Notes for "The Height of Insecurity"
Jan. 14th, 2024 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithHere are the notes for "The Height of Insecurity."
[Character by Dialecticdreamer]
Name: Genna St. Croix
Secret identity: (none)
Appearance: Genna wears her hair long, usually in a single braid tossed over her shoulder
out of her way.
Handedness: right
Eye color: light brown
Hair color: black, and wavy. (Think Pictish or Black Irish)
Notable feature:
scars from broken window, fall, fire, on left shoulder. Limited range of
motion. Height: 5' 5”, weight: 130 (sturdy rather than svelte).
BACKGROUND: Genna lost her family to a house fire (negligent parent with overloaded outlet and space heater), but was saved when her older sister Amelie literally pushed her out the upper bedroom window. Genna tumbled down the porch roof and fell, chipping the ball joint of her left shoulder. She moved in with her father's sister, who barely tolerated her. When Genna was in college, she met Dominic and Saul when they worked on
remodeling the aunt's kitchen.
Dominic and Genna married when Genna was twenty-one, unlocking the insurance trust from the fire. She used the money to pay for her Masters degree and Montessori training from birth through Erdkinder, and the rest allowed Dom to finish his degree in architecture while working only part time. http://www.nemtecmontessoritraining.com/fees.html
They tried for a decade to get pregnant, nothing. After they STOPPED trying, lol, she turned up pregnant a few months later. On bed rest due to the high risk pregnancy, she ended up an at-home mom.
Birth date: April 6, 1975
Motivation: To protect her family.
Qualities:
1 master (+6) teacher
Good (+2) crafty
Good (+2) cook (especially improvising)
Good (+2) tolerant
(this is nearly a superpower)
Poor (-2) damaged arm, can't lift more than
10# on left side. Limited mobility, pain.
Origin: Probably a lucky stroke of genetics. Genna is the middle child in a family of Scots-Welsh immigrants. Her little brother Daniel had screaming nightmares, and was petrified of fire by the time they tried lighting the single candle on his first birthday cake. The family has always had a thread of unusual gifts, but her father's inability to cope with his own 'oddities,' led nearly directly to the death of both parents and Genna's older and younger siblings.
Meta power: Gut instinct at Good (+2)
Genna trusts her reactions to people, and sometimes to events, which has reinforced her generally optimistic view of the world. When she needs to make a decision, her gut reaction forms within just a few minutes, and becomes firmly reliable after fifteen minutes of interaction with the other person involved... often LESS.
When her opinion solidifies, it is almost always reliable for four to six months, which allowed her to make "course corrections" in her career without attracting attention, and managed to streamline her college education, her teaching credential, and her Montessori credentials all jammed into a very few years.
Costume: none
Uniform: Always wears long sleeve shirts, usually a ballet top under a sweater vest or shawl collar sweater.
Transportation: VW van from 1974,
Twinkie yellow, converted into a camper. See picture for the map
“wallpaper” for the interior.
Common phrases: That's easy to make! Breakfast is the most important meal in our family. How do you want to try to solve that problem? Hang on, one more row/stitch/loop, etc. Nourish the mind, body and soul.
Pet peeve(s): people leaving grocery carts in random parking spaces. She will park, get out of the car, and return the nearest left behind cart as a train or a spaceship for Matthew, but when she's done unloading her cart, she also takes back an extra. Having a cart actually DAMAGE the van will upset her for quite a while because its stacks a pet peeve on top of the reminder that Dominic is missing.
Miscellaneous:
Genna was studying Judaism, with an eye to conversion, because Dominic's best friend, Saul, is Jewish, but raising his nephew Shaun as a single parent. Genna usually watched both boys while Dom and Saul were at work, and being able to say Sabbath prayers was extremely important to Saul.
Genna has moved to Laplace, Louisiana which is about an hour from New Orleans and on the fringes of Easy City.
