#(especially since I don't have any other shows for whom discussion is as active right now)

[niuxita21]

Can't fucking be-LIEVE I'm gonna have to pay if I want to continue watching Petrichor the absolute NERVE!!!!!!

[thearkhound]

Kojima Cinema Vol. 4: Lost World

Greetings from Kojima Cinema in the U.S.

At the end of the previous month we went to the United States to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), as well to research data for Metal Gear Solid. For this installment of Kojima Cinema, I'll discuss Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, which I snuck out to see after attending E3, as well as its creator Michael Crichton (who happens to be one of my favorite authors).

By the way, Lost Warld (as in a combination of World and War) was the title of a canceled project that was planned to be my first game.

Lost World from Atlanta

I saw Lost World in a movie theater inside the CNN building in Atlanta. Since it hasn't been released in Japan yet, I was able to see it without any preconceived notions, but it ended up being very disappointing. Certainly there's a lot more CGI than the first movie and the dinosaurs are even better animated, but the story was way too much like a Godzilla movie. (Or maybe it was more like King Kong? Perhaps it's closer to Gappa: The Triphibian Monster?) At any rate, what happened to Michael Crichton's original story? I felt like going to Steven Spielberg and tell him "please, don't ruin Crichton's work anymore!"

Better CGI, But Half The Impact

I'm already used to seeing CGI dinosaurs, so there wasn't as much of an impact as there was for the first movie. I remember being moved to tears during the first movie when the Brachiosaurus, the first dinosaur, showed up as if I was glad to see one alive. There's a similar scene in this movie where they encounter a group of Stegosauruses and then Dr. Ian Malcolm says something along the lines of "everyone is impressed at first, but then they all run away" (there were no subtitles, so I'm not certain), which is nothing but ironic.

Jurassic Park: The Ride: The Movie

Ultimately the movie's priority is to charm the audience by showing off dinosaurs. It felt as if the plot and the characters were only added there as an excuse to showcase all the popular dinosaurs like the Compsognathus, the raptors and the T-Rex. It felt less like a movie written to tell a story and more like a film version of the "Jurassic Park: The Ride" attraction at Universal Studios. If you look at it with that perspective, it's a well-made and calculated film.

Despite A Noticeable Rut in the Production, Spielberg's Style is Still in Good Health

Spielberg's heart-pounding style is still in good health despite all of this. The scene where the trailer is falling off the edge of a cliff could be said to be one of the highlights in Spielberg's career. I don't like it very much, but the succession of one crisis after the other makes my hands sweat. Especially the gimmick of the glass gradually breaking is a novelty that no one else has done before. But I was left with one unanswered question. Why does the rear hatch of the trailer only has one sheet glass?

Unfortunately there were many scenes that ended up being not very interesting due to the usual hackneyed direction. There are many indirect effects that we're already familiar with, such as the camera tracking used since Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the use of lost limbs as seen in Jaws, rivers and waterfall turning red due to bloodshed, also seen in the original movie, and the swaying of trees and vibrations of water surfaces that gives the dinosaurs a sense of speed and weight... Perhaps the film would've been very different if the direction had been more creative. Was this the result of relying too much on CGI?

The Movie is Not The Novel

It's been two years since I've read the original novel by Michael Crichton, so I might not remember the details clearly, but it contained a certain message. He portrayed the habits of dinosaurs more extensively than in his first novel and even unraveled the dinosaur extinction theory with his novel ideas. In that sense, the book was less of a story and more of an academic study on dinosaurs. It also carried poignant criticisms and messages, such as warnings about technology and human society. As a fan of Crichton who was aware of the original novel, this film adaptation with its strong giant monster movie flavor left me dissastisfed.

About Michael Crichton

My introduction Michael Crichton was naturally The Andromeda Strain. Since then I've read all of his novels and essays that were translated to Japanese, including his work under the John Lange penname, all the way up to Airframe, with the exception of Eaters of the Dead. Crichton is one of the few authors whom I buy the first edition hardcovers from without hesitation. I've also seen many of the films he has directed such as Westworld, Coma, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway and even Looker. I like him as a filmmaker, even if he hasn't been holding the megaphone lately.

The Appeal of Crichton

Perhaps Crichton's appeal is that he has a visionary focus, creates a chaotic reality that is difficult to distinguish what is fact from fiction and skillfully embeds valuable information that few people know into his entertainment. The amount of data based on ideas and meticulous research is skillfully blended into products of entertainment. I aspire for the same thing Michael Crichton does in the games that I want to make. That's how I developed Snatcher and Policenauts, and it's the same thing with the upcoming Metal Gear Solid. The reason why I'm so fixated over creating a backstory or universe that doesn't really affect how a game works is because I want to get those aspects right.

Is A Fiction That Exceeds Reality Possible?

Lately there have been novels written by doctors, former mercenaries and even active policemen that ended up becoming hits. The realism and persuasiveness of such works is not something an average novelist can compete with just their imagination alone. Even I realized that when watching ER, a TV series that Michael Crichton created. What you create with knowledge will end up being completely different from what you create without. That's why asked for military advisor Motosada Mori to supervise the action and backstory in Metal Gear Solid. Recently, alongside Mr. Mori, we were able to gather research at a SWAT drill and a military base, where even saw an M1 tank. I think I was able to understand some things with such experience that I wouldn't able to from working at a desk alone. With Metal Gear Solid I hope I will able to create a video game with a Crichton-like aspect to it and not be lost in direction.

Source: Game Hihyо̄ Vol. 16 (September 1997), page 58-59

[lilallama]

Teachers...

Bulsajo Highschool's Students aren't the only ones taken by L/n Y/n.

Subjects

Lee Jieun - Philosophy/Poetry

Kim Hyuna - Drama

Kim Hyojong - Music

Kwong Jiyong - PE

IU

Lee Jieun

"Just know that I'm always open to talk, Y/n. We can sit down and have a cup of tea or cocoa, if you want. You can confide in me, don't worry, dearest."

