The office door clicked shut behind them, and the hallway outside felt louder by comparison, like someone had turned the world back on.
Dayton adjusted her backpack strap higher on her shoulder. Inside it, Mr. Rhys could feel the weight of what Mrs. Crawstad had handed over. A phone. Photos. Tiny clothes. A tablet. It wasn’t heavy in pounds, but it was heavy in meaning. His life, condensed into a school-issued tray and then stuffed into a thirteen-year-old girl’s bag like an extra textbook.
Dayton kept walking toward the cafeteria flow, but she didn’t merge into it. Not yet.
She moved along the wall instead, slipping past the loudest knot of kids, guiding them toward a quieter stretch near the trophy case and a tucked-away side corridor that smelled faintly of dust and old poster paper. The cafeteria was close enough now that the air carried hints of it: warm grease, pizza, ketchup packets, bleach, and that sweet-stale scent of fruit cups.
Mr. Rhys sat in her palm, his whole body tense in a way that was starting to feel like his new default setting. Every time a group of students passed, he braced for impact. Dayton didn’t even look bothered. She angled her hand slightly, protective without announcing it, and kept her pace steady.
Then she stopped.
Not in the main stream. Not where people would bump them. She stepped into the quiet corner by the trophy case, where the glass reflected their shapes back at them in fragments. A row of dusty plaques. A framed photo of last year’s robotics team. The faint hum of ventilation.
Dayton turned her back to the hallway traffic on purpose, creating a little shield with her body. She lowered her voice.
“Okay,” she said, “we need to talk.”
Mr. Rhys’s stomach tightened. “About what.”
Dayton looked down at him, expression calm but sharp, the way she looked when she’d decided to be honest even if it made people uncomfortable.
“About everything,” she said. “Like… today. The office. The name thing. You freaking out. Me. You. All of it.”
Mr. Rhys swallowed. His gaze flicked to the hallway and back, because being cornered used to be something he did to kids with missing assignments, not something that happened to him.
“This isn’t an appropriate place,” he said automatically.
Dayton’s mouth twitched. “It’s a corner, Mr. Rhys. We’re not summoning demons.”
He hated that she could make a joke and still hold control of the moment like it was a rope in her hand.
He looked up at her face. “You didn’t request any name changes,” he said, voice tight. “But you also didn’t stop it.”
Dayton’s eyes narrowed. “Stop it how.”
“You’re trained,” he snapped. “You know procedures. You know—”
“I know what I’m allowed to do,” Dayton cut in, still quiet, still controlled. “And I know what I’m not.” She shifted him slightly in her palm so he wasn’t teetering near her fingers. “That alignment happens automatically when the SEA transfers custody. It’s a legal bond thing. It’s not a button I can unclick.”
Mr. Rhys’s jaw clenched. “So I’m just… Ezra Harris now.”
Dayton didn’t flinch from the accusation. “On paper,” she said. “Yes.”
“And in reality.”
Dayton’s eyes held his, and there was something stubborn in them that he recognized. The same stubbornness he’d spent years trying to sand down into compliance.
“In reality,” she said, “you’re Ezra.”
He stared at her, waiting for the rest.
Dayton exhaled through her nose, almost impatient with how heavy this had gotten. “I’m not going to call you ‘Harris’ to your face like you’re some… object label,” she said. “But if you think the government is going to let you keep your last name after you become someone’s legal responsibility, you’re delusional.”
Delusional. From a thirteen-year-old.
He hated how accurate it felt.
Mr. Rhys’s voice dropped. “It’s erasing me.”
Dayton’s expression softened just a fraction. Not sympathy exactly. More like she was acknowledging a fact she couldn’t fix.
“I know,” she said. “And I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m saying it’s what it is.”
Silence pressed in around them for a beat. The hallway kept moving. Someone laughed too loud. A locker slammed. Lunch voices rose and fell like waves.
Mr. Rhys felt his chest tighten, and with it came the other thing he’d been trying not to think about. The thing that was somehow worse than paperwork.
“I watched them in class,” he said quietly.
Dayton’s brow lifted. “Watched who.”
“The students,” he said. His throat felt dry. “They were… watching. Whispering.”