Shove-It (Sha'quan Johnson) -- He has sorrel skin, black eyes, and nappy black hair often worn in cornrows. His heritage is African-American. He speaks English. He is 16 years old in 2015.
Sha'quan grew up in Steelton, Pennsylvania which is part of the Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Area. His single mother was always working, so she left him with various relatives and friends. He formed closer ties with friends on the street than with family. Eventually he just stopped going home (wherever that was at the time) and took the cape name Shove-It. He became quite popular as a getaway man.
After Shove-It visited a Triton Teen Center, Kraken picked him up and encouraged him to develop his teleporting further. They also introduced him to Genna St. Croix in hopes that she could entice him to finish high school. Instead of pushing him to take classes, she talks about the "cool" things other kids are studying, like Physics for Kinesiology with skateboard exercises, Urban Design with attention to street features, or Art Is Not a Crime about graffiti. Shove-It is starting to show interest in the classes, and already hooked on her cooking.
Origin: His superpower first emerged at 10 when he started Blinking away from danger, such as bullies or a bad fall in skateboarding. He practiced diligently to improve his range and precision, and it grew into Teleportation. Passengers describe his ride as very similar to a skateboard, with the vibration of wheels and the swoop down a ramp.
Uniform: He wears athletic boy clothes, whatever he can scrounge up that fits with little regard for color.
Qualities: Good (+2) Determination, Good (+2) Skateboarding, Good (+2) Street Friends, Good (+2) Visual-Spatial Intelligence
Poor (-2) Minimal Education
Powers: Expert (+4) Teleportation
Motivation: Survival.
Shove-It skateboard trick
Steelton is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States, 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Harrisburg. The population was 6,263 at the 2020 census.[3] The borough is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area.
[Character by Dialecticdreamer]
Margaret Chamberlain
Appearance Margaret Chamberlain is in her late sixties, with watery blue eyes and long hair the color of dirty dishwater streaked with gray. She once looked younger than her years, but the battle between her gray hair and the fading natural color now makes her look older than she is. She’s about 5’8” tall, after shrinking a bit more than an inch as she aged, and is still mobile and independent. Her face is set in deep age lines, especially around her mouth. She doesn’t shave, so there is a small amount of coarse white hair on her upper lip.
Personality: exceedingly ‘pious’ and ultra-conservative.
Motivation: To prove that she’s better than her family.
Qualities: Expert (+4) Biblical knowledge, biased toward her current faith’s interpretation. Good (+2) Homemaker, Good (+2) unrelenting, Good (+2) church activist, but Poor (-2) closet psychopath
History: Her brother was an alcoholic, growing increasingly abusive, her younger sister was hyper-controlling and could not deal with “failure,” which is why she committed suicide in high school. That’s where Margaret’s break with her Catholic family began, and she ran with her husband, Zachary Chamberlain. They went to a Charismatic church, then became embroiled in yet another abusive relationship. Zachary died driving home drunk less than a year into the marriage. Margaret’s choice was to dive headfirst into the church culture and beliefs, but was quickly exceedingly pious even for them. Margaret’s parents died when she was in her early twenties, a few years before Genna’s oldest sister was born. (The three siblings were only two years apart, so that also adds to the emotional impact.)
After the fire: Margaret was so “pious” that she insisted that Genna not be given surgery for the injuries to her shoulder, and even refused pain meds for her. Everything that Genna tries to slant as neutrally as possible is a thin scab over deep wounds, and objectively, Genna was abused in many ways, but especially psychologically. (Hence the “hidden” flaw of psychopathy in Margaret.)
Powers: None. (Thankfully.)
Other notes: Hatter has probably flagged this woman for 24-7 observation, because she exults in having positions of power or moral authority over people, and yet she wraps it in such a pretty package that no one believed Genna when she said that her aunt refused to allow her any pain medication, even Tylenol for headaches or cramps.
* * *
"Bigotry and judgment are the height of insecurity."
