generation gap
Jul. 23rd, 2017 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysTitle: Generation Gap
Rating: G
Series: Bungie's Destiny
Wordcount: 523
Summary: Guardians have never been children.
Remarks: At least partly inspired by an anecdote from my mother's years working in childcare.
I hear a lot of Guardians claiming to like children. How sincere they say it is a good way to tell the volunteers from Cayde’s, uh, volunteers, but it’s a waste of everyone’s resources to send the real curmudgeons down to us so most of them seem to at least think they mean the words.
You watch their eyes the moment they step out of the transport, though, and you’ll start to see it too. Brown eyes, bright eyes, irises or wired bulbs; you watch them once they actually get a look at our beautiful blossoms of youth and you’ll be watching every single one of them go goggle-gaped with what I can only describe as world-turning revelation.
They don’t like children. How can they? They don’t even know what a child is. Kids are a concept to them, the personification of innocence and hope and our wholesome fragile future. If that’s what gets them through a day of punting shanks and wrestling vandals then I’m not about to judge – but it’s a concept that doesn’t hold up to the reality of little Jemala running out pantsless and excited with a double handful of her own shit because she finally dropped the toy she ate on a dare two days earlier, y’know?
Yeah, she was fine. I burned the toy.
Most of the Guardians don’t quite survive the encounter unscathed, by my reckoning. They walk away changed. For the better, I like to think, a little more worldly for having experienced a temper tantrum or seven. There might be a sense of loss or betrayal involved, but there’s also more honesty. Where’s the heart in fighting for a City and people that don’t even exist, eh? If they don’t think we’re worth protecting when we’re ugly and loud and just a little bit repugnant then I’m not about to put my trust in them to begin with.
Some of the others, though…
I suppose it goes both ways, the concept thing. When I was new to this job, and I stood in for my first Guardian meet-and-greet with the kids, I thought dark and dust, what a terrible idea. You know? They might have been alive – properly alive – once but they’re the Traveler’s things now. They’re Guardians. They can’t look at a child squalling over a scraped knee and think, ah well, when I was that age-
I wasn’t wrong, exactly, but I wasn’t counting on the ones who’d look at the crying kid and light up with the realisation of why people cry at all. The ones who’d listen to them chattering about school so intense it’s like they’re trying to learn something themselves. The ones clumsily fumbling along in some game of make-believe and starting to grin with the fun of it. Maybe they can’t look back to memory, but I hadn’t considered what they could find in the here and now.
Always hardest to watch those ones leave. Back to the top of their Tower. We try and get regulars where we can, but…well. When they say someone’s not available, I can’t say I always have the heart to ask why.
Funny. Didn’t used to worry when I was a child.
Rating: G
Series: Bungie's Destiny
Wordcount: 523
Summary: Guardians have never been children.
Remarks: At least partly inspired by an anecdote from my mother's years working in childcare.
I hear a lot of Guardians claiming to like children. How sincere they say it is a good way to tell the volunteers from Cayde’s, uh, volunteers, but it’s a waste of everyone’s resources to send the real curmudgeons down to us so most of them seem to at least think they mean the words.
You watch their eyes the moment they step out of the transport, though, and you’ll start to see it too. Brown eyes, bright eyes, irises or wired bulbs; you watch them once they actually get a look at our beautiful blossoms of youth and you’ll be watching every single one of them go goggle-gaped with what I can only describe as world-turning revelation.
They don’t like children. How can they? They don’t even know what a child is. Kids are a concept to them, the personification of innocence and hope and our wholesome fragile future. If that’s what gets them through a day of punting shanks and wrestling vandals then I’m not about to judge – but it’s a concept that doesn’t hold up to the reality of little Jemala running out pantsless and excited with a double handful of her own shit because she finally dropped the toy she ate on a dare two days earlier, y’know?
Yeah, she was fine. I burned the toy.
Most of the Guardians don’t quite survive the encounter unscathed, by my reckoning. They walk away changed. For the better, I like to think, a little more worldly for having experienced a temper tantrum or seven. There might be a sense of loss or betrayal involved, but there’s also more honesty. Where’s the heart in fighting for a City and people that don’t even exist, eh? If they don’t think we’re worth protecting when we’re ugly and loud and just a little bit repugnant then I’m not about to put my trust in them to begin with.
Some of the others, though…
I suppose it goes both ways, the concept thing. When I was new to this job, and I stood in for my first Guardian meet-and-greet with the kids, I thought dark and dust, what a terrible idea. You know? They might have been alive – properly alive – once but they’re the Traveler’s things now. They’re Guardians. They can’t look at a child squalling over a scraped knee and think, ah well, when I was that age-
I wasn’t wrong, exactly, but I wasn’t counting on the ones who’d look at the crying kid and light up with the realisation of why people cry at all. The ones who’d listen to them chattering about school so intense it’s like they’re trying to learn something themselves. The ones clumsily fumbling along in some game of make-believe and starting to grin with the fun of it. Maybe they can’t look back to memory, but I hadn’t considered what they could find in the here and now.
Always hardest to watch those ones leave. Back to the top of their Tower. We try and get regulars where we can, but…well. When they say someone’s not available, I can’t say I always have the heart to ask why.
Funny. Didn’t used to worry when I was a child.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-21 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-02 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-02 02:44 am (UTC)(I gotta get back to RKC, I miss writing Guardians as terrifying and unknowable)