Jieun is one of the youngest teachers at Bulsajo High. Her gentle voice and aura led her to becoming one of the most popular teachers on campus. She really cares for the students wellbeing, and is always open to discuss different issues with her students. Students don't exclusively visit her to tell her of their woes, but also just to chat over a cup of hot tea or cocoa. She always says, it's important to stay calm. The one thing she won't ever tolerate in class are disruptive or aggressive students. She will give them detention, but all it really is, is another discussion of what they did wrong over a cup of tea or cocoa. Unbeknownst to the students and staff, she took it upon herself to provide the students with the needed calmness. To help them achieve such a relaxed state, she mixes different types of benzodiazepines, anxiety medications, into the beverages she gives them. It works like a charm every time. Especially Jeongguk seeks out her help when frustrated. The hot cocoa she gives him reallt works like a charm.

If there is one person she adores, it's Y/n. They're just so pleasant and adorable to her. They're no trouble and so intelligent. She's not ashamed to say that she truly has gained a little crush on the student. Ever since they met in their 3rd year at Bulsajo High, she was utterly enraptured by their everything. She spends her free time fantasizing about them.

HyunA

Kim Hyuna

"Good morning, Y/n! How was your weekend? I'm so jealous of your parents. I'd love to have a child like you. If I could I'd adopt you right away."

Hyuna is a well respected teacher. She's known to be strict during classes, but very cool outside of her lessons. She is unapologetically honest with everyone and actively dismisses rules, such as the dress code. Since she is so honest, she's also openly biased with her students. She has her favourite and isn't afraid to show it. Neither is her husband; Hyojong. These two are partners in crime, they favour the same students and discuss almost everything with each other first. They are a very lowkey couple, which most students appreciate. Hyuna is a wonderful teacher who actually listens to the students advice and opinions. Her biasing certain students doesn't mean she's treating the others bad, though she does have a few on her blacklist.

Sadly, Hyuna was never able to get a child. Her job is not the only way to the perfect family of three, she had always wanted. A while ago, they went to the doctor when they realised; all efforts to get pregnant failed. Turns out; Hyuna was infertile. She would not be able to get a child, unless they adopted. This deeply affected both Hyuna and Hyojong. When she met Y/n it was like they were sent from heaven. The perfect child, which was stolen from her.

Dawn

Kim Hyojong

"Of course, what do you need? Homework? No no. You don't have to do any homework, Y/n. I thought you knew that. You're busy enough with all the work the others give you. All idiots, really."

Hyojong is a very chill teacher. The students like his class, since he's always very laidback and tries to make the subject understandable to all the students. Sadly though, his homework can be really time consuming. And the quizzes are difficult. He's not that strict and allows the students to eat, drink and even sleep during his class. It's not his problem if they write a bad grade on the upcoming test, it's their mistake. But he will not hold it against them. If they study outside of school and end up writing a good grade, then that's good enough for him. Just like his wife, he is openly biased but not as obvious about it. He doesn't try to hide it, but it's not as noticeable unless you pay attention to it. Hyojong and the principle have a rather... difficult relationship. They hate each other absolutely. Yet the principle cannot find a reason to fire him, since he still does his job and teaches the students well enough. The entire reason for their hatred towards each other is really just a difference in ideals. Nayeon doesn't like him, at all. But he really doesn't care for her.

He was just as distraught as Hyuna when they found out, they would not be able to have a child. But he tried getting over it, not thinking too much about it. That was, untill Hyuna started talking about a Y/n. A new student, with whom she really seemed to have gotten attached to. He immediately agreed ypon closer inspection. They seemed like the perfect child, the child they had always wanted. Hyuna claimed their parents had, stolen you away from them. He could not agree more.

GDragon

Kwong Jiyong

"Hop, hop, hop! No slacking off in my class. Oh, Y/n dear, don't exert yourself! Take a break, I'll get you some water. Hey, continue everyone! If I see just one of you stopping before you finished ten laps, you're up for detention."

A very strict and passionate teacher. He thinks pushing yourself to the limit is how you learn your boundaries. He views life as pure survival. Either you learn how to protect yourself or you get yourself someone who can protect you. Jiyong always assumes that most people end up alone either way, so it's best to learn how to protect and discipline yourself, before you end up vulnerable and alone. After serving 10 years in the military, he went and finished his education and became a teacher at Bulsajo High. The students respect him, but aren't necessarily fond of his teaching methods. There's only few students who he can tolerate. Some of them being Jeongguk, Namjoon, Ryujin, Jeongyeon and Moonbyul. He respects those who are tough and don't complain. Those with a love for extreme sports are well received by him, but not necessarily favoured. He was always very fair.

His fairness streak disappeared when Y/n came into the picture. They weren't necessarily fragile or seemed as though they needed protecting, but he still couldn't help feeling the urge to protect them. They were his personal favourite student, and it shows. If Y/n's feet hurt, he's that close to calling an ambulance. If they say they don't like acertain sport, they will never be confronted with that sport again. They don't like sport in general? Baby, don't worry. He'll find an excuse for you so you don't have to participate. He absolutely adores them. Why would they need to know how to protect themselves. He wants them to rely on him for that. Jiyong would do anything to protect them.

If you liked my work please reblog! 🍑

[agent-cupcake]

Can I ask your opinion? So, I feel like everyone into 3H is in love with Dimitri, but I can't connect with him. I don't dislike him, but I feel like there isn't much to his personality without all his various mental health issues. It's hard to get a feel on what he's really like, so I end up just seeing him as a walking ball of trauma and not a three-dimensional character. Do you have any thoughts on Dimitri himself and how to separate him as a person from his psychological issues? Thanks!

Hmm, I guess my first thought is that everyone resonates with characters differently and so if you don’t particularly feel connected to him, that’s not wrong. Fictional parasocial relationships are very similar to real-life relationships, so it follows that nobody is going to like every character. I can’t say that a portion of my love for his character doesn’t come from his mental issues because that’s something I personally relate to and feel drawn to in others. That’s just who I am and how I build relationships. There is also something to be said for the unavoidable way mental illness informs a person’s behavior and character, it’s as much an aspect of them as being born with blond hair or losing an eye.

That said, I will do my best to explain why I think Dimitri is wonderful. Not in spite of his mental illness, but because I don’t think that’s all he is.

