway from Gates on investment decisions, they both have said. French Gates rarely attended meetings in Cascade’s early days aside from the annual in-person gathering, and when she did she tended to be a passive participant, according to one of the people familiar with the firm.

She was unaware of most of the allegations involving Larson “given her lack of ownership of and control over BMGI,” her spokeswoman, Courtney Wade, said in a statement.

It’s unclear where French Gates is keeping her money, including the more than $3 billion that has been transferred from Cascade, and whether she’s now setting up a family office of her own. She also runs Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation firm founded in 2015 that focuses on gender and racial equality and employs roughly 90 people.

Conservative Mandate

Being the investment chief for one of the world’s biggest family fortunes might seem like an enviable job for an investor mulling creative bets. There’s hardly a worry about fundraising, client withdrawals or onerous regulations. But it often instead involves simply keeping wealth steady.

Aside from detracting attention from the Gateses, Larson’s main mandate has been to invest conservatively — try to maximize returns but don’t lose money, one of the people said.

That reflects the typical investment approaches of big family offices and foundations, said Raphael Amit, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“The No. 1 objective is preservation of capital,” he said, adding that’s why family office portfolios are so diverse, including not just public equities, but also fixed income, commodities and assets such as art.

In a Fortune story from two decades ago, Larson explained that much of his strategy boiled down to countering the swings of Microsoft stock. At the time, the portfolios both for the foundation and for the Gateses’ personal money mostly consisted of bonds, with some bets on private equity, commodities, Florida real estate and British hotels.

That has shifted. Today Cascade holds about $57 billion in public equities, ranging from farm-equipment maker Deere & Co. to track operator Canadian National Railway Co. to waste management firm Republic Services Inc. — companies rooted in the physical world of making, moving and selling goods, and cleaning things up.

Cascade also owns around 270,000 acres of land, enough to make it the single biggest owner of U.S. farmland, according to the Land Report. The firm also has been involved in currency and commodities trading, venture capital and the development of a property complex in downtown Tampa.

The foundation’s most recent tax returns also shows $804 million of corporate bonds and $5.8 billion of other investments like mortgage-backed securities, bank loans and sovereign debt.

Stable Returns

Cascade doesn’t disclose its overall investment performance, but financial reports from the foundation offer clues. The foundation’s assets under management have returned an average of about 8.6% per year since 2001, according to a person familiar with the matter, beating the S&P 500 Index’s average annual 7.5% gain over the past two decades. That track record is broadly representative of Cascade’s overall returns, another person said.

Cascade’s assets have periodically been boosted by proceeds from the sales of Gates’s Microsoft stock. And Warren Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has periodically given shares in the conglomerate worth billions of dollars to the foundation. Buffett is one of the Gates Foundation’s three board members alongside Gates and French Gates, but has no involvement in investment decisions of the endowment, according to the foundation.

One remarkable feature of the portfolio is how little it changes. Of the 15 stocks listed in the foundation trust’s most recent filing, which discloses positions traded on U.S. exchanges, 10 of them were in the portfolio a decade ago.

The holdings haven’t uniformly jived with the Gateses’ charitable endeavors or priorities, which include global health and, more recently, climate change.

Cascade held investments in oil and gas companies until 2019, Gates said in his recent book about climate change. It was long the biggest owner of Signature Aviation Plc, the world’s largest operator of private-jet bases, before joining a consortium that took the company private this year. And it’s the biggest shareholder of Republic Services Inc., which for years has feuded with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, whose members are employees.

Gates has occasionally made it clear that Larson has broad discretion to make investment decisions. In a March “Ask me anything” event on Reddit, a user asked about his purchases of farmland. His response: “My investment group chose to do this.”

Two decades ago, Larson put it more bluntly.

“When people find out that Cascade has made an investment in something, that’s not Bill Gates,” he said in the Fortune interview. “I wish everyone understood that.”

(Adds detail on French Gates and BMGI in 10th paragraph.)

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thinkveganworld · 6 years

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Corporate media: The free press isn’t free enough

This essay covers several reasons behind corporate media’s failure to cover news in a way that benefits the people. The following is the bulk of an essay I wrote years ago. It was published widely on the Internet then, and most of it can easily apply to today’s corporate news media.

In this essay, I mentioned we need real independent media, and today we have that via online journalists. Corporate owned media is still as unreliable as it was when I wrote this, but luckily many Internet media sources are reliable.

We have a free mainstream press in this country. It’s just not free enough.Thomas Jefferson said we can preserve democracy only with a fully informed electorate. If the media had fully informed voters about the antidemocratic nature of Iran-contra, would people have lobbied political leaders to alter its course? If the media had informed the public about the savings and loan scandal in a timely way, would taxpayers be burdened with the economic repercussions?

Here’s a test to determine whether the media have done a good job conveying all the news most Americans need to know about any given important news story:(1) Is that story fully understood by most Americans? Is it common knowledge? (2) Do most Americans understand the news story’s meaning and significance—in depth and detail? Do they see how the story relates to their daily lives?

