Restrictions. on Library

Jessica Hayles

April 10, 2019 8:00 PM

Restrictions. by Jessica Hayles

a silent room, full of talking ghosts -
Talking, talking, talking about talking -
Well-set hair above the collar and the codes -

Jessica thought for a moment about whether 'codes' and 'ghosts' came close enough to a rhyme to require her to rewrite the whole poem as a rhyming one, and that pause somehow broke her concentration. She blinked as she came back to herself, looking up from her paper and trading her view of the inside of the room where women had worked to break codes in the 1940s for a view of the inside of the Sonora library.

Writing had always been a relief, and it still was. It was just also somehow both still a relief and also a source of more irritation now. When she wrote, she was far away from everyone and everything except her subject and her words - and then the trance broke and she was back in her body and she had to deal with everyone and everything all over again. She still had not decided if the new 'everything' - the awareness of her surroundings, the unending loneliness and frustration, and the grief and rage over the life she had finally been forced to give up as a lost cause - was really worse than the old everything, or if they were just equally bad in different ways, but one thing she was sure of, the new situation was definitely not an improvement.

She rubbed her eyes, then tore the corner of paper on which she had been scribbling off of the notebook page with a firm hand before folding it and stowing it away in her little square pink handbag. She didn't have time to write now, or really time to feel better. She had work to do.

Looking back at the book of magical theory in front of her, though, she found herself promptly going cross-eyed again as she struggled with the tiny, old-fashioned print. The yellowed pages (what exactly they were made of, she thought she preferred not to know; these people were grimy and it didn't feel or smell quite like normal paper) made her nose run, too, and her eyes felt even drier than she thought so much reading should account for. She needed to stretch her legs, clear her head. Reluctantly, she stood slowly, nursing stiff legs and a sore bottom, and walked.

She had work to do, but not at all the kind she was used to and thought of as proper work at all. Instead, she was working to figure out what she should work on! Her parents didn't know any more about this world than she did, and she had been unable to find adult allies, which left her with no choice except to make her own plans - something she was far too young to do, but which she had to do anyway. She wondered if this was what it was like, being a person without resources - surely they wanted their children to do better, but they would logically not have much to work with to make a good plan, just as she no longer really did, in many ways....

Thoughts whirling, she walked into a part of the library she had never been to before and stopped suddenly at the sight of a sign which said 'Restricted.' She stared at it for a moment before her mouth tightened with distaste. Arvale partnered with the Georgia Public Library System, among various other organizations, to promote and defend banned books and the like - ostensibly because make-up was about freedom to express oneself how one liked, which ostensibly made it appropriate for a cosmetics company to support freedom of speech and the press as major causes. The facts that many Southerners would interpret any reference to 'freedom of speech' as a defense of calling people awful names (a rare partial relief, she thought, from something which caused Daddy and the board and the marketing department all kinds of headaches; these days, it was next to impossible for a cosmetics company to flourish without getting involved in politics, but Arvale's early ventures into that in the fifties had led to headquarters relocating to Georgia, and now the only politics that were acceptable in their industry were those which inspired revulsion in too many of their physical neighbors. Freedom to read what one wanted, and of printers to print controversial books, was not popular among many in their region, but 'freedom of speech,' however - their neighbors liked that.) and that her Groves relations also were involved in education reform helped, of course. The point, however, was that this went against the company's official line, and she had not yet completely broken the habit of thinking as though she were still Jessica Hayles of Atlanta, heir apparent to a throne forged from the lipstick tubes of defeated or absorbed rival companies. The sight of a sign saying certain books were restricted pushed Jessica the witch, who was still a weak and confused little creature, entirely out of her head before she even fully realized it.

Someone else walked into the same part of the library and Jessica looked at that person. "What's in there?" she asked, pointing to the restricted section.

16 Jessica Hayles Restrictions. 1442 Jessica Hayles 1 5

Kir McLeod

May 10, 2019 9:34 AM

You must be this tall to ride by Kir McLeod

Kir was making his way through the library when he was stopped by a first year that he didn't know. He had a bit of knowledge of the year group because of Zara, whom he knew from back home because their parents were friends. Initially, his classification system had been 'Zara' and 'not-Zara' though it had evolved somewhat since then. He had shepherded Zara to a couple of classes, which also sometimes involved having Johana-Leonie in tow too, and thus he had learnt that there was another German somewhere because they talked about her. There was also another roommate and a Teppenpaw boy - he noticed the Teppenpaws because he was their prefect and therefore responsible for them. Zara also mentioned someone called Felipe a lot if he asked about her day. Kir knew quite a lot of things therefore, that this person was not - she was not Zara, not Zara's friend, not German and not a Teppenpaw.