So, Dimitri is, as he says, a very clumsy person. This unfortunately extends to his social skills. He has a lot of very socially awkward tendencies and a general lack of self-awareness. This contrasts with his innate desire to please people, or at least avoid upsetting anyone. The thing is, Dimitri doesn’t always completely understand what upsets people or how exactly they might feel. His childhood isolation left him rather emotionally unaware and desperate for the acceptance and approval of others. That’s not to say he doesn’t try to understand other people’s feelings, but it’s not an intuitive process. He has a habit of saying kind of dumb or uncomfortable things out of nowhere, which is most likely his real feelings coming out in rather inept ways. He means well, but he’s just so dang clumsy.

The desperation to be included and validated I mentioned, I think, can be seen in the way he tries so hard to make the other Blue Lions see him as a peer and equal all the while keeping himself rather closed off from them. Dimitri approaches conversations as a means of focusing on the other person, trying to make an appeal to them rather than as an interaction where both parties could be seen as vulnerable. Of course, just like most other socially awkward introverts, he opens up when he feels closer to the person, but that takes a while. Gotta unlock the supports, you know? Although it’s not necessarily obvious, his incredibly stiff behavior (especially pre-timeskip) and the way he switches between overly formal and awkwardly friendly in his interactions with people as he tries to figure out how to socially and emotionally navigate relationships really gives me the impression of someone trying desperately to fit in without even the faintest clue of how to actually manage that. He also does his best to avoid social situations, which, mood. Basically, Dimitri’s a big dumb massive introvert trying to act like he’s not.

FURTHERMORE, he is a dork. An absolute goof of a person. Dimitri canonically thinks so-bad-its-good puns and jokes are hilarious. His own style of telling jokes is saying things that may or may not have contextual humor in a normal voice and then claiming after the fact that he intended it as such. Now, his supports with Alois are absolute factual proof of the so-bad-its-good humor, but might I also direct your attention to the scene before the battle against Miklan in Conand Tower (the event name is “Tower in a Storm (Blue Lions)”). Basically, Gilbert is explaining the history behind Conand Tower and Dimitri says, in an incredibly earnest voice, “You’re very well informed, Gilbert. Please, tell us more.” This is a joke. Supposed to be, at least. The delivery is somewhat emphasized, but not in a recognizably sarcastic way. Gilbert, who knew Dimitri very well when he was young, realizes it’s a joke after a second. But there are other things Dimitri says that I believe are his bad “jokes” and since nobody knows him well enough to tell, they don’t call him on it. There’s no proof, but his line in the Lord’s intro where he says, “And here I thought you were acting as a decoy for the sake of us all.” to Claude has to be an attempt at sarcasm. Dimitri is oblivious, but not stupid. In his Goddess Tower conversation with Byleth, when discussing the topic of wishes, he says, “Perhaps it would make more sense for me to wish that we’ll be together forever. What do you think?” In a completely normal voice. Following are two speech bubbles of “...” before he laughs and proclaims that it’s just a joke and that he’s getting better at telling them. Now, this is a two-parter because I see this as both his horribly awkward tendency to say things he feels without thinking too hard beforehand as well as his silly deadpan style of “jokes”. Granted, he does apologize. Dimitri’s got socially awkward zoomer humor. It’s endearing.

Here is a video of Dimitri hitting on Byleth pre-timeskip. I’m not sure how far it goes to endear someone to him, but the mostly awkward and occasionally smooth attempts of Dimitri’s flirtations are absolutely a highlight of his character. 

Now, this isn’t quite as cute as all that, but I think character arc and change do a lot for making a character feel more three-dimensional. Dimitri is hypocritically selfish. Although those are both negative terms, I don’t necessarily mean them as such, at least not in their totality. Both are things to overcome, which he does. And that’s why I feel like they’re a valid point of discussion when trying to explain the allure of his character.

The hypocritical part comes from the way he easily allows and forgives the flaws of others while constantly castigating himself for the same reasons. He says things that show an absurd amount of a lack of self-awareness. For example, he tells Edelgard, “Hm. You will prove a lacking ruler yourself if you look for deceit behind every word and fail to trust those whom you rely on.” All the while straight-up lying to and emotionally avoiding his friends. Dimitri also tells Marianne, when she is punishing herself for putting other people at risk, “What matters is that they came back safely in the end. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.” Really, his C and B with Marianne is an exercise in hypocrisy. The standards Dimitri has for himself are incredibly, unattainably high. He’s setting himself up for failure in that way and, to an extent, knows what he’s doing because he knows that those same standards are too much for his friends and allies to meet. He wishes to take on everything himself. But, what I find so beautiful about this, is that Dimitri eventually realizes that he can’t do that. He is not strong enough to take on the weight of the world on himself, he comes to understand that it’s something he must allow himself to share with the people who care about him. He comes to realize that, as difficult as it is to accept, he is a weak person. Despite all of his introversion and inability to emotionally open up, he figures out that having a support system and allowing yourself to rely on people who love you is a necessity. Personally, I think this message is incredibly important in real life. Watching Dimitri come to that conclusion and argue it’s importance really rounded out his arc and journey as a person. Now, the relatability of this conclusion will differ, but I don’t think it has to do with his mental illness as much as it is a fundamental aspect of growth.

The selfishness is basically outlined above. Dimitri is selfish about his pain and secrets, purposefully and selfishly driving people away because he wants to keep the burden to himself. His vice is guilt and he indulges in the pain of it like an addiction. Hatred, too, is a drug. He thinks he needs it to keep going, even though all it does is bring agony to himself and others around him. Learning to accept and let go of these feelings is, again, something I think is important and a character arc that I really love, especially when you see him suffer as much as he does. Now, the execution of this is lacking, I admit. But that’s an issue for another time I think.

I am not quite sure if I did much to change your opinion, but this is all I can think of for now. There is probably a lot more than I’ve left out because I think about Dimitri far too much to be healthy. So, I’ll leave you off with some honorable mention aspects of his character that I think are super fun:

Pre-timeskip Dimitri has his hair tucked behind his ear. He can lift a wagon by himself. In the DLC, when faced with an impossible-to-open gate, it was not muscle man Balthus who said he couldn’t open it, but twinkish teen Dimitri. He’s not really smooth with one-liners. Like, at all. Notably, when attacking Manuela post-timeskip, he says, “Perhaps I should have appeared before you holding a bouquet of flowers, rather than the weapon that will end your life.” Adding to this, at one point, Dimitri fucked up a pick-up line so badly the girl came after him. Areadbhar has a mitten on it in the Azure Moon final picture. He breaks everything. His Crest activation ability even supports this, using twice the durability of any given Combat Art. One of his post-timeskip counselor messages is, “I lived in the slums for a long time, and I saw how the people there suffered from poverty and the ravages of war. There must be something I can do to save them." His room in the academy is right next to Sylvain’s, meaning that for almost an entire year Dimitri was a single wall away from hearing whatever nonsense Sylvain was getting up to. Dimitri is the only Lord that takes the throne and doesn’t abandon his people in some form or another.