Dayton’s eyes flicked toward the hallway, then back down. Her face didn’t change, but her posture did. A subtle stiffening. Like she’d been expecting that.
“Yeah,” Dayton said. “They’re going to.”
“They were talking about me,” he said, and the bitterness crept in despite his best effort to keep it controlled. “About how I treated you.”
Dayton didn’t deny it. She didn’t even look surprised.
Mr. Rhys felt something in him crack, thin and sharp. “I didn’t treat you unfairly.”
Dayton’s gaze stayed on him, unblinking. “You didn’t grade me unfairly,” she said, precise. “Those are different things.”
He stared up at her, and he could feel the trap of her logic closing around him like a box.
Dayton kept her voice low, but there was steel in it. “You used the rubric like a weapon,” she said. “Not on paper. In practice.”
“That’s not true,” Mr. Rhys said, too fast.
Dayton tilted her head slightly. “Ezra,” she said, and hearing his first name from her mouth hit him like a slap. “You called on me constantly. You asked me harder questions. You graded my writing like you were prepping me for a law school admissions committee. Everyone saw it.”
He tried to summon the old defenses. Rigor. Standards. Excellence. Fairness.
But the memory came with it. The memory of Hannah speaking up once, gently, and him snapping his attention onto her until Hannah shrank back into her seat. The memory of Hayden cracking a joke and him turning it into a cold little lecture. The memory of Nicole trying to redirect and him making her feel like she’d done something wrong just for having empathy.
He had done it. Not out of cruelty. Not out of malice.
Out of control.
Out of annoyance at being challenged by a kid who refused to shrink herself for him.
Dayton watched his face like she was reading a screen. “I’m not asking for an apology,” she said. “I’m telling you: I’m not crazy. I wasn’t imagining it.”
Mr. Rhys’s voice came out smaller than he meant it to. “I expected more from you.”
Dayton’s eyes sharpened. “And you didn’t expect more from anyone else.”
The words landed and stayed.
For a second, Mr. Rhys couldn’t speak. He stood in her palm, four inches tall, with the cafeteria smell drifting closer, with the weight of his belongings in her backpack, with the echo of his old authority dying in the corners of the building.
Dayton breathed out once, controlled. Then her tone changed.
Not softer. Not kinder.
More practical.
“Okay,” she said. “Next thing.”
Mr. Rhys blinked. “Next thing.”
“Little skills,” Dayton said.
He stared up at her. “Excuse me?”
Dayton lifted her chin like she was bracing for a fight. “I showed you recall earlier,” she said. “You did it. You came back when I called you.”
“That isn’t a skill,” Mr. Rhys snapped. “That’s survival. I can’t exactly run away.”
Dayton didn’t take the bait. “There are other safety skills,” she said. “I need to know what you already know. Because you’re not a normal Little. You’re a teacher. You’re stubborn. You’re going to test stuff.”
Mr. Rhys’s jaw clenched. “And you’re going to train me.”
Dayton’s eyes didn’t waver. “I’m going to keep you alive,” she said. “Training is part of that.”
He hated the calm certainty in her voice. He hated how much she sounded like a professional. Like the child wasn’t a child in this moment at all.
“Do you know ‘little sit’?” Dayton asked.
Mr. Rhys’s face went blank, then hard. “I’m not a dog.”
Dayton rolled her eyes, but she didn’t laugh. “It’s not a dog thing,” she said. “It’s a safe posture. It keeps you stable. It keeps your center of gravity low so you don’t fall out of my hand if someone bumps me. It keeps you from darting under a shoe without thinking. It keeps you from panicking and doing something dumb.”
He bristled. “I’m not panicking.”
Dayton raised an eyebrow in a way that made him feel twelve again. “You were shaking when Chloe popped on the call.”
Mr. Rhys’s mouth opened. Closed. He hated her for being right.
Dayton shifted her palm closer to her chest. The warmth of her hoodie radiated into him. “Answer the question,” she said. “Do you know it.”
He hesitated. Then, against his will, the memory surfaced.
Mandatory staff training videos after Smallara started making headlines. District memos. SEA guidance. A slide deck about “Little Safety Protocols in Educational Settings.” He remembered the phrase because it had sounded absurd at the time.