-- Jasmine Guy
Enjoy recipes for Gainer Chocolate Chip Cookies and White Chocolate Macadamia Coconut Cookies.
Hardflip
Instead of a BS PopShuv and a Kickflip you did in the Varial Flip, you now do a FS Shuv and a Kickflip. While these are one of the coolest looking tricks, they aren’t called HARDflip because they are easy to do. Watch a bunch of different skaters do Hardflips, and you will see that almost everyone does them differently.
Some Hardflips spin very flat and horizontal. Some Hardflips spin right up between the skater’s legs. Other skaters catch their Hardflips to the side like a big shifty. The biggest factor in each of these styles of Hardflips is jumping high enough that you are catching your Hardflip well before you land. But I if you land a Hardflip, in my opinion, you have won the battle.
Disaster
The Disaster is not as bad as it sounds. It is a really stylish trick, and the homies are always impressed when someone does a disaster. Disasters can be done FS and BS so its recommended to first learn the direction you are most comfortable doing kick turns.
Disasters aren’t that difficult, but you need to make sure you don’t catch the coping when you are turning your body and the board. You can learn Disasters by going really fast and hucking a spin to land in the Disaster, but a baby step is to pivot on your front wheels into the disaster. You decide how you want to learn Disasters, but Disasters open up a whole other world of mini ramp tricks.
Vert Ramp
A ramp that has a transition that gets to vert / vertical. These are usually 7ft + to allow for a smooth transition.
Vert ramps are considered artifacts for higher levels of skills. Just to ride a vert ramp is hard, so adding tricks is that much more difficult. However, it is with a vert ramp that you will get the broadest range of trick diversity.
That Guy -- In T-America, this is a counseling service for people with behavioral problems, primarily catering to men. However, they also assist women, particularly those who have problems that more often occur among men, such as abusive behavior and other forms of violence. There are a few programs for younger clients too. That Guy is sometimes used as a dumping ground for people whose obnoxious behavior has pissed off a teleporter.
[Character by Dialecticdreamer]
Name: Genna St. Croix
Secret identity: (none)
Appearance: Genna wears her hair long, usually in a single braid tossed over her shoulder
out of her way.
Handedness: right
Eye color: light brown
Hair color: black, and wavy. (Think Pictish or Black Irish)
Notable feature:
scars from broken window, fall, fire, on left shoulder. Limited range of
motion. Height: 5' 5”, weight: 130 (sturdy rather than svelte).
BACKGROUND: Genna lost her family to a house fire (negligent parent with overloaded outlet and space heater), but was saved when her older sister Amelie literally pushed her out the upper bedroom window. Genna tumbled down the porch roof and fell, chipping the ball joint of her left shoulder. She moved in with her father's sister, who barely tolerated her. When Genna was in college, she met Dominic and Saul when they worked on
remodeling the aunt's kitchen.
Dominic and Genna married when Genna was twenty-one, unlocking the insurance trust from the fire. She used the money to pay for her Masters degree and Montessori training from birth through Erdkinder, and the rest allowed Dom to finish his degree in architecture while working only part time. http://www.nemtecmontessoritraining.com/fees.html
They tried for a decade to get pregnant, nothing. After they STOPPED trying, lol, she turned up pregnant a few months later. On bed rest due to the high risk pregnancy, she ended up an at-home mom.
Birth date: April 6, 1975
Motivation: To protect her family.
Qualities:
1 master (+6) teacher
Good (+2) crafty
Good (+2) cook (especially improvising)
Good (+2) tolerant
(this is nearly a superpower)
Poor (-2) damaged arm, can't lift more than
10# on left side. Limited mobility, pain.
Origin: Probably a lucky stroke of genetics. Genna is the middle child in a family of Scots-Welsh immigrants. Her little brother Daniel had screaming nightmares, and was petrified of fire by the time they tried lighting the single candle on his first birthday cake. The family has always had a thread of unusual gifts, but her father's inability to cope with his own 'oddities,' led nearly directly to the death of both parents and Genna's older and younger siblings.