And, finally, he is pretty sexy. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[ptw30]

as someone who's only been watching this sh-t show from a distance (and don't actively follow the twitter/social media besides what I see cross-posted here, so who knows maybe they actually /did/ already) can I say how at this point it's completely plausible to me for a fan to say how harmful it is to constantly yell how you hate and want to (and HAVE) kill the single canonically queer character in the entire canon, and have the lovely duo of VLD snap back (1/2)

how not only are they exempt from the Bury Your Gays trope and completely immune to any effects or consequences of it, but that “we’re actually TOTALLY EVEN MORE SUPER PROGRESSIVE becuz gay kuron being totally 120% evil shows that gays can be villains too uwu u just dont understand it duh get on our level sweetie!” (2/2)

I had the privilege to attend the “The Future is LGBTQ” panel at NYCC.*  Marguerite Bennett, a queer comic book writer, spoke about issues she had when writing DC Bombshells. She was accused of having written harmful queer tropes by a few fans, to which she replied, “The majority of the cast was queer. Angst is going to happen to queer characters with a queer cast.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

Contrarily, the majority of Voltron: Legendary Defender’s characters is not queer. And many of the terrible events in the script were reserved for the queer characters. 

Below the cut, an exploration into the BYG trope and how Kuron being evil feeds into it. 

Canonically - there are four queer characters. Shiro is the only main cast queer character, but Zethrid, Ezor, and Adam are also queer. If you listen to the EP interviews, then you also know Blatyz is queer. 

Every canonical queer character has been killed. 

Out of all the deaths in VLD, Adam’s was truly horrific. He screamed out in pain as he was killed, compared to Thace, who closed his eyes and surrendered to the blast; compared to Antok who accepted a blast, groaned, and fell to the side; compared to the Druid, who received a sword in the chest, muttered, and disappeared; compared to Zarkon, the Evil Emperor of the Universe, whose labored breathing ended and his bayard stopped glowing; compared to Trugg and Ladnok, whom we actually didn’t see die; compared to Keith’s dad, whose tombstone symbolized his death.  

Adam’s death deserved a trigger warning. While I do not agree with Hypable’s most recent season review, I am grateful to Donya for spoiling his death. On August 10th, I was anxious about Adam’s impeding demise, but even knowing - I was horrified when it came. 

The EPs are not exempt from the BYG trope or the consequences of its use. 

The issue with VLD is its treatment of its gay characters. All Lotor’s disabled and queer generals were killed. The only general to survive and turn “good”? The straight, non-disabled one. The only paladin to return home to absolutely no family? The queer paladin. Keith found his family in space. Hunk, Lance and Pidge had family. Even Allura is shown with Romelle and Coran. 

Shiro? Absolutely no family. 

I don’t even believe Adam and Shiro should be together - 

(Tangent - as a former caretaker of someone with degenerative disease, I can tell you that most people who say they will stick around to the end, don’t, and if Adam wasn’t willing to wait for Shiro to return, then he wouldn’t have stuck around to take care of Shiro. Furthermore, Adam and Shiro made the decisions that was best for them, which is mature and thoughtful. Even if we disagree with Adam, he broke up with Shiro, and Shiro, by choosing to go to Kerberos, broke up with Adam. But that doesn’t mean Adam deserved to die.)

- but I’m not going to argue whether Shiro and Adam fulfilled the BYG trope. Each person can decide for himself/herself how they feel about Adam’s demise - but Zethrid and Ezor are unequivocally the BYG trope. A touching moment, a promise for them to be together, and then they die. 

There’s no way for the EPs to escape that, technicality or not. (Another point - I don’t care for technicalities. The spirit of Adam and Shiro’s relationship wasn’t written in good faith, especially since the EPs wanted to kill Shiro - so they don’t win any points here.)

Now, I will give the EPs credit that Kuron is not your traditional “queer-coded” villain, but Kuron being evil doesn’t make them or the story progressive. In fact, it makes them either woefully ignorant or actively offensive. 

In “The Strange, Difficult History of Queer-Coding,” Tricia Ennis writes how during the 1950s and ‘60s, conservative groups in America discouraged queer characters in films. These characters were still written but in subtext, and actors were told to play these characters as gay. 

Even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. These women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. They were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. You were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. This trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as “Bury Your Gays.”

Thus, Shiro/Kuron being the only queer paladin, the only paladin to have his bond with his lion broken, the only paladin to turn “evil” and to be killed twice - Shiro’s body and Kuron’s soul - the EPs are not progressive. In fact, they fed the trope they so adamantly denied using. 

Coupled with Shiro being announced as no longer being a paladin in the same season that he was revealed to be queer, in the same season it’s revealed he has/had a degenerative disease, in the same season his one-time partner was killed - one can even make the assumption all this happened to Shiro because the EPs and DreamWorks do not support LGBTQIA+ rights.  

Rounding back - the EPs aren’t exempt from repercussions. 

Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery came from DC Comics as directors, became showrunners at DreamWorks, and went onto Marvel, back to the director chair. That is a demotion. DreamWorks cleaned house - even before Season 8 premiered - and though I think the messages were offensively underwhelming, JDS apologized on Twitter the Monday after Season 7 was released, and LM expanded upon that apology at NYCC. 

The damage is done, though, as many people found Season 7 so harmful that they will not watch more DreamWorks’ show and definitely not projects with JDS and LM. The best thing DreamWorks can do is to apologize (an exec this time), admit there were issues with Season 7 - including the BYG trope, plus the racist, sexist, and ableist themes, as well - and promise to do better in a Voltron sequel and in all their shows by creating diverse teams and an inclusive environment in which to create inclusive shows. 