“Secure. Recall. Freeze. Little sit,” the narrator had droned.
He’d half-watched, annoyed, thinking it would never apply to him personally.
“I… know what it is,” he admitted tightly.
Dayton nodded once. “Okay. Show me.”
His stomach dropped. “Here.”
“In my hand,” Dayton said, matter-of-fact. “Right now. Private corner. No one’s watching.”
He glanced past her shoulder anyway, because people were always watching at Roosevelt. But this corner was quiet enough. The flow of kids was moving toward lunch. No one was stopping here.
Mr. Rhys’s pride rose up like bile. He could feel his old self, six-foot-something and untouchable, recoiling at the idea of performing obedience in a child’s palm.
Then he felt the cold memory of the office paperwork again.
Ezra Harris.
Aligned.
His body already belonged to rules he hadn’t voted on.
Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered himself.
He bent his knees. He set his hands on his thighs the way the training video had shown, shoulders slightly forward, head down enough to keep balance. A posture designed to make a Little stable and non-threatening.
Designed to make a person look small in more ways than one.
Dayton watched closely. Not amused. Not triumphant. Professional.
“Good,” she said.
The word made his face burn.
Dayton continued, like she was checking boxes. “Can you hold it without wobbling.”
Mr. Rhys’s legs trembled. He tightened his core instinctively. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Dayton said. “Now look at me.”
He lifted his gaze.
Dayton’s eyes were steady. Not cruel. Not soft. Just… committed. Like she’d decided this would be done right, and that was that.
“This isn’t me trying to humiliate you,” she said, quiet enough that it felt like it was meant only for him. “This is me making sure you don’t get hurt because your feelings are louder than your survival instincts.”
His throat tightened. He hated that the sentence made sense.
He hated that he needed it.
Dayton held her palm steady, giving him a stable surface. “You can stop,” she said. “I just needed to know you could do it.”
Mr. Rhys straightened slowly, the movement awkward at his new scale. His legs ached in a way he wasn’t used to yet. Everything about being this small made effort feel bigger.
Dayton nodded, satisfied. “Okay. So you know recall and little sit.”
Mr. Rhys’s voice was rough. “What other… commands are you going to ask me to perform.”
“Little skills,” Dayton said.
His stomach sank. “whatever”
Dayton didn’t flinch. “Next,” she said. “Do you understand freeze?”
Mr. Rhys blinked. “Freeze.”
Dayton nodded. “It means stop moving immediately. Like, instant. If there are feet near us, if someone’s running, if I need to reposition you. Freeze means you don’t dart, you don’t argue, you don’t try to ‘fix it.’ You just stop.”
Mr. Rhys swallowed. The bluntness of it made his skin prickle.
“And secure,” Dayton continued, “means you press in and let me close my hand or pocket you. No fighting me. No squirming. It’s not about control, it’s about getting you through a risky moment.”
He stared at her. “You’re creating… commands.”
“They’re not commands,” Dayton said, automatically defensive. “They’re safety protocols.”
“Protocols,” he repeated, bitter. “For a person.”
Dayton’s eyes narrowed. “For a person who is four inches tall in a building full of middle schoolers, yes.”
He had no answer that didn’t sound stupid.
Dayton’s voice lowered another notch. “I’m not doing this to humiliate you,” she said. “I’m doing it because Roosevelt is not gentle. The world is not gentle.”
He watched her face, trying to find cruelty. Finding only resolve.
“Okay,” Dayton said, shifting her palm slightly closer to her chest like she was shielding him from the hallway stream. “Last one.”
Mr. Rhys’s brow furrowed. “There’s more.”
Dayton nodded. “Yeah. It’s called ping.”
He stared up at her. “Ping.”
“You tap me,” Dayton explained. “It’s a check-in. If you can’t talk or you don’t want people hearing.”
Mr. Rhys blinked again, slow. “That wasn’t in the training.”
Dayton’s mouth twitched, just barely. “Nope.”
“So you just… invented it.”
“I made it in training,” Dayton said. “With Thomas.”
The name hit him like a little jab of context he didn’t want.
