#like. this game's ostensibly about loss and grief right

[woodchipp]

This is the wildest rewrite idea I came up with so far (and the biggest one in terms of departure from canon), but here goes nothing.

I think Kel and Hero’s mother should’ve died of complications from giving birth to Kel. I like this idea mainly because it’d make their relationship an “inverse” of sorts to Sunny and Mari’s - in the latter’s case, the younger sibling would resent the older one whereas in the former’s case, the older sibling would resent the younger one - and IMO that’d give it a bit more flavor.

Perhaps their father would lie to Kel that his mom passed away due to natural causes or an accident (and never specify the kind of that accident), but Kel would slowly start suspecting something else at play because of how distant Hero seems to be at times. Hero would see his little brother as the single largest reminder of what he lost, and that’d put a strain on their relationship.

I think this idea would necessitate changing the way the friend group came to be. Maybe Aubrey would be the first person Sunny and Mari befriend, then she’d bring Basil in, and that would be followed by Hero joining, probably after meeting Mari herself. He’d spend time with them because he wants to get away from his home, which he regards as a grave for his mother. He can’t stand seeing pictures of her, he can’t look at the bed she used to share with his father and he wants to detach himself from Kel somehow.

Then, some time later, Kel decides to follow his older brother and meets with the friend group too because he wants to spend more time with him. He’d hit it off with Sunny immediately, and Mari wouldn’t see anything wrong with letting him in, but Hero would for obvious reasons. Of course, he couldn’t simply chase him away - what kind of big brother would do that? Maybe he’d take inspiration from Mari and make himself the group’s “dad”, try to take care of the kids and keep himself together until-

Well.

I think this idea would also lay more solid groundwork for Hero’s complete shutdown and subsequent outburst at Kel. His beloved girlfriend killing herself while he’s still reeling from the loss of his mom wouldn’t be a cakewalk, after all. And hey, that outburst could even confirm Kel’s aforementioned suspicions 🙂

Finally, it’d make Hero’s pursuit of a degree in medicine more tragic. What if he wanted to honor his dead mother’s wish the best he could, but also had this irrational feeling he wouldn't be doing right by her if he were to become a doctor?

A doctor’s job is to save people’s lives, right?

So why couldn’t the doctors save his mother?

[sage-nebula]

I’m going to be honest, I was wary of Happy having a crush on May (and potentially pursuing a relationship with her) when the first Far From Home trailer came out. Not because of anything wrong with Happy, per se, but because Happy’s relationship with Peter in past movies (and commercials) hasn’t been the greatest. Tony had to push Happy to invite Peter to the NBA party, and though Happy finally did invite him, he was dismissive of him and pushed him out the door again almost immediately; he was impatient and snappish toward Peter in Germany, pushing him through the door to the room where his suit was when Peter didn’t know that he even had another suit; he ghosted him for two straight months in the beginning of Homecoming, despite that we know he was reading and listening to Peter’s messages and passing them along to Tony; and even at the end of Homecoming he was still a bit impatient with Peter not realizing that Tony wasn’t also at the school too when Happy said that Tony wanted to meet with him. I don’t think we’ve seen Happy and Peter have even one mutually positive interaction in any of the movies prior to Far From Home, and as a result I had misgivings about Happy pursuing a relationship with May. Not because it would put Peter in any kind of distress or anything (Peter likes Happy well enough and it’s not as if Happy is cruel to Peter), but because there is no way on this planet that May would ever have a relationship with anyone that isn’t friendly, warm, and welcoming to Peter, and so I couldn’t see this ending in any way other than heartbreak unless Happy cleaned up his act.

But thankfully, the new trailer we got for Far From Home shows that he has done exactly that, and honestly I’m pretty excited to see it. Far from literally pushing Peter through doorways, snapping at him, being exasperated at best and irritated at worst by him, not wanting to spend time with him (“If I invite the kid, then I gotta babysit the kid”), and ghosting him, we now see that Happy is not only consoling Peter after Tony’s death (and that Peter feels comfortable enough with Happy to confide in him about his grief!), but that he’s also openly telling Peter’s friends that he “works with Spider-Man.” Gone are the days when Happy didn’t so much as want to watch a basketball game with Peter; now he’s actively assisting Peter in his superheroics by helping keep innocents safe, talking him through his grief and loss, impressing upon him how much Tony loved him and how important it would be to Tony that Peter is here today. Happy seems to have completely turned his act around with regards to Peter, and I think I know why.

I think it’s because Peter was one of Tony’s kids, and Happy knows it, and Happy wants to do right by Tony’s memory by looking after his children.

In one of the last scenes of Endgame, we see Happy sitting alone with Morgan---ostensibly babysitting her---to offer her comfort, and “as many cheeseburgers as [she] wants.” It’s possible that Happy babysat Morgan a lot over the past five years, and that’s why he’s so comfortable with her, but I doubt that Tony or Pepper ever needed to call for a babysitter that much. No, I think instead the reason why we see Happy with Morgan, and the reason why he’s perfectly fine with not only looking after her, but giving her everything she wants, is because she was Tony’s little girl, and Tony loved her 3000, and now Tony’s gone and Happy will be damned if he lets that happen to Morgan, too. Tony gave his life to ensure that Morgan would get to live hers, and Happy’s not going to let that sacrifice be in vain.