DreamWorks hasn’t completed that final step yet, but the fact that the EPs are no longer a part of DreamWorks and are not working on a VLD sequel, despite the show being “popular” and what I would say, an overall “success,” says DreamWorks did take notice. Now it’s up to us, as fans, to continue the conversation and not to stop discussing. We need to keep telling DreamWorks and others content creators to create inclusive stories until we get shows with true and empowering representation. 

* I highly recommend any fan of any fandom to attend a few educational panels at each con. They’re included in the price, and they are welcoming and informative for writing true representation in your stories. 

[rixxy8173571m3w1p3]

The Little Big Things (3/4)

So like we had done not too long ago, me, @hoodoo12 @porkchop-ao3 @rickstexaschick are doing the same prompt cause we all loved the idea. And I didn't mention it before, but this story references Labyrinth, and it follows the events of this fic As The World Falls Down.

Many thanks to @xerxezra @hoodoo12 @porkchop-ao3 for some writing advice that helped me get through this chapter. I love you all.

This is part 3. If you haven't read part one or part two then read it here. (Part 1, Part 2)

_______________________

Chapter 3: Saudade

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a scientist, whom after trying all that he could to wake up his unconscious girlfriend had began to wonder if the only thing he hadn't tried would work; for while she appeared to be in a coma, she was merely in a deep sleep like sleeping beauty, but prettier.

“I'm sorry Rick.” you interrupted by poking his cheek. “I appreciate your lovely words, but I can't say that I'm beautiful while snoring, so you better stop that. No embellishing.”

Giving your hand a squeeze, he said softly. “But y-you are. I even have a-a picture on my phone somewhere.”

“If it's of me drooling, then it's going to magically disappear. You always like the bad pics.”

“Hohoho, there a-aren't any bad photos. I like th-them all.”

Which he meant, even if you felt contrary to the statement. “Whatever you say Rick. So, before I interrupted, you were going to explain why you used the dream inceptors. Right?”

“Mhm,” he nodded. “that's right. You see, physically there was nothing the - the matter with you, but y-you did have a bit of a fever. And monitoring your vitals, I had come to realize you already p-passed the first hour or so of sleep, during which brain waves slow down. This period of - of slow wave sleep is accompanied by relaxation of the muscles and the eyes. Then, over the next half hour or so, your br-brain activity altered drastically, and you entered the REM stage. During that stage, there is atonia or p-paralysis of the body’s muscles. Only the muscles th-that allow breathing and control eye movements remain active. I thought, that well - since nothing else worked it couldn't hurt t-t-to try using the dream inceptors.”

If your memory served correctly, you had woken up in your own bed. Which meant, he carried you, portaled into your home, and set up the monitoring equipment on your computer desk. “So, you brought me back to my home, laid me down on my bed, and plugged those earbud thingys in my ears.”

You knew what they were called, but it was always worth listening to him laugh, and feeling the happy noise reverberate through his body; this was your reward. “Those th-thingys allowed me t-to enter into your dreams. I ugh - I used t-t-to wonder what it would be like, and if y-you would welcome me in your dreams.”

“I welcome you into my home. Isn't it about the same thing?”

“N-n-not exactly. Dreams are more private. They can r-reveal or disguise our innermost thoughts and inclinations. Neither of us have th-the same dream, and our subconscious is free t-t-to play its short clips and feature length imagery.

It's - it's not like anyone c-could enters another person's dream, but I have just like other Ricks have in their own respective realities. I'm s-sorry that I did, especially w-without your permission.”

“You did what you had to, and I trust you. You never have to doubt that.”

The lilting tune around you softened to the gentle sounds similar to that of a kalimba or music box; possibly both. Kissing your temple, he admitted quietly, in a tone you hardly recognized. “Dreams they can - can be intimate as well. Did y-y-you know that?”

“No,” you blushed, his anxious heart beat making you both nervous and giddy. “but I think I'm starting to get an idea. Why,” you teased. “do you dream of me?”

Covering his face, he groaned in embarrassment. “Gosh, I-I-I do, but not in the way that y-you'd think.”

“In what way then?”

Sneaking a peek at you, he said sheepishly. “It's - I dream about how y-you help me with experiments. Sometimes I dream a-about what we normally do, and how my life is w-with you. I um - I have even dreamed that w-we switched places, and that I'm just a regular guy and you - you are this demi-goddess of science, pulling me away from my average life t-to that of adventures.”

“Demi-goddess?” you giggled, watching as his blush went from a dusty pink to a dangerous shade of red. “That's so flattering, but I'm not like that. I'm not perfect.”

“Y-you are to me.”

Poking his cheek again, you smiled. “And you are to me.”

And for a while he kept quiet, absentmindedly playing with your hair. He did that thing with his eyebrow, when he was thinking too hard for his own good; lost in his thoughts, overthinking his actions, afraid of his words which came out of his mouth. When he found the courage to speak again, his voice was colored with the usual sincerity. “I um, b-because you're sweet, I wondered if your dreams - if they would be just as sweet. M-mi corazón,” he softened, “what I'm trying t-to say is I wanted to know if - if maybe you……oh n-never mind.”

“Rick, what is it? If it's important, then you can tell me.”

Shaking his head, he relinquished his previous thought, this time giving your hand a kiss and continued with his original explanation. “At first, I um - I found myself amidst a-a parched land, where the wind whispered doubts, and the sky flashed visions of the past. I knew th-this wasn't the central point of activity, so I started w-walking.”

__________

Miles upon miles there was nothing, but a desert; not even cacti or wildflowers. It made him worry a bit, but he held onto the hope that he would soon enter the active part of the dream; wherever that might be. Later, when he came upon the people in the nearest village, he found that they were in need of water and had been digging deeper and deeper in search of it, but all their wells were dry. As they had explained, by now the melted ice from the mountain should have fed their rivers and streams, but as yet, it hadn't.