Dayton continued anyway. “Some of the official terms are… gross. Or they sound like pet stuff. I hated it. Thomas hated it. So we made our own for things we actually needed.”
Mr. Rhys stared at her, thrown off by the casual admission that she and a Little had collaborated on improving the system. That she’d listened.
“It’s going to get added to the curriculum,” Dayton said, like she’d already decided it would. Like she’d already written the future in her head and the future obeyed. “Not officially yet. But it should. It works.”
“How does it work,” Mr. Rhys asked, voice flat.
Dayton held up a finger like she was explaining an app feature. “One tap means you’re okay. Two taps means you’re not okay. Three taps means stop, like urgent.”
Mr. Rhys stared at her thumb. The idea of communicating by tapping a girl’s skin made his stomach twist, not because it was intimate, but because it was… reduced. A grown man turned into Morse code.
“And you think that’s better,” he said.
Dayton’s eyes held his. “I think it’s safer,” she replied. “And it gives you a way to tell me something without having to perform in public.”
He didn’t like that she’d thought of that.
He liked it even less that he might need it.
Dayton nodded once, satisfied. “Okay. You didn’t know ping, which makes sense. But now you do.”
Mr. Rhys’s voice came out rough. “And what do you say when it’s… done.”
Dayton blinked. “When what’s done.”
“When freeze is over,” he said, stiffly. “When I can move again.”
Dayton’s eyes flicked up like she was checking the hallway traffic. “I’ll say ‘clear.’”
Clear.
A word that made his stomach clench because it implied there would also be “not clear.” Danger mode and safe mode. His life reduced to calls he had to obey to stay alive.
Dayton shifted her grip, careful, and started walking again, rejoining the cafeteria stream but staying at the edge of it.
“Pocket or hand,” she said, practical. “No jumping. No proving points.”
Mr. Rhys’s jaw tightened. “And if I refuse.”
Dayton didn’t look down. She didn’t need to. Her voice stayed calm, like she was stating gravity.
“Then you’ll get hurt,” she said. “And I’m going to hate that.”
He looked up at her profile as she moved, the determined set of her mouth, the steadiness of her stride through the lunch chaos.
She wasn’t asking him to accept it.
She was teaching him how to survive it.
And as the cafeteria smell thickened and the hallway surged, Mr. Rhys felt the truth settle deeper, heavier, and more permanent than any name on a form:
His pride was no longer the thing running his life.
Dayton’s protocols were.
“I’m doing it because Roosevelt is not gentle. The world is not gentle.”
I see you, Mikasa lol
who is mikasa
Ackerman Lol I was thinking of AOT when I read that line. It reminded me of her talking to eren
I love this, Dayton, trying to keep Ezra safe, but we’ll see if it works out.
She is doing her best to do the right thing.
And since i’m feeling Cartoonish today:
Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame
pride is a deadly sin for a reason lol
It’s a sin of excess though, I.E. too much of a good thing.
In my experience, pride in work is good but pride in being above others tends to be bad lol.
its a good quote.
1) “About everything, Like… today. The office. The name thing. You freaking out. Me. You. All of it.” Communication is good, the question is will Dayton actually listen to him.
2) “In reality, you’re Ezra.” Ezra James Harris, choosing not to say the second bit doesn’t make it untrue.
3.1) “I’m not going to call you ‘Harris’ to your face like you’re some… object label,” Of course not, she doesn’t want him to be a Harris, she’s not nearly welcoming enough to him.
3.2) . “But if you think the government is going to let you keep your last name after you become someone’s legal responsibility, you’re delusional.” I’m sure there’d be a way, like foster/adopted kids who keep their birthparents’ surnames, it wouldn’t be unheard of.
4) “It’s erasing me.” – “I know, and I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m saying it’s what it is.” Dayton’s also not saying she’s against erasing him, given she got him a collar decorated to do exactly that too.
5) “About how I treated you.” Actions have consequences, Ezra
6) “I didn’t treat you unfairly.” – “You didn’t grade me unfairly,” Well, much like how a lot of guardians treat their Littles “fairly”, Ezra made him self the sole arbiter of what he considers fair treatment, and made excuses for his cruelty.