How many ordinary Americans do you personally know who fully understand the savings and loan scandal? How many do you know who understand Iran-contra in depth including its meaning and significance? . . .

. . . Everybody expects certain politicians to flack for corporate contributors, but the public expects mainstream news reporters to be democracy’s watchdogs . . . Mainstream news organizations perpetuate the civic-minded-journalist myth. When challenged, mainstream journalists are often defensive and admit no wrongdoing. The rare times mainstream news folk self-criticize they still don’t get to the heart of the matter. For example, a recent study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) shows readers are concerned about newspapers’ spelling or grammatical mistakes and about factual errors, accuracy, bias, spin, and special breaks for powerful people or organizations. Edward Seaton, president of ASNE, says he wants to “rein in the pundits” and reconnect with readers.

How can news organizations connect with readers when corporate moguls who own the media often stand between reporters and readers? In a July, 1986, Cosmopolitan interview, media mogul Rupert Murdoch was asked to what extent he controls his newspapers’ editorial position. Murdoch, who described himself as a “radical conservative” said: “Considerably. The buck stops on my desk. My editors have input, but I make final decisions.” If Murdoch at times acts as a defensive back, blocking his subordinates’ efforts to pass to the public any version of the news that hurts his financial interests, we need a whole new kind of journalistic ball game.

Concentrated corporate ownership affects the quality of journalism. The people-friendly press has been replaced by corporate-friendly conglomerates. Family owned newspapers—papers that once took up for interests of average Americans—have virtually disappeared due to a declining marketplace. The corporate-friendly press puts profit ahead of public service. Corporate owners don’t spring for costly investigative reporters—especially not ones who make waves with business advertisers or very powerful public figures.

Here is the heart of the matter: “News” washed clean of the real corruption in society—in other words, news that omits misdeeds of those wealthy and powerful public figures with the most clout—is anemic disinformation. The public can’t connect with it because whitewashed news is nothing we can use. It doesn’t link with our daily lives.

Corporate-friendly (as opposed to people-friendly) media do more than limit ideas. They often advocate or emphasize only ideas that benefit corporate owners. Media moguls like Rupert Murdoch have an obvious economic stake in a certain political agenda: fewer taxes on the wealthy; fewer regulations of business and so forth. Media giant TCI’s John Malone speculated Murdoch would likely be glad to keep Fox News Channel on the air even if the network didn’t make a profit—for political leverage alone. If networks are used for political leverage by media owners whose economic interests clash with the interests of average taxpayers or labor groups, the public needs to seek alternative sources of information.

Media decision-makers often deny they are controlled by corporate media owners. But subordinates no doubt anticipate how far they can push the envelope and then censor themselves. Network news directors rarely pound away at stories that seriously jeopardize wealthy and powerful villains—at least not those with the most wealth and clout (meaning the ones who can do the most damage.)

Journalists are sometimes fired or harassed for challenging the rich and powerful. Media critic Michael Parenti (Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media) offers a number of examples, among them: Reporter Bill Collins was fired from the Winston-Salem Journal for “union activity and writing too much about labor.” An NBC reporter, Jon Alpert, was fired by NBC’s Michael Gartner when Alpert brought back Gulf War footage showing damage done to civilian areas by U.S. aerial attacks. New York Times columnist Sydney Schanberg’s column was canceled by publisher Sulzberger when Schanberg wrote too much about the greed of New York’s bankers and other moneyed interests.

Corruption involving society’s wealthiest and most powerful miscreants is the very kind of corruption that most affects our daily lives and is the kind that most needs to be corrected if the country is to improve. This is not a plea for scatter-gun scandal-mongering or random smear campaigns aimed at ruining wealthy public figures without just cause. However society’s most insidious corruption often originates among the wealthiest one-percent of Americans (whose total net worth is greater than the total net worth of the bottom ninety percent) and among the corporate media moguls who flack for them. If mainstream media won’t fully cover union grievances because it offends wealthy corporations, or won’t cover war-time abuses because it offends arms manufacturers, or ignore Wall Street’s greed because it offends bankers, then we need new sources of news media.

If news organizations want to convey news that matters, it’s not enough to offer occasional stories in piecemeal fashion on important issues. For the public to grasp the meaning and significance of news stories, the media must go beyond casually tossing out first one random piece of a puzzle and then another—sometimes publishing or airing one piece of the puzzle weeks after the first piece appears. When a meaningful, complete puzzle exists responsible media should present the whole picture to the public—all at once and often.

Some journalists claim it’s not their job to clarify meaning and significance for viewers or readers and that they have no obligation to put puzzles together in a truthful, public-advocating manner. However, media organizations do piece news stories together in ways that promote corporate interests . . .

Michael Parenti says the way news is framed is all-important. Framing involves “the way news is packaged, the amount of exposure, the placement (front page or back, lead story or last), the tone of presentation (sympathetic or slighting), the accompanying headlines and visual effects.” Propaganda is more effective when done with framing than with obvious coercion.