Because his heart compelled him to assist them, he borrowed the necessary supplies to go on a quest, up the mountain, where there was a castle carved out of ice and stone. And there he found a comely young man seated upon a throne of clear quartz; he was the king of the mountain, who had been withholding the water, for the village leader had refused to relinquish his fair daughter, on the grounds that the king was immortal. After an in-depth discussion, the two came to an agreement, with the king abdicating the throne and returning to the land of mortals in hopes of wooing his lady love. Now, a deal was a deal, and the moment the scientist placed the crown upon his head, he gained the power beyond his current understanding, and was able to extend his sight; allowing him to see what occurred across the land he reigned over and beyond. And it happened, that when his eyes found his beloved, he was shocked to find she was but a babe.

You sat up, pulling yourself out of his grasp.

“Hold up! You mean to say that you had to wait for me to grow up?”

“Again?” he frowned a little. “Y-y-yes, I did.”

Your heart sank at his reply. “What do you mean again? Oh God, don't tell me this happened before.”

Scratching the back of his neck, he sighed. “N-n-not exactly the same way, but that's a-a story for another time.”

“Alright.”

This was common with him. If he wasn't ready to talk about something, then he'd promise to tell you later; whenever that would be. Oh, but a different thought occurred to you. What if he had waited for you to grow up in your reality? Why, that would have been absurd, unless he had met you before, but when? At the moment, you were too tired to go through the whole list of theories. He continued. “In your dream, I had t-to, because time travels differently in - in dreams, and if I-I hadn't had the powers which were granted me, I would have…y-you know.”

“Goodness, you could….. you would have died… before we ever met again. Right? Oh Rick, I know you explained how the dream inceptors worked before, but I sometimes can't wrap my head around it.”

He waited over twenty years in a dream. Who does that? Not anyone you had ever known, but Zeta-7 wasn't just anyone. It spoke volumes about his affection for you, and further about his determination. Looking down at his lanky form, you felt tears pricking at the back of your eyes. He didn't look a day older, but that was the magic of dreams wasn't it? There was always a way. “Thank goodness you're still here. I don't know how I'd live with myself if you had died because of me.”

Giving your hand a light squeeze, you couldn't hold back your tears anymore. You really were were a horrible person. If he wasn't so kind hearted surely he would hate. Your idiocy time and time again had brought him hardship and pain. Why did he love you if your were like this?

You heard the rustling of clothes, and felt his warmth all around you. Pulling you close, he squeezed you tight, telling you it was going to be alright. And all you could do was drown in his unconditional love which is as vast and limitless as the furthest reaches of space. You two remained like this until your tears dried up, and all that was left was comfort. When you found your voice, as sniffly and girlish it was, you wondered. “What did you do with your time? Over all those years?”

With a voice colored with relief, he answered. “All th-that I could.”

___________

The previous king had left the land in disarray, so he did all he could in his power to make things right. Immediately, he made sure the water flowed at a steady pace, and the once dying land in due time was fertile again due to his guidance. And when the people were no longer hungry, and the village prospered, many came to show their devotion and gratitude to the new king. They wondered how they could repay him, but the king didn't need anything. However, when they saw that he needed assistance in planting, and covering the land with flowers, they got to work immediately.

Hybrid blue roses, forget-me-nots, morning glories, night-sky petunias, and any other flower he could conjure would be planted. Only one side was dedicated for those blue flowers; the side with the best view. And the rest of the land that wasn't used for farming was covered with giant sunflowers; all of them for his beloved. Time, it wanted to make him a dreamer, and even if logic told him otherwise, it took a little longer than usual to accept it. Time would pass, and it would all happen soon. He could wait.

“I remember the lovely flowers along the rolling hills.” you commented. “I saw them my whole life and longed for the places I couldn't go. They couldn't be found where I lived because of the climate, but you wanted me to remember, didn't you?”

“I-I did. You see, the last time you thought of blue it was connected with something toxic. Therefore, you a-a-associated the color with something bad, and I hoped you - you would remember your life w-w-with…..”

“With you?”

“With everything y-you cared for.”

He always gave himself too little credit. This man was worthy of so much, and you'd worship the ground he walked on if he'd let you. Tilting your head up, you pressed a kiss on his cheek.“Which is mostly you.”

“R-really?”

“Of course Ricky.”

Tucking a lock of hair behind your ear, he was about to say something, but his ioculus stretched themselves to kiss you before he had a chance to. Wherever they could touch, they kissed, and no matter how much he'd scold them, they were as eager as could be. You'd say they had a bit of a rebellious streak. Not wanting Zeta-7 to worry, you gave into their whim, kissing each bud of theirs on the head, to which made them bloom, and pull away. Honestly, they were adorable, but to Zeta-7, who was naturally reserved and cautious, they were disrespectful, and naughty.

“Gosh,” he blushed. “I'm s-s-so sorry. I didn't - I don't know why they do that.”

Again, you had your theories, believing that they acted upon the true inclinations of the heart, but you kept this to yourself. “It's okay,” you reassured him. “they're not bothering me.”

“They r-really do have a-a mind of their own.”

“So they do.” you giggled. “I um, what I was going to say was that I only remember bits and pieces of the before times. It's funny to call it that, as though I've lived separate lifetimes, but that's how I think of it.”

“Fascinating.”

“You think so? Well, maybe it's like chapters, or alternate dimensions, but that wouldn't explain it either. The before times was from the time I was born and ended when I met Jareth. After I met him, my memory of before got kind of hazy.”

“I-I see. Well, that's - that's perfectly natural. It's like any other dream, which most of - of us can't remember when we wake.”

Then, how come you kept on remembering?

___________________

Over and over, you encouraged him to go on. No detail was too small. Whether it was about the time the villagers tried to offer him a bride, or the creatures he made of ice and stone to be his companions in his castle. Though, there were other things you wanted to know.

“Where I lived it never rained, but it often rained on the mountain. Was it natural, or was it because you cried?”

“Jeez, where d-do I begin? If I-I tried to lessen the importance of a memory, then it - it became somewhat manageable. I thought I would have gotten used to it, because I've spent many years of - of my life alone. But, being with you, I let go of m-my habit of detachment, and without it, how does one forget s-s-so easily?”

“I don't know.” You answered, cause you were still trying to figure that out as well.

“There ugh - there were times when th-the loneliness was almost too hard to bear, and I-I-I couldn't - there was nothing I could do, but I had t-t-to carry on. Still, without trying, the memories lingered, and life seemed to come out of focus.”