7) “Out of annoyance at being challenged by a kid who refused to shrink herself for him.” Oh, the irony, lol
8) “I’m not asking for an apology, I’m telling you: I’m not crazy. I wasn’t imagining it.” Dayton’s not really one to complain about unfair treatment, given how she treated Jordan, and now what she’s done to Ezra.
9) “Next thing. Little skills,” Just change the subject without warning.
10) “It’s not a dog thing.” It’s absolutely a dog thing. It’s designed to show submission and keep them a little uncomfortable while giving the guardian a sense of control.
11) “You were shaking when Chloe popped on the call.” Put yourself in his position. You try talking to the most powerful 16-year-old in the world, but you’ve never met her before, and your life has just been demolished around you! He had a lot of reasoning to shake at that moment.
12) “Right now. Private corner. No one’s watching.” Dayton’s watching, and I think that’s just as bad to him as anyone else
13) “Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered himself” C’mon, dude, resist, at least ask what you get out of it first.
14) “A posture designed to make a Little stable and non-threatening. Designed to make a person look small in more ways than one.” Lol, not too far off what I said in 10.
15) “Dayton watched closely. Not amused. Not triumphant. Professional.” at least not on the outside.
16.1) “This isn’t me trying to humiliate you,” Bullshit, that’s definitely a part of this, that’s been a part of everything as far back as the initial filing.
16.2) “This is me making sure you don’t get hurt because your feelings are louder than your survival instincts.” And maybe he doesn’t FEEL like he wants survival instincts. I couldn’t really blame him if he didn’t. People in better positions have given up for less after all, which I know Dayton knows.
17) “What other… commands are you going to ask me to perform.” – “Little skills,” Orwellian redifinition right there, they are commands, always have been.
18) “Freeze means you don’t dart, you don’t argue, you don’t try to ‘fix it.’ You just stop.” You’re gonna need to earn his trust before a command like that’d be on the table.
19) “I’m doing it because Roosevelt is not gentle. The world is not gentle.” Dayton is not gentle, the Harris house is not gentle
20) “Yeah. It’s called ping. You tap me. It’s a check-in. If you can’t talk or you don’t want people hearing.” Credit where it’s due, Dayton setting up a way for a Little to get her attention is surprisingly kind, I’m gonna assume it was Thomas’s idea.
21.1) “Some of the official terms are… gross. Or they sound like pet stuff. I hated it.” No you fucking Didn’t, you loved it, loved treating Jordan like a pet, you lying cunt.
21.2) “Thomas hated it. So we made our own for things we actually needed.” that I could actually see.
22) “Mr. Rhys stared at her, thrown off by the casual admission that she and a Little had collaborated on improving the system. That she’d listened” yeah I don’t trust it either buddy.
23) “It’s going to get added to the curriculum, Not officially yet. But it should. It works.” Well Dayton knows at least two people who’d have significant voice in the matter.
24) “One tap means you’re okay. Two taps means you’re not okay. Three taps means stop, like urgent.” And Dayton’s mood determines if she responds.
25) “And if I refuse.” “Then you’ll get hurt, and I’m going to hate that.” She would hate how bad it’d look if he got hurt on her watch, especially after all her talk bragging herself and her skills up to people
13) you would be a bad little, resisting all the time lol. I am guessing needing correction a lot lol.
4) Dayton has drunk the Kool-Aid, she believes she is doing the right thing. (I think she has changed since her first encounter with Jordan. The training and her experience with Thomas made quite an impression on her).
9) I think we are being prepared for the next scene in the cafeteria. In all likelihood, she is going to have to maneuver Ezra while negotiating the cafeteria. Try carrying a tray of food in one hand and a Little in the other 😁
10) There could be an element of that, but the safety thing is true too.
12) That’s his life now. Dayton will be watching.
13) “Resistance is futile” (He has been assimilated)
16) Could be BS, but I’m starting to think she is really trying to become the Uber-Guardian.
17) I like that comment 👍
18) I can see this being one of the most important “commands”.
19) The Smallara world is not gentle.
20) I agree, probably Thomas.
21) hopefully she is growing up and has learned from her mistakes with Jordan.
(What amount of time has passed since her initial encounters with Jordan and now? Seems like it should be at least 6 months.)