If the media cared more about public service than profit, what difference would it make to ordinary Americans? If we’d had truth telling mainstream media when the savings and loan crisis started or during Iran-contra, might ordinary people have banded together to help avert those blunders? Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-TX) testified as early as 1982 before the House Rules Committee, warning of the pending S&L disaster. Gonzalez , who is now retired, is a rare breed of politician who worked on behalf of the public and not exclusively for corporate “clients.” Although his speeches appeared in the Congressional Record, and while thousands of political reporters knew of the coming S&L disaster, virtually no reporters covered the story. Gonzalez called a press conference in the spring of 1988 in a near panic about the coming crisis. The only press people who showed up were a few from the financial industry trade papers and some Texas reporters. (Bill Greider, Who Will Tell The People.)

The mainstream media never explained the S&L scandal to the public so that its details became common knowledge, nor did the media clarify Iran-contra. Tim Weiner writes in Blank Check, the book based on his Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper series on the Pentagon’s black budget: “No one ever stood trial for the true crimes of the Iran-contra conspiracy. No one ever will. The White House, the Justice Department and the CIA made sure of that.” Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and certain national security officials declared important facts regarding the case to be sensitive secrets. Those secrets—including key defining details—were sealed, allowing prominent Iran-contra figures to escape scrutiny and prosecution. Independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh said the sealed material amounted to “fictional secrets.”

Nothing has been done to discourage another Iran-contra. Ronald Reagan and Oliver North escaped serious media scrutiny, and Congress hasn’t enacted a single preventive measure. Why didn’t the media (on the whole) do a better job reporting the S&L scandal and Iran-contra? Many reporters who knew about the savings and loan story were focused on relatively trivial matters, for example on lighter aspects of the 1988 presidential campaign.

Some news organizations caved to pressure to give only the military-intelligence version of Iran-contra according to former Newsweek reporter Robert Parry (Fooling America) However a key underlying reason those and other important news stories are neglected or covered in misleading ways is that, in general, mainstream media primarily serve interests of the wealthy and powerful—often at the expense of the rest of us.

Many politicians listen only to their wealthy corporate contributors and disregard the views of the rest of the electorate. Considering politicians’ indifference to public opinion, would it have mattered if the news media had reported the savings and loan scandal and Iran-contra in a way that made the details fully understood by most Americans? Yes, it likely would have made a difference. If the general public had known the implications of the pending S&L crisis or the reasons Iran-contra figures escaped scrutiny, people might have chosen to respond. At least, armed with information, the public would have stood a fighting chance to act on our own behalf.

If the news media had fully informed the public, more people might have bothered to vote in order to eliminate (vote against) politicians who participated in the S&L scandal and Iran-contra. People might have formed legitimate grassroots groups or joined existing organizations to work toward preventing similar events in the future. Public figures often complain that few Americans vote or participate in politics. More people would be inspired to vote and participate in public affairs if the mainstream media conveyed news fully and clearly, showing the public what is at stake. An informed electorate is an empowered electorate.

Robert W. McChesney, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, says that when Ben Bagdikian’s The Media Monopoly was first published in 1983, all U. S. mass media were controlled by around fifty corporations. Today approximately ten firms dominate all mass media. Various media owners are involved in joint ventures with their “competitors.”

Those joint ventures reduce real competition and create monopolistic tendencies. A virtual media monopoly obviously curbs the range and scope of ideas flowing from mainstream media to the American people. Yes, a few news organizations offer an occasional “people-friendly” expose of corporate misdeeds, and there are good journalists who tell the truth and do an excellent job. The public could seek them out.

Here’s the problem: When people believe we already have reliable mainstream media, they don’t seek supplemental news. Many Americans believe the myth of the noble tribune and think if a news story were important it would be mentioned often on network TV or reported daily on the front pages of their newspapers and in every issue of prominent news magazines. Most Americans don’t work to unearth key news stories (in other words, do their own investigative journalism) because they buy the myth that caring journalists will do that for them. Some people believe in the idea that all journalists are noble watchdogs the way they once believed in Santa. Americans must shake off the illusion that the mainstream media serve “the people.”

Ordinary Americans need truth telling, public-advocating mainstream media organizations with their finger on our pulse and corporate America’s chains off their backs. We are not likely to get them. We’ll have better luck strengthening the country’s alternative media—those publications not entirely controlled by corporate money and profit motive. A public sponsored all-news television network might be a good start (a sort of all-news PBS that thrives only on private and not corporate contributions.) Those people who trust the mainstream media won’t bother to seek news elsewhere. What the public needs most is to enlist educators and others to spread the word through society that the mainstream media can’t be trusted to provide all the news Americans need if we want to be well informed enough to keep democracy.

Michael Parenti quotes journalist John Swinton who attended a newspaper editors’ banquet in the early years of the twentieth century. Swinton responded to a toast to the free press this way: “There is no such thing in America as an independent press . . . You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares write his honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print . . . We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” Swinton’s assessment is still accurate today when applied to corporate media.

It’s time the American people banish the myth that we have a free (enough) mainstream press and see most mainstream corporate media organizations for what they are. Unlike the proverbial Emperor, these media posers do wear clothes—short skirts, six-inch heels—but they wear no shame at all.

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