“Hmm, I used to wonder about what was going on up there, and what living in that kingdom was like. In your skilled hands it must have been beautiful.”

“It - it was.”

“I used to cry sometimes, because I had heard many sad stories about lonely mountain king. Now, with everything that you told me, I guess it means that a great deal of the stories were true.”

With a nod, he agreed. “Th-they probably were.”

_______________________

“Did you always know where I was?”

“N-n-not always. I could only see so far, even if I - I walked to the edge of the kingdom. However, our first meeting was serendipitous t-t-to say the least. I ugh - I was surprised when y-you found me.”

“I did?”

He raised his brow then, his eyes laughing at the memory. “Yeah, it was while I was resting by the river, after a long day of research. Your mind is such a-a wonderful, fascinating place. I-I never got bored of exploring it, though it - it did make me lonely. My perception of you changed over all this new information. And on that day I-I had been thinking about you when you happened t-to show up. You - you were on your way home, after a-a day of playing in the field, the one nearest to my kingdom. Hohoho, you were holding a daisy chain, and y-you gave it to me.”

“How old was I?”

“Hmm, probably about six or - or seven. I told you that y-you should go home, but you wanted t-t-to play.”

“That does sound like something I'd do. Man, I can't believe you had to deal with a brat like me.”

“No, it - it was no trouble at all. I um - I carried you on my shoulders, until w-we were near your home. And w-waited until you went inside before I went back.”

And you remembered, as fuzzy and foggy as it was, you remembered.

Day by day, you kept having visions of the life before, when you still walked amongst the mortals, and your older male slave was your dearest companion. Why? It didn't make sense, he hadn't even been handsome, but he was kind, loyal, generous, and soft hearted.

Through streams and meadows, with eyes still full of stardust, you followed him as a though you were his humble maidservant. On his sleeves were comet’s hair, his soul made of sunshine, and he too made you very happy. Oh, but it didn't matter anymore; they were simply girlish dreams. Or were they?

“I used to think that you were only a dream, but I saw you near the river a few times over the years after that didn't I?”

With a soft smile, he replied. “Th-that's right.”

“Then why didn't you say anything?”

“Because I wanted y-you to have a choice, and when you got older, I-I-I decided to stay away because the villagers began to talk. I didn't want anyone to be given reason t-to think badly of you.”

That was exactly like him, to look out for your best interests. As a child, at least in your dream living out this second childhood, you did feel funny. Though childish sentiments aside, you had adored the quiet intelligence of his, and the calm, sweet temperament; even when you hadn't the words to match the emotions felt, you carried a strong attachment. “I had missed you, I….it was my favorite part of the day. Why couldn't we have run away together or something?”

Scratching the back of his head, he sighed then looked you dead in the eye, more serious than he had ever been, answering without a stutter. “Because it would have been wrong.”

“I don't understand. It was only a dream.”

“I mean, if I-I would have brought you to my kingdom, you would’ve been given your own wing, and everything y-you desired, but you - you would have stopped aging. That's why I-I never kept any servants, and why you couldn't have come because you would have remained a…you know. ”

“A child.” you finished, and you realized that morally, he would have had to be patient, and focus on the attainable things. “So,” you continued. “you stayed away to keep things appropriate.”

“Mhm. I - I still thought of you as my friend, and I was grateful for even th-that much. I-I knew you wouldn't be a child f-forever, and that I couldn't make time stand still, but neither was I moving along with it. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, into months; it was passing along, and I-I remained the same, but you - you had t-t-to survive, and it would've been selfish to make things harder for you. So, I had to wait.”

TBC

[thelovingschool]

The Fantastic Four to the Fourth Power, Part 1

I've recently finished Doris Kearns Goodwin's excellent book, Leadership in Turbulent Times, in which she details the ways in which four US presidents served as leaders through pivotal historical moments. I reaffirmed my admiration for Abraham Lincoln, as Goodwin discusses his push to make the Emancipation Proclamation a reality. I was invigorated by the way in which Teddy Roosevelt used the executive branch of government to benefit the citizens of the northeast USA during the Coal Miners' Strike of 1902. I gained new appreciation, wonder, and awe in the way that Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the country during his first 100 days in office in the middle of the Great Depression. I came to greatly respect the legislative leadership of Lyndon Johnson as he pushed the most dramatic and beneficial domestic agenda, his Great Society, including the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965. Whatever else Johnson may have done or not done, particularly as it relates to foreign policy and the Vietnam War, his impact on the lives of the citizens in the USA cannot be discredited.

Reading about these four presidents as they grew up, faced challenges ranging from losing elections to losing family members to losing the ability to walk, and ultimately served in the highest office of the nation to great effect was a wonderful experience. I was struck by the common themes that ran through all four of the presidents' leadership challenges. Synthesizing the lessons learned from all presidents, it seems that a leader during turbulent times must:

Have a clear sense of purpose

Adapt along the way to achieving that purpose

Build a solidly functioning team

Pay attention to messaging and timing

Build in time for yourself

Having a clear sense of purpose -- In the summer of 2020, three amazing principals, Sanee Bell, Brian McCann, and Beth Houf gave a phenomenal webinar as part of the virtual National Principals Conference. Beth shared a story of her superintendent bringing the principals in her district together at the beginning of the pandemic and asking them all to spend some time thinking about their purpose, their "why" before sharing them as a group. (Beth's "why" was maintaining relationships with students.) Other leaders have focused on the importance of having a clear purpose, including and especially Baruti Kafele. As we've all learned, what was true before the pandemic only has become exaggerated during the pandemic, and so the need for a clearly defined sense of purpose is truly vital now. My "why" during the pandemic has been to ensure that the teachers with whom I'm lucky enough to work are supported with what they need to be as effective as possible given the challenges of the pandemic.

Be adaptive along the way -- As I've already written, I am a student of philosophy as well. One of my favorite professors, Father Joe Flanagan, was a huge Socrates' fan, and every college freshman can tell you that Socrates is famous for noting how little he knew. In order to achieve your purpose, it's important to accept that we don't have all of the answers, and we will need to continually learn and grow as we work toward our goals. I have personally learned a great deal from the work of Ron Heifetz as he discusses Adaptive Leadership. Without going into another book report (I want to save that for another post), in order to be an adaptive leader, one must understand that the leadership challenge you're facing is not simple to fix, and will require a great deal of learning. Back to that webinar at NPC20, Sanee discussed how even the simple question "how are you?" carries new meaning during the pandemic. If you're going to ask that question, you need to be prepared that you might not get a quick response back. It might even be the start of a very long conversation, and that is OK. We as leaders will need to spend time maintaining those relationships empathetically throughout the pandemic.