I think in the Smallara world she is doing the right thing and is protecting him from a far worse fate that could be his. Like many Littles, he lets his pride from his former life put him in danger because they are now not understanding that he is no longer a adult. Any human of guardian age is now the adults to littles and have to do what they say which drives former adult littles lol.
21) It’s a little over a year, that was in September 2020 this is October/November 2021
19) neither is the real world
18) something for Dayton to abuse at her amusement.
16) perhaps, but I doubt it
13) lol
12) indeed
10) six of one, half a dozen of the other
9) cafeteria next seems likely.
4) in fairness to Dayton, that kool-aid is tge default drink in this world.
She does seem like a different character at times, she went from still needing a babysitter at twelve to one of the top twenty guardians at 13. She needed to cheat on her homework to now being a straight A student. Some times it seems more like a retcon then development though, lol.
lots of people who are good things will take the easy way out when its available to them. Dayton didn’t want ot have to do her math. She could get jordan to do it then basically just take the tests.
She didnt need him to do it but she just didnt want to do it as she doesnt like math. Not that she is bad at it, She just doesnt like it.
daytons mom is a bit over protective dayton didn tneed a babysitter but since it was Sara she didnt care.
4) Dayton does think she is in the right. As she saw something illegal and notified the authorities.
9 The cafeteria is a dangerous place
10) Definately is a element of safety too. Can it be abused sure but anything can be abused.
12) dayton will always be watching.
13) Borg Dayton. One of us, one of us.
16) she has grown and is a better person then she was.
17)Anything from a superior can be viewed as a command. If your boss tells you do something you can view as him or her commanding you to do something or asking you to do something.
18) Agreed it has alot of itmes it would be useful as she can see more of whats happening then he can.
19) I would say life fictional or real is not gentle.
20) I mean collaboration is normally two people. It wouldnt have happened without contributions from both parties.
21) its been over a year. 13 months.
1) I think dayton will listen as long as its reasonable. If he starts talking crazy or being reckless she may not.
2) Well Dayton has no control over what the government allows and they are probably unwilling to make many deals for ezra considering what he did. However Dayton can do what she did and make it not weird for him.
3) Based on your response here I feel like you would rate Sara over Dayton as Sara made Jordan a Reeves right away. She ahd no issues making him a reeves.
3.2) I think the government would never allow ezra that based on what he did. He literally was spewing anti government rhetoric to minors. They raided the school over him. I think offering Ezra the ability to keep his name would be the last hting they would do. While that consideration could be open to others they would never relent on him.
4) The collar is very much in her style though and the charms are targeted marketing that worked on her. Shes not the first child to fall victim to commercial.
5) he is definately not as innocent as he wants himself to be. Not that dayton is a saint.
6) I thought you would have liked the fact Ezra managed to basically do what guardians do to littles to guardians. He abused his position to put himself above his students. His only mistake is he probably targeted the wrong person in dating.
7) He should have targeted hannah in my opinion.
8)Shes not really complaining she did something about her unfair treatment she is just telling him like it is.
9) Well she only has so much time she is at school. Its not like she is lounging at home. Her lunch is only so long.
10) its not inherently a dog thing but there are parallels.
11) Dayton probably doesnt have hte most perspective on this as she has known chloe for awhile so its not special to her. its just sara’s girlfriend, and formerly just Sara’s friend to her.
12) well he cant avoid dayton watching thats a forever thing at this point. She owns him.
13) What does him not doing it get him though? Shes not asking him to do somehting unreasonable. He said he knew it she asked him to show her.
14) it is similar although Ezra is still only a few hours in. He hasnt had much time to reflect on things.
15) I love how you never give Dayton the benefit of the doubt. Everything is her being cruel.
16) I think Dayton is tell the truth here. Nothing she has done is on the level of Dayton trying to humilate someone. this is Dayton Harris we are talking about if she wants to cut someone down to size and humilate them she can and will and it wont be something people will question.
16.2) Well shes not going to let him kill himself. So he has to deal with that and find a reason to live if thats his goal. As if he thinks Dayton will allow that and not just take him everywhere and secure him in ways he can’t harm himself.His best opportunity is to work with dayton.