Also not shy, apparently, judging by the way she accosted him, in spite of his looming-ness. Not that he loomed on purpose. He tried very hard to appear approachable and friendly. It was just a sort of accidental side effect of being over six foot. He suspected somehow that he didn’t look that scary in spite of it, but he was sure there were some younger students who would feel intimidated by approaching someone so much older, and someone so big. Apparently, this girl wasn’t one of them though. He was also sort of tempted to guess she wasn't an a Aladren based on the obviousness of the answer to the question she had just asked. It was outside of class hours, so there wasn't the clue of house badges to go by, though Kir was still easily identifiable as a Teppenpaw having pinned his prefect badge to his hoodie. On the whole, he went for displaying his pins on his backpack, as an easier alternative to constantly transferring them between garments and making tiny holes in everything, so the rest of the badges that gave clues to his personality were there, but the prefect badge seemed like it should be on his clothes and easy to spot. Overall, he was somewhat toned down in his appearance compared to some days, though his hoodie did have rainbow binding on the cuffs and the bottom, and his nails were painted a nice shimmering dark blue.

He was quite tempted to reply that they were books that were restricted. He suspected she already knew that, and what she was really asking was ‘why are they restricted?’ but that wasn’t the question she had asked and the pedant in him was tempted to use sarcasm to make a point. The Teppenpaw in him, and the fact that he was visibly marked out as one of its most kind and responsible representatives, told that guy to shut it though.

“Books that are not suitable for everyone to read. Either because their ideas are dangerous, or because they contain material that might be too graphic or otherwise inappropriate for younger readers,” he elaborated, though he would have thought most of that was obvious.

13 Kir McLeod You must be this tall to ride 366 Kir McLeod 0 5

Jessica

May 11, 2019 8:53 PM

Says who? by Jessica

As he spoke, Jessica took a moment to look over and take the measure of the Very Tall Boy she had just accosted. Two things leapt out at her at once: the hoodie and the nail polish.

Nail polish could, in theory, mean anything. Early versions of nail polish, along with eyeliner and lipstick and eyeshadow, had existed among the ancient Egyptians, among others, and face powder was pretty old as well. These people had no doubt developed versions of a number of cosmetics for their own uses - likely, based on her Potions lessons, simple versions, poorly pigmented with next to no wear time or consistency between batches, natural untreated or barely treated ingredients, but versions nonetheless. The hoodie, however, was unremittingly normal. It could have belonged to any random person in Atlanta or anywhere else real. Jessica and whichever staff member was in charge of guarding her would have walked past this guy without a second thought at home, at least before the weather warmed up - hoodies were suspicious in summer and apparently in some neighborhoods of the sort Jessica wouldn’t enter with an entire regiment of bodyguards, but in winter, they were unremarkable enough. Here, however, they were unusual; here, she thought they were the mark of someone who had to be old enough the way around this place, but who wasn’t enough of a convert to its ways to wear sacks voluntarily during leisure hours.

Here, in other words, was someone who could help her. If she played the situation right.

Mara had once told her that it was possible that her face was part of the reason (other parts, of course, being that she was simply too busy to invest much time or energy in people outside the family and staff, and that the family and staff met most of her needs anyway) she had never really acquired friends. ”It’s just something about your face, Sissy, Mara had said, sounding almost apologetic. I mean, I know you’re not like that, but your whole face, it just screams snobby white girl.”

White was not an adjective Jessica could remotely dispute. Their father joked that if Jessica hadn’t been born with an entire cosmetics lab at her disposal, her search for foundation when she got older might have ended in just dipping a damp sponge in translucent powder and hoping for the best. It was far less common if a problem than ranges not going deep enough in their shade ranges, but very fair, very cool-toned offerings were not the commonest either. Snobby, however, had surprised her, and she hoped Mara had been off the mark, because snobbery was not something she thought was going to help her manage her currently somewhat patronizing audience.

“Dangerous ideas,” she repeated. “So who here - I’m not from here - decides what’s a dangerous idea? Some people would say seeing your nail polish would give people dangerous ideas - great color, by the way.”