Meta power: Gut instinct at Good (+2)
Genna trusts her reactions to people, and sometimes to events, which has reinforced her generally optimistic view of the world. When she needs to make a decision, her gut reaction forms within just a few minutes, and becomes firmly reliable after fifteen minutes of interaction with the other person involved... often LESS.
When her opinion solidifies, it is almost always reliable for four to six months, which allowed her to make "course corrections" in her career without attracting attention, and managed to streamline her college education, her teaching credential, and her Montessori credentials all jammed into a very few years.
Costume: none
Uniform: Always wears long sleeve shirts, usually a ballet top under a sweater vest or shawl collar sweater.
Transportation: VW van from 1974,
Twinkie yellow, converted into a camper. See picture for the map
“wallpaper” for the interior.
Common phrases: That's easy to make! Breakfast is the most important meal in our family. How do you want to try to solve that problem? Hang on, one more row/stitch/loop, etc. Nourish the mind, body and soul.
Pet peeve(s): people leaving grocery carts in random parking spaces. She will park, get out of the car, and return the nearest left behind cart as a train or a spaceship for Matthew, but when she's done unloading her cart, she also takes back an extra. Having a cart actually DAMAGE the van will upset her for quite a while because its stacks a pet peeve on top of the reminder that Dominic is missing.
Miscellaneous:
Genna was studying Judaism, with an eye to conversion, because Dominic's best friend, Saul, is Jewish, but raising his nephew Shaun as a single parent. Genna usually watched both boys while Dom and Saul were at work, and being able to say Sabbath prayers was extremely important to Saul.
Genna has moved to Laplace, Louisiana which is about an hour from New Orleans and on the fringes of Easy City.
Shove-It (Sha'quan Johnson) -- He has sorrel skin, black eyes, and nappy black hair often worn in cornrows. His heritage is African-American. He speaks English. He is 16 years old in 2015.
Sha'quan grew up in Steelton, Pennsylvania which is part of the Harrisburg-Carlisle Metropolitan Area. His single mother was always working, so she left him with various relatives and friends. He formed closer ties with friends on the street than with family. Eventually he just stopped going home (wherever that was at the time) and took the cape name Shove-It. He became quite popular as a getaway man.
After Shove-It visited a Triton Teen Center, Kraken picked him up and encouraged him to develop his teleporting further. They also introduced him to Genna St. Croix in hopes that she could entice him to finish high school. Instead of pushing him to take classes, she talks about the "cool" things other kids are studying, like Physics for Kinesiology with skateboard exercises, Urban Design with attention to street features, or Art Is Not a Crime about graffiti. Shove-It is starting to show interest in the classes, and already hooked on her cooking.
Origin: His superpower first emerged at 10 when he started Blinking away from danger, such as bullies or a bad fall in skateboarding. He practiced diligently to improve his range and precision, and it grew into Teleportation. Passengers describe his ride as very similar to a skateboard, with the vibration of wheels and the swoop down a ramp.
Uniform: He wears athletic boy clothes, whatever he can scrounge up that fits with little regard for color.
Qualities: Good (+2) Determination, Good (+2) Skateboarding, Good (+2) Street Friends, Good (+2) Visual-Spatial Intelligence
Poor (-2) Minimal Education
Powers: Expert (+4) Teleportation
Motivation: Survival.
Shove-It skateboard trick
Steelton is a borough in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States, 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Harrisburg. The population was 6,263 at the 2020 census.[3] The borough is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area.
[Character by Dialecticdreamer]
Margaret Chamberlain
Appearance Margaret Chamberlain is in her late sixties, with watery blue eyes and long hair the color of dirty dishwater streaked with gray. She once looked younger than her years, but the battle between her gray hair and the fading natural color now makes her look older than she is. She’s about 5’8” tall, after shrinking a bit more than an inch as she aged, and is still mobile and independent. Her face is set in deep age lines, especially around her mouth. She doesn’t shave, so there is a small amount of coarse white hair on her upper lip.
