Title: Alandra Naked in School - FAQ (1683 Words) Author: Tenyari Summary: An Intro / Discussion / Open Letter on this story - I will revise this from time to time, and right now it's on version 2 based on feedback. It seems time to say some of this. These kids are - as is the way of teens - finding themselves. That search is not done, and nobody at age 17 ever knows who they are no matter what they might think at the time. With a story told from the mind of one of them, there are natural gaps in places. So far all of you who've written me about that have liked it. :) When I started writing this story the hardest thing for me to do was limit myself to only what Alandra could know, see, or come into contact with and keep it present (no forshadowing). The fear of that almost made me toss out the idea completely. Now, I've seen that creep into my other writing and it's become a style choice. One of the things I do that reader feedback has told me is both very popular and very disturbing is leave the results or seeming motives of a number of the adults at a questionable level. A lot of the writers around here give us perfectly heroic characters, or ones so villainous we naturally hate them. It's almost comic book like. I see my world a little less idealistically - in shades of gray - and so many of my characters do what they think is best and fail to see what damage it causes, or fail to fully understand it when they do see it. They're only human after all. Two things I had Mrs. Jacobs say on 'Thursday' that are key here: "People often ignore the larger consequences of the choices that support their side." Mrs. Jacobs looked at Ms. Magante. and: "Well, that's the intention." Mrs. Jacobs said. When Ms. Magante left she added "and the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Those two statements at least, are something I personally believe in. It's usually the people who think they are doing the best good that do the most harm without ever knowing. Perhaps that's why Taoism teaches non-action. To simply be is ideal. The second statement there is a proverbial saying that may have come from this: "Hell is full of good intentions or desires" (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091-1153). But it's so old who can say for sure. The first is a rephrase of something I once heard that when I heard it really flipped on a light switch in my head to better understanding my world - so I wanted to put it in something someday, and there it is. :) One of the funner challenges in writing this has often been to 'notch it down' to Alandra's level. She's smart, as I hope shines through, but she's never paid attention in school, and she often misses things. Like her trouble with Algebra - I got that from a European guy I used to go out with when I lived in Asia, he couldn't understand why 'x' or 'y' mattered to anything but his arithmetic could run circles around mine [so maybe I do pull some of my writing from real life]. She's also got all these odd political phrases from her father, but she can't quite remember how they were supposed to be said, even though she has a better idea than him as to what they're really supposed to be getting at. So sometimes she'll be in the middle of trying to remember one when she'll just default to 'or some shit like that'. Or she'll catch something one of the adults says, find it troubling, but not quite know how to challenge it... Even people who've told me they love this story have sometimes said it disturbs them ethically. I wanted it to. I wanted it 'real', so I knew it would disturb. I hoped it would also capture eyes and turn people on at the same time. Also just because one character in this story says or believes something, does not mean the others agree, or even especially that I agree. ;) I know a lot of authors write seeming ideological monologues - where all the characters have the same ethos, and just rant off of each other or let their challenges fall by the wayside of being weak in favor of one who matches the author. I hope I've managed to get past that, even though many of these people in my story do come from a similar world to each other. At least in my head when I write it, the conflicting viewpoints of these characters is unresolved, nobody's really got it right - or we'd have managed to solve all the world's problems by now. Despite the lack of any actual violence in this story, there is a violent mood at times. Some people have asked me about the violent nature of these kids. They're pretty mild compared to the kids who today attend the school I went to in the 80s. Even before I left we had teachers being assaulted, but today that is a regular affair. The old saying 'kids these days' holds true - in the cities they are getting violent, and it's quite often the girls who are at the lead now. Juvenile girls are the top 'growth industry' in the criminal justice system today. The kids in my tale have had their violence, but from their POV they see reason for it. As Alandra herself puts it: "Thing about jocks - they didn't fight often, but when they did it just made no fucking sense. We might fight and get rough a lot, but we did it for reasons. They were just mean, we were just watching out for our own." Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Crips, stated that he did so not to terrorize or criminalize, but to do just what Alandra thinks her group is doing - looking out for their own when nobody else is willing to. Of course violent people always see reasons for why they 'have to be that way'. The lucky ones grow out of it before they really hurt anyone. Hopefully A.C. and her friends will do so, but you'll just to wait and see. :) Not one person has mentioned this next thing to me, but it's so oft in my mind that I suspect it must be in yours. There's a lot of racial tension in this story. Let's just say that while I don't like to write from my own life - All the 'shit' these kids go through for mixing it up is stuff I know personally. I also remember that at that age is was very easy to react back racially. It's the age where we find our 'group', and the first group we often find is our ethnicity. Consent is a topic that comes up a lot over these Naked in School stories. The very nature of a society is coercive if you think about it, and everyday we are forced against our will to conform to a dress code. NiS simply begins with the idea that the dress code now mandates no dress at all. From there you have the sex. Some of the authors have failed to understand that the word request means to ask, and that reasonable means what you ask is within what the other person finds acceptable. Thus some of the NiS stories do indeed contain coerced sexual contact. If you read Alandra with care you will realize that there is nothing of that sort in this tale, though some of the -characters- fail to realize this. The metal shop teacher for one, thinks he has license to coerce sexual contact between A.C. and his nephew, and that error costs him his job in the Thursday chapter. There are also several occassions where A.C. tells people no to a request because she does not feel like it at that time. What does exist is pressure. Pressure to fit in is extreme during the teen years. Actually, it's extreme throughout life but both before and after teenage life we fail to question it - we merely give in. Adults don't rebel anymore than little children do, even when they should... In a heightened sexual environment such as the NiS world, the pressure to 'get with it' over sex becomes as severe as the pressure to 'have the right fashion' or 'get the right boy' or 'get on the team' or whatever. People in positions of authority over children know very well how much pressure those kids face to conform and do what they're told. Some NiS authors have set up environments where the staff are allowed or even encouraged to have sexual contact with the students, but I personally feel that even if the age of consent went down, the issue of authority is still there - it's a highly unequal relationship which by it's very nature is abusive. A.C can think what she wants, but she was not on equal footing with Harrison in that shower scene. This is why some universities will fire a teacher who has a relationship with a student and the military will court martial an officer who does so with an enlisted. It is also why Magante feels Harrison will lose his job once she reports what she knows about him and Alandra. Alandra begs her not to, and you'll all just have to wait to see what comes of that. I wrote the epilogue (in outline) a long time back, and just where all these people end up in their lives may surprise many people who did not come from such a rough world and so have stereotypes about us. Because stories are what they are, this isn't just 'another week' for these kids - though it may take time beyond the actual story for the results to show, the signs that lead to the changes in their lives will hopefully all be there if I manage to write it right. :) The light at the end of a dark tunnel is brighter than the one on the well lit path. ________________________________________________________________ Setting Notes: For those of you like me, who are -geeking out- over the NIS series, here's some info I've pulled from the various pre-Alandra episodes that took place in the original school, along with my own additions: Principle: Mr. Harrison Assistant Principal: Ms. Mitchell -wears suits in 1st year Program Director: Ms. Yasmine Magante Teachers: Swimming: Mr. Roquette Gymnastics: Ms. Janine Moore English: Mrs. Thompson, Mr. Zank Government: Mr. Hansen - a bit young and vulgar Calculus: Ms. Gallison -lesbian Creative Writing: Mr. Turner Civics: Mrs. Jacobs French: Mademoiselle Duclos Physics: Mr. Cranover Band: Mr. Peters Biology: Miss Hooker (No longer on campus after year one). Biology: Ms Lippmann (second year, nudist) Metal Shop: Mr. Carson School length 180 days. 3 year school. Mostly white, so definitely NOT in California. Small city of intentionally vague locale: Nature of students is Naive, almost rural. Active Mall with room for a rare books store. School has a dress code in first year Fighting is zero tolerance suspension. Lying not tolerated in school honor code. metal detectors at the doors / gates Holds 2000-3000 students Main building has A, B, and C sections numbered by floor-digit-digit. +-------%%-------+%------------+ N | A | | W+E | +------------+ | S | | % theater | | | | | P | | +---------+---+ | B | quad % cafe | P | | | | | | +---------+---+ | | | | | | +------------+ | admin % | C | | +-------%%-----------+---------+ b [] +------------+%----------------+ | | | P | | Gym | | | | | % | | field 1 +--------+ + | | | | | | field 3| pool | | | | | | +--------+--------+ | | | | | field 2 | | | | | | | | | | +------------+-----------------+ A, B, C = classrooms on 3 floors on both sides of central hallway P = Parking [] = overpass into 2nd floor of gym from stairwell at level 2.5 of rooms. % = door to outside. cafe = cafeteria, windows open to quad and hall C trucks enter from back. admin = administration, councilors, etc. quad = central, open air, hangout zone with bushes, benches, and lunch tables. field 1 = football, with stands. field 2 = baseball. field 3 = other small needs. pool = indoor pool branched off of gym. gym = gym lockers and showers (unisex now), basketball gymnastics, and other rooms. theater = auditorium, doubles as a community theater for the city. b = bungalow for storing clothes of program students. North entrance faces city street, south the alley between classes and field 1.
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