Jessica actually disliked it when guys put on cosmetics. There was just something viscerally offputting about it to her - a parody of beauty. Men were many things, but beautiful was not one of them, to her way of thinking. Men were just not very interesting to look at and did best to stay that way. However, this view was not correct on any day on which his money spent as well at Arvale counters as anyone else’s, and so Jessica, having learnt this important lesson from Daddy the one time she had voiced it and had been sharply corrected, kept her opinion to herself.

OOC: Since Jess crosses a little into real issues here, I’ll note for the record again that her ideas and stereotypes are her own and not endorsed by the author unless otherwise specified, which here they are not.

16 Jessica Says who? 1442 Jessica 0 5

Kir

May 12, 2019 6:00 AM

Them by Kir

“Thanks,” Kir smiled, when the first year complimented his nail varnish, and very astutely pointed out that some people were douchebags when it came to what they thought was an appropriate subject.

“Good question,” he smiled, revising his opinion slightly of the tiny human (she may not have been tiny by eleven year old standards, he couldn’t really remember how big they were meant to be but she was an awfully long way down from where he was). “I don’t know. I mean, there’s magic that’s against the law, or restricted - and that’s decided by MACUSA, our government,” he added, taking her reference to ‘not from here’ to mean she was Muggleborn. This admission had surprised him because she definitely had That Pureblood Look about her. Of course, there were rich brats in both worlds, and maybe he had just encountered one from the other side, but he was more inclined to not judge the book by its cover given that she was not being rude about his nails and was making intelligent arguments. Maybe she just had resting rich face, which would scarcely be her fault. “But a type of magic being outlawed or restricted doesn’t, of course, mean that it can’t be discussed. Those things frequently come up in class. And there’s magic that they, the government, would be fine with you doing but which the school might prefer that you didn’t. Case in point, I’ve seen a book called ‘Easy Ways to Cause Explosions’ in there,” he gestured to the restricted section, “Several perfectly innocent uses for that - diversions, stage effects, but you can see why a school might want to know exactly who’s been looking at such a volume, and make sure it’s not that easy to get at. So, I would guess it’s mostly down to the staff here. There may be one or two subjects that they’re advised or told they have to limit access to, but probably not too many.

“Not that the magical world is full of terrible things,” he added, seeking to reassure her (not that she seemed like someone who was particularly easily intimidated or showing many signs of being afraid - more of just being curious). “It’s like any other force - you can put it to good or bad. There’s plenty of things in the non-magical world that are harmful or need restricting, after all,” he added.

13 Kir Them 366 Kir 0 5

Jessica

May 15, 2019 9:50 PM

I disapprove. by Jessica

Jessica Hayles was dead. For better or worse, however, no-one had told her muscle memory about this fact yet.

As she listened to Very Tall Boy, her posture and facial expression adjusted without her even noticing, reflecting polite interest and pleasure at learning something new from so dignified a personage as the one before her. Her hands folded themselves primly at her waist, and while she did not cease to blink, the rate at which she did so decreased, as though she could not miss a moment of what was being said. Which was true, but that wasn't why she assumed these postures. This was how she posed when Daddy took her to labs or events and had Important People show her how they did things. Mommy joked that it would be useless for politics - a woman who looked like this in politics would not be taken seriously at all - but very good if she happened to marry one of the crowned or formerly-crowned heads of Europe. Jessica rather liked the idea of being a princess as well as an executive - just like Helena Rubenstein, though with better hair - but whether plain Jessica Hayles ever became Princess So-and-So-Ov or not, this was how she listened intently to something.

At two points, however, her expression flickered slightly, though. The first was when Tall Boy called something called a Makusa (was that Hecate's Mormon sister or something?) 'their' government. The second was when Tall Boy undercut an argument she was planning to make at the end of his own opening statement.

"That's true," she acknowledged. "Like things that make explosions, at home. Unless you're...never mind." Better not to talk about the politics of things that made things go boom at home. Things that went boom were an area Uncle Jason had to do a lot of tap dancing around, and one of the reasons why Mommy didn't think her brother had the slightest chance of ever being nominated for president, though she did concede that Uncle Jason might have a shot at vice president. Jessica, for her part, just honestly thought that business might actually be less of a headache-inducer than direct involvement in politics, as well as being far more profitable.

Her expression flickered again as she struggled to find a response. There had to be one. Her family was opposed to censorship, so therefore it was bad. She just had to figure out how to argue without sounding stupid - or worse, like a stupid person on the wrong side of the aisle.