Personality: exceedingly ‘pious’ and ultra-conservative.
Motivation: To prove that she’s better than her family.
Qualities: Expert (+4) Biblical knowledge, biased toward her current faith’s interpretation. Good (+2) Homemaker, Good (+2) unrelenting, Good (+2) church activist, but Poor (-2) closet psychopath
History: Her brother was an alcoholic, growing increasingly abusive, her younger sister was hyper-controlling and could not deal with “failure,” which is why she committed suicide in high school. That’s where Margaret’s break with her Catholic family began, and she ran with her husband, Zachary Chamberlain. They went to a Charismatic church, then became embroiled in yet another abusive relationship. Zachary died driving home drunk less than a year into the marriage. Margaret’s choice was to dive headfirst into the church culture and beliefs, but was quickly exceedingly pious even for them. Margaret’s parents died when she was in her early twenties, a few years before Genna’s oldest sister was born. (The three siblings were only two years apart, so that also adds to the emotional impact.)
After the fire: Margaret was so “pious” that she insisted that Genna not be given surgery for the injuries to her shoulder, and even refused pain meds for her. Everything that Genna tries to slant as neutrally as possible is a thin scab over deep wounds, and objectively, Genna was abused in many ways, but especially psychologically. (Hence the “hidden” flaw of psychopathy in Margaret.)
Powers: None. (Thankfully.)
Other notes: Hatter has probably flagged this woman for 24-7 observation, because she exults in having positions of power or moral authority over people, and yet she wraps it in such a pretty package that no one believed Genna when she said that her aunt refused to allow her any pain medication, even Tylenol for headaches or cramps.
* * *
"Bigotry and judgment are the height of insecurity."
-- Jasmine Guy
Enjoy recipes for Gainer Chocolate Chip Cookies and White Chocolate Macadamia Coconut Cookies.
Hardflip
Instead of a BS PopShuv and a Kickflip you did in the Varial Flip, you now do a FS Shuv and a Kickflip. While these are one of the coolest looking tricks, they aren’t called HARDflip because they are easy to do. Watch a bunch of different skaters do Hardflips, and you will see that almost everyone does them differently.
Some Hardflips spin very flat and horizontal. Some Hardflips spin right up between the skater’s legs. Other skaters catch their Hardflips to the side like a big shifty. The biggest factor in each of these styles of Hardflips is jumping high enough that you are catching your Hardflip well before you land. But I if you land a Hardflip, in my opinion, you have won the battle.
Disaster
The Disaster is not as bad as it sounds. It is a really stylish trick, and the homies are always impressed when someone does a disaster. Disasters can be done FS and BS so its recommended to first learn the direction you are most comfortable doing kick turns.
Disasters aren’t that difficult, but you need to make sure you don’t catch the coping when you are turning your body and the board. You can learn Disasters by going really fast and hucking a spin to land in the Disaster, but a baby step is to pivot on your front wheels into the disaster. You decide how you want to learn Disasters, but Disasters open up a whole other world of mini ramp tricks.
Vert Ramp
A ramp that has a transition that gets to vert / vertical. These are usually 7ft + to allow for a smooth transition.
Vert ramps are considered artifacts for higher levels of skills. Just to ride a vert ramp is hard, so adding tricks is that much more difficult. However, it is with a vert ramp that you will get the broadest range of trick diversity.
That Guy -- In T-America, this is a counseling service for people with behavioral problems, primarily catering to men. However, they also assist women, particularly those who have problems that more often occur among men, such as abusive behavior and other forms of violence. There are a few programs for younger clients too. That Guy is sometimes used as a dumping ground for people whose obnoxious behavior has pissed off a teleporter.