17) Well they are all also skills though. He is choosing to redfine them in a way that makes them demeaning as possible. As he is choosing to make himself appear as the victim so he can continue to “feel bad”. He wants to stay the victim based on his verbage.
18) its a reasonable command though as she would be able to see htings he wouldnt and him darting around would cause more issues and potentially more harm. Sometimes doing nothing is hte best thing you can do.
19) Dayton is basically cotton shes so gentle lol
20) It is something dayton adn thomas worked on so its a dual credit.
21) That was preteen aka tween dayton. She has matured since then. Jordans encounter with Dayton was before she had gone through training and before Sara pulled her aside.
As sara did talk to her sternly in smallara after that last time he was in the yard
22) I would picture you sooner believing that your neighbors were aliens then dayton doing something nice.
23) yeah, she knows it will get added as it works generitech makes the training. She would need prove it works obviously.
24) Well she is a woman. That seems about right for any woman regardless of situation or little or full sized interaction but thats just my expierence.
25) Well she doesnt want to see him hurt. Shes not heartless. Controlling, maybe a bitch sure but not heartless.
3) Sara was trying to make Jordan feel like he is part of the family and Jordan was receptive.
Ezra and Dayton have a very different dynamic. It will be interesting to see if that changes.
21) That is my impression. Lethal may never see it that way. 😁
1) listening is a good start, but will she actually do anything about what she hears? It costs her nothing to listen, and Dayton’s definition of “reasonable” leaves a lot to be desired. I’ll bet she still thinks she didn’t do anything wrong to Jordan.
2) I know, but her pretending the further erasure of his identity doesnt matter is an issue.
3. 1) I probably would actually
3.2) we’ll never know because Dayton won’t ask.
5) he and Dayton both deserve bad things
6) He was in the wrong, I do like him more than Dayton, but he was still in the wrong.
7) He shouldn’t be targeting anyone in mine
8) Shes trying to make him feel bad for her, about something she didn’t like, that’s complaining
10) i feel the parallel are deliberate.
11) nor
13) it shows he’s not just gonna roll over and take her shit, that she has to earn the control she craves.
15) She earned that
16.1) It might not be her only goal, but humbling him was always part of her motivation.
16.2) I think it should be on Dayton to find him a reason to live, given shes the one who took him from his previous one, and would be his main reason not to.
17) They’re sitting, freezing and coming, those aren’t skills, they’re commands, a skill would be a lot more complex, like Guardian climbing, or polylingualism, things that not just any littke can do. And “seeing himself as the victim” is “telling it like it is” even if Dayton won’t acknowledge it.
18) it’s on dayton to prove she’ll only use it reasonably, I could see her making him freeze, and keeping him frozen to amuse herself.
21) Did she learn from that? Has she acknowledged that what she did was wrong and made it up to Jordan?
Because I know Sara pulling her aside did nothing, she immediately threatened Jordan again once Sara was out of earshot.
22) lol, probably not… maybe
24) Very feminine, toxic femininity is common in your guardian characters
17) Its interesting that in your view the victim is the one who was actually breaking the law and basically teaching students that they should rebel against the government and that everything they’ve been taught is wrong.
That basically similar to what the al qeada do. They specifically teach people there values are right and the ones of the government are wrong.
Dayton reported him and you could argue there were some selfish reasons behind it but she still did it and followed through. Still put up with being questioned by the government. Being investigated and such.
While Rhys may not have known the district program wasnt fully legitimate he was in control of what he taught. He was in control of not wearing a collar even though its illegal.
He was in control of targeting dayton.
While Dayton may not be most likeable person She also hasn’t done anything nearly as bad Cindy. Her biggest crime was immaturity which at her age is more reasonable to have occur hten Ezra who is grown.
I don’t condone bullying but I can understand it from kid and teens. But a grown man and a educator doing it to a child is just flat out wrong regardless of the child.
I just cant look at him with all of that and say hey this guy is the victim in all this. No one deserves smallara. No one deserves to live as a little. But sometimes you reap what you sow.
Childhood is supposed to be where you figure all that out. Make your mistakes learn from them and grow. Dayton is only 13 its possible she does just that.