"At home, though, we restrict things," she said. "If you let people in power decide what you can read about, and let them track every idea you read about, that's an important step toward an autocratic government. That's why libraries can't be forced to tell the government at home about what people search for or get from other libraries."

This little speech had a slightly rehearsed sound to it, and for good reason - it was little more than a paraphrase, leavened with her fifth grade social studies vocabulary, of things her parents or Uncle Jason or Grandpa had said, either to her or in speeches she had been encouraged to pay attention to before analyzing them with her parents. Her school had taught her a little about picking apart things like that, in her last year, but her parents had done far more - it was important that she be prepared to answer any kid who had relatives on the other side of the aisle who for some reason had coached their kids to fight when presented with Senator Groves' granddaughter. It wasn't, after all, as though people hadn't known she was such a person; Grandpa had given a speech at her school once, and she had been allowed to sit on stage with the principals and Mommy and Grandma instead of with the other students.

"And they already give us, like, five different poisons just in a box in Potions, and even more in that cabinet, and trust us not to use those on each other, so what makes whatever's in there so special? Or gives Professor Skies the right to know if I've been looking at it?" she added, a bit more naturally and acerbically as her least favorite person sprang to mind as the physical manifestation of everything wrong with this. Of course that hag would be on the side of the censors.

16 Jessica I disapprove. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Kir

May 23, 2019 10:25 AM

Good for you by Kir

Kir was not reallty surprised to hear phrases such as 'autocratic government' being spouted by a first year, given that he had Ness for a sibling, who was perfectly at home with using terms like 'patriarchy' and 'heteronormative.' There had been a brief phase where these had been deployed without really knowing what they meant - where every instance of Kir annoying the younger McLeod had resulted in a glare and an accusation that he was 'being the patriarchy' but this had ended before Ness came to Sonora, and he was pretty sure that the Aladren had an accurate (if somewhat immature) understanding of the terms. So, he didn't doubt that this girl both understood and believed her own point, though the slightly recited air, and the fact that it was still a pretty big view for such a small person, made him suspect she had never thought about it much.

"Are movies a thing?" he questioned, when she seemed to feel they - presumably meaning non-magical people - restricted objects rather than ideas, "I mean, the movie disc is an object, but a movie is essentially a story or a set of ideas. Those are graded by age. I don't believe in banning ideas, but clearly nor does Sonora. It's just making sure information stays age appropriate.

"And libraries may not be able to track people in the non-magical world, but I'm sure there are things that are considered dangerous knowledge, that they might restrict people's access to, or follow up on if you showed too much interest. Can you just walk into your library and get books on attacking people's computers or making chemistry explode? And yes, I know I probably sound like an idiot child trying to describe those things, but the point is both worlds have things they don't want everyone to know, and both take steps to make sure that doesn't happen.

"Not that one party doing it makes it right, of course. But is your argument that the magical world is more restrictive, or that both governments should be more open and unrestrictive?"

13 Kir Good for you 366 Kir 0 5

Jessica

May 23, 2019 7:32 PM

I suspect sarcasm. by Jessica

Jessica frowned slightly at the question. "I don't have enough information to say," she admitted reluctantly. "I don't know much about this place." A wry smile flickered about her mouth for a moment. "Mrs. McClellan used to say that all we know is that we don't know," she said, more to herself than him. "She had no idea."

Truthfully, his arguments made sense, but Jessica wasn't sure how to back down without looking like a silly little girl. Mommy and Daddy both agreed that since Jessica didn't have a brother, she had to talk more like a boy than like a girl whenever she actually said anything more than pleasantries to anyone, because the slightest break in outward confidence and self-control would immediately cause anyone listening to not take a girl very seriously - "especially a pretty little thing like you, Princess," as Daddy had once added.

"I probably could get - at least stuff I could use to figure out how to explode things," she said. "Since there's so many reasons why you could want to know that aren't bad - like - writing a school report," she said, defaulting to what she knew best. In school she had only ever used clips from articles she was given to support points, usually with a fair degree of guidance from her teachers, but she had known that finding one's own sources was a thing before she had been asked to do it here. "Or learning more about things so you can make your own opinions," she added a beat later, more confidently, remembering that - education and literacy were so important to both the Groves family and the Arvale Foundation because they tended to produce more people who were likely to vote for Jessica's mother's relatives, and, if they moved to Atlanta or Savannah or out of state anyway, to make more money for themselves and therefore afford more of Jessica's father's family's products.