Similarly, I realized that while I work hard to build positive culture in my school, supporting teachers during this pandemic is something I simply didn't know how to do. I'm very fortunate to be taking a course through ASCD on supporting educator mental health. The lessons I'm learning have been immediately applicable with the team at our school. Adapting along the way means sometimes changing tactics based on new information, but if you aren't seeking out that new information you won't be able to get where you're going.

Build a solid team -- It goes without saying that none of us can do our jobs alone anymore. None of us ever really could before, either. In The Long Distance Leader, summarized here, authors Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel talk about the important of relying on your team and supporting your team throughout the times when you won't physically be together. The principal I currently work with centered his entry plan three years ago on creating and maintaining a strong divisional leadership team, and he has taught me so much over the course of our partnership. While pandemic economic circumstances have meant our partnership is to come to an end in a couple of months, I am headed to my own first principalship this August, and I feel extremely fortunate. When I asked the Head of School at my future school what he is proudest of (this is his first year there), he said that had he been able to create a leadership team from his 30 years of experience in international schools, he couldn't have created a better team than the one he inherited. That is exactly the kind of joyful, strengths-based, empowering, and collaborative leader I want to work with, and knowing that he shared that information in front of members of the leadership team shows that he is willing to give credit and appreciate his team.

I heard Ben Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, share his insight about leading, that people come to the symphony to hear music, and yet he as conductor is the only member of the orchestra who doesn't make a sound. We as leaders are strengthened by the strengths of our team. We know from the extensive literature out there and our own experience how important it is to have trust on a team, and I'll simply relate something one of my own teammates once said at a previous school about our grade-level team of teachers: "We know each other, so we like each other, so we support each other as we work together."

Messaging Matters -- I can't say it any better than Will Parker does in his book, which my partner principal and I have been learning from all year. Similarly, I loved hearing Joe Sanfelippo at the NPC in Boston in 2019 talk about the importance of shaping the narrative about education, because unless we as school leaders shape the narrative, others are going to fill in the blanks with a negative story. For me, the best example of positive storytelling about school comes from Brian McCann. His article in the latest Principal Leadership magazine is one more example of the ways in which Brian models not just for his teachers, but for the larger professional learning community to which he belongs. In fact, utilizing Brian's idea of Positive Sign Thursday is one of the factors that enabled me to land my next job, so I'm extremely appreciative. The point in all of these examples is of course a lesson that Lincoln knew 160 years ago, that it is through story that we can best communicate our purpose. It's not always easy, finding the balance between too much communication and too little, between being optimistically realistic as opposed to toxically positive, but if we as leaders aren't attending to messaging, we'll lose our chance to build a positive culture.

As an example, we committed to maintaining contact with our families during this school year and having the chance to get feedback from them at least once a month. We did extensive work in August, had a check in virtual town hall during September, and had individual and small group conferences with teachers and students in October. Things were going well. But, as November came along and fatigue set in, we stopped being as intentional about meeting systematically with our parent body, and by the time January rolled around we started to receive emails that were letting us know that we weren't opening up a space for all voices in the community to be heard, and that was leading to speculation and unrest. We're still very fortunate to have a caring community that share ideas in respectful ways, and we have since re-instituted those intentional communication systems at a minimum monthly, and are therefore back to where we had been, but the lesson around the intentionality of messaging is well learned.

As the above example illustrates, timing matters as well. The presidents often had to be wise about when to act and when not to act, when to send messages and when to not send messages. I think of the West Wing episode when President Bartlet's team discusses sending out unpleasant news on Friday afternoons, or "the trash" because no one reads the news on Saturday mornings. Or I think of how fantastic it has been to be able to, just within the last couple of years, schedule emails to be sent at certain times. Of course there are times that I am working late into the evening, but I would feel terrible in the past when I would send out an email at 10 p.m. and get an immediate response from a teacher. There are studies out there that emails received at 6 a.m. are most likely to be read, and my guess is emails received at 10 p.m. are most likely to make you think your principal is a jerk!

Time and Space for Yourself -- Thinking about the presidents, Lincoln would go to the theater or read comedy aloud, Teddy Roosevelt would take strenuous walks, FDR collected stamps. Only Lyndon Johnson had no real outlet activity, and I wonder, if he had been better at taking care of himself throughout his presidency, might he have attended to foreign policy better. Few topics have gotten more press in the educational world lately than self-care for educators, and this is a focus area in the ASCD course I'm taking as well. I am also fortunate to be a part of a group of school leaders that gather for virtual instructional "rounds" periodically, organized by a former professor at Lehigh, Jon Drescher. Self-care came up at the most recent Rounds I attended, and to be honest I find this so difficult. "If we are always working from home, and we're always home, aren't we always working?" was the question I posed, and I have had real trouble answering this. Heifetz and Linsky talk about anchoring yourself by having a confidant to talk with and a sanctuary, be it a ritual, an activity, or a place to disconnect from the demands of the job.

This was especially challenging for me in 2020, as I know it was for many of us, as the hours spent on screens and away from my normal rituals of walking and playing the piano were disrupted by the sheer demands on the job. I've gained thirty pounds in the past year, and I physically don't feel like myself. More importantly, emotionally I have struggled at times. I have been exploring different ways to recover, and like Lincoln I find comedy is helpful. If I can get in a good laugh before bed I sleep better, whether that's watching old clips of Robin Williams doing standup or Netflixing Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. At this point I'll try anything and everything so that I can begin, now that the pandemic is hopefully turning a corner, to feel like myself again.

Part of feeling like myself again is the ability to create something, to produce, based on one of my favorite activities: reading! It's been a joyful experience reading the Goodwin book and the Heifetz/Linsky book, and trying to apply the lessons learned from both to my current role and point in my career. My next post will combine another of my great loves, Harry Potter. Stay tuned to find out which president fits in which house; Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw! Thanks for reading.