Its hard to give Rhys an educatated man, a teacher and a adult. There is a point in time where you know what your doing. You know its not right but you do it anyway. That Ezra to me.
Ezra is well above Cindy. I would put Charity above Ezra just because Charity was still a minor even if unlike Dayton i dont exactly believe she was just a young and learning from mistakes. Charity was more calculated and knowing what she was doing was wrong.
Ezra loses more points for me because he is a teaher who charged with shaping students and being hte example and he used that to cut people down and target students he didnt like. Teach rebllious and anti government themes which even if you don’t believe the government is right. The classroom full of 13 year olds isn’t the place for a TED talk.
17) I never said “INNOCENT” victim lol.
He is a victim, he’s a victim of these injust laws that lessen his status to propoerty, he’s a victim of the district tricking him into thinking everything was legal while undermining the injust laws. And a victim of Dayton who used the unjust laws, to undermine the school and become his guardian for the wrong reasons.
I do agree his actions were wrong, targeting Dayton, (who is also not innocent but still his victim). He was a literature teacher which is already a highly political subject, but tge way he twisted everything to match his political beliefs, while mainstream, was still wrong.
Dayton threatened Jordan with false accusations, which to me is far worse that Ezra being particularly hard on a specific student, even if she was only 12 and never actually followed through. She knew what she was doing, had she succeeded she’d have potentially damaged Sara and Jordan’s already far from perfect relationship. She planned on lying to the face of someone she supposedly loved in order get away with abusing a vulnerable person she saw as beneath her.
lol true enough. I agree he is a victim just not a sympathetic one. But it seems like we are similar stance on Ezra
A) I love the saying “this is me making sure you don’t get hurt because your feelings are louder than your survival instincts.”
B) this could pertain to littles like Kelli that still think they can do human stuff when they are a little and put them selves in danger not asking for help or not listening to Kayla
C) Delusional. From a thirteen-year-old– again not thinking like a little. he is the little child, she is the adult now. He technically is less then a child . Until he thinks like a little and looks at Dayton as the little mother basically he will struggle.
D) I again liked the struggle for him to be humble before his now giant student that litterly has him in the palm of her hand.
E) I hope she teaches him to paint her fingers and toenails. that is a classic little job she enjoys giving out, or making him rub moisturizer on her hands and feet as part of his body maintenance training.
A) After what happened with Sara, she’d probably be extra wary of that
B) Potentially, but Kelli also has a lot more trust in Kayla than Ezra does in Dayton.
C) He’s an adult who’s used to having children in his care, it’s natural that he’d not be thrilled about the Regime change. I don’t think it’s entirely health for a Little’s mindset to change on a dime like you’re describing.
D) He was quite egotistical; humility isn’t his strength
E) I could see her doing both of those things; we know she forced Thomas to paint her nails at least.
being humble in intense and highly protentional dangerous activity’s is something I hand to learn in my aerospace career because listening to other peoples ideas and onions is critical. I think you are right, his pride will keep him from enjoying his changed life as a little, which is sad because littles live a long time. He needs to get his nail painting arm prepped lol.
A) that is a throwback ot her encounter with Jordan when he ran into the yard. Its her using her expierences of her past to shape the future.
b) Kelli has a bit of that with the issue being Kayla will defer to kelli. So it has the potential to end up badly. Kayla did get upset and leave her with Talisa who while is a friend and is also not a guardian.
c) by rights he is less than a child htat is for sure.
d) Especially when the student is dayton. Probably the last student he would have chosen.
E) Hard to say it probably depends how well she htink he would do.
A) sad part is Dayton probably still thinks she was 110% in the right for that situation, she probably thinks the fault is mostly on Jordan for running and partly on Sara for overreacting, and a smidge on Nicole for snitching.
Dayton teaching her little how to start taking care of her.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rKkD68cD7AJA1XoUdjAIdMXOUwXI01z1/view?usp=drivesdk
If he is having a hard time now, wait till he gets to Dayton’s room and gets the talk that Sara gave Jordan when they were first together. He will have to get used to seeing her Naked in in her room and bathroom because she wouldn’t remove a cat if she was changing. Same with bringing him in the girls locker room. Talk about a very unconvertable little reality he has to deal with now.