Higher levels of education contribute to a higher standard of living and higher national GDP. Cuba is the major exception, since they have a 99% literacy rate but a low standard of living and low GDP. Jessica had always liked social studies because of that kind of thing - this followed that, with a few exceptions one could memorize for the test. It was like a new marketing campaign, only with far less uncertainty about whether it would flop or otherwise not work as intended. She loved the columns of numbers, the rules that could be drawn from them. It was so much nicer than dealing with people, worrying all the time that she would make one wrong move, obsessing over times she had done so....

But the girl who had had to worry about being perfect had been Jessica Hayles. And Jessica Hayles was dead.

"But here...as far as I can tell, they're really superstitious and ignorant of - well - pretty much everything," she said, and felt the relief of losing a burden she hadn't even known she was carrying as she spoke openly, not bothering to sugar coat anything to even the slightest degree. "The potions stuff is practically - herb granny stuff, and two of the teachers think you can run a business here without knowing any math," she added, some of her contempt for Professor Skies and Mr. Row coming through in her tone toward the end. "And good Lord, what they call clothes," she added further, slipping further into a more obvious Southern accent for a moment. "Everyone looks like monks! And my family's having to pretend I'm practically dying because of this - disorder they all seem to think I should be happy I have," she continued, now openly resentful. "So yeah, I do really think they should be more open to information overall, catch up with the rest of the world, you know?" she offered boldly, stating her opinion in a fit of pique, with only the most cursory of thought about the possibility that he might just be brainwashed enough to disagree with her.

16 Jessica I suspect sarcasm. 1442 Jessica 0 5

Kir

May 25, 2019 3:05 AM

You are correct by Kir

“On behalf of the population of ‘here’, hey,” Kir responded, but he said it gently enough to show that he wasn’t really offended. More just letting her know she should perhaps take it easy.

“Why don’t we sit down, seeing as it sounds like you have about five different things you want to fight me on all at once,” he invited, in much the same tone. Debating was practically a McLeod family sport, and he was more than up for some lively discussion, though he was also a little concerned because this girl seemed to be having some serious difficulty with the transition. Admittedly, some of her claims were a little laughable, or seemed of little importance, and many of them seemed rather ill thought out. Maybe they’d have a debate, maybe she’d just get a chance to vent her spleen - either was good. “Being receptive to knowledge from outside being another different issue again,” he pointed out.

“You called Potions… Granny herbal stuff? Well, surely that would be the case, and we’d all be no more than a bunch of superstitious old whatsits if it wasn’t for the fact that our herbal nonsense does actually work,” he pointed out reasonably, “I’m not here to argue that this world is perfect, or that one world is better than the other. Magical people can heal broken bones in seconds. Non-magical people can send a message to the other side of the world pretty much instantaneously. Both groups can do things the other can’t. I don’t believe that one group is better, and I’m sorry if the only people you’ve met have given you that impression.” He glanced her up and down, “Crotalus?” he guessed, given her particular mentions of Professor Skies and the attitude she seemed to be facing.

13 Kir You are correct 366 Kir 0 5

Jessica

May 27, 2019 12:07 AM

Now if you people just understood that generally.... by Jessica

"On behalf of the population of 'here'...."

In movies, people always seemed to realize they had been hurt in slow motion. Jessica felt a certain empathy with them as those words hit her. Slowly, the animation began to fade from her face and eyes, her hands dropping listlessly to her sides as she sat down, mechanically following directions as suggested.

"Yes," she said dully when he guessed her dorm name correctly. "You're right about that."

Would it have made any difference if she had been placed in a different one? She supposed she liked Professor Xavier, who was the warden for the Teppenpaws, better than Skies - he taught a subject which at least made sense and where she didn't totally suck, and he seemed kind, though that could be an illusion for all she knew - but at the end of the day, a prison was a prison, and it didn't matter if being confined here kept her from imploding herself. Without a plan, there was literally no point to existing, and she didn't have one anymore, and how was she supposed to figure one out with a fifth grade education and literally nothing else besides a library which, for one thing, had been made by people who thought that boiling fish eyes and foxgloves in stew pots would have the same consistent results as a lab and, for another thing, which she couldn't even access all the parts of?

"Which unit are you in?" she asked, not really caring about the answer much, just fumbling for something politer than screaming at him over how he had just disappointed her.

16 Jessica Now if you people just understood that generally.... 1442 Jessica 0 5