And the same thing applies to Peter.

Peter was dead for five years, and I do think that plays a part in Happy’s feelings, too. I think that after Peter’s death Happy reflected on just how cold he always was to Peter before, and I think he regretted it. Yes, Peter had been a hyperactive kid who texted him way too much and added extra work onto Happy’s plate, but he was a good kid who always tried his best and was always friendly no matter how rude Happy had been in the past. When Peter was brought back to life, Happy was given a second chance to build a better relationship with him, and to make up for all the times before when he ghosted or was rude to Peter, and I think that having that second chance is part of his motivation.

But I also think that he wants to do right by Tony’s memory, and to make sure that Tony’s sacrifice was not in vain. Tony loved Peter, and Happy knew it probably better than almost anyone else. Tony told Happy to be Peter’s point guy for Avengers stuff. Tony made Happy invite Peter to the basketball game, explicitly saying, “I like the kid, invite the kid.” Happy got to see and hear Tony’s reactions to all of Peter’s relayed voicemails and text messages. Happy saw Tony put his arm around Peter’s shoulders at the end of Homecoming, was quite possibly the person who took the framed photo that we see in Endgame, and was no doubt the person who picked Peter up for every single lab day in the two years between Homecoming and Infinity War. Tony’s first words after returning from space were “I lost the kid” and he no doubt was the one who relayed Peter’s death to Happy. Happy would know very, very well not only how much Tony loved Peter, but also how hard Peter’s loss hit him. It’s why he’s able to tell Peter that he doesn’t “think that Tony would have done what he did if he didn’t know you would be here when he was gone.” Peter was not biologically related to Tony, nor was he adopted by him, but family is more than DNA and paperwork. Peter was Tony’s son in all the ways that mattered, and Happy would know that, and just like Happy will do whatever he can to look after Morgan, I think he’ll do whatever he can to look after Peter as well, to honor Tony’s memory and make sure that his kids are taken care of even after his death.

(And yes, Morgan has Pepper and Peter has May---don’t think I’ve forgotten them! I would never! But as any parent will tell you, additional help is always appreciated, and Happy can certainly provide that additional help, and I think pretty clearly wants to.)

So with all this in mind, I feel much better about the possibilty of Happy courting May. I think we’ve already seen a vast improvement in Happy and Peter’s relationship just based on the spoiler trailer alone, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where that improvement leads. I’m so relieved that not only does Peter still have contact with Stark Industries, but that Happy is taking a vested interest in looking after him even now that Tony’s no longer around to make him do it. Happy is looking after Tony’s kids---both of them---and that really just makes me so proud of him. 

[poorquentyn]

Considering Spielberg is your (second?) favorite director, do you have any kind of ranking of his filmography? (If so, I hope you give Empire of the Sun the high marks it deserves. It's the quintessential Spielberg film! A boy's own adventure story that gets eaten alive by a war drama!)

*rubs hands together*

Ok, so, only ones where he was in the director’s chair; none of even those producer’s credits where you can feel his indelible stamp on the final product, so no Goonies, Gremlins, Poltergeist, or Back to the Future. Even then, I’m leaving out a lot, so honorable mention to Lincoln, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can, War of the Worlds, The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies, the two worthwhile Indy sequels…

10. Jurassic Park

Start with the gaze upon himself: Jurassic Park as a $63 million self-portrait released on the exact tipping point of his career. John Hammond and Steven Spielberg’s miracles are one and the same: one brings dinosaurs back, the other convinces us they’re real. One uses DNA, the other uses CGI. When the characters stare in wonder, they’re meant to mirror our own at the imagery; when Jeff Goldblum mutters “that crazy son of a bitch actually did it,” he’s speaking for an entire industry once again forced to up its game by a Spielberg Miracle.

Our protagonist, however, is shitty with computers, so Alan Grant terrifies a child the old fashioned Jaws way: with a prop (a raptor claw) and his imagination. Hammond whisks him away from that to a world where one can press a button and make yourself appear on screen, mirroring how Spielberg has done the same with Hammond as his craft has evolved from malfunctioning sharks to CG velociraptors. The heart of the film comes when this giddy wonder in the possibilities of “we have the technology” is soured and our author avatar is left disillusioned and afraid, eating ice cream in a room full of merch he’ll never sell (but Spielberg will), telling Laura Dern about how he started off with a flea circus. That, right there, is a metaphor for moviemaking, and specifically Spielberg’s brand of it: pulling invisible strings to make us think that impossible things are real, to make belief believable.

Above all, Jurassic Park is afraid for the kids. Another perfect metaphor for the meta-tastic whole comes when the T-Rex crashes down through the car roof, only glass separating him from devouring the children; their hands are desperately keeping the monster behind the rectangular transparent plane, on the screen, even as Spielberg/Hammond’s tech is so real it threatens to burst right through. “He left us!” one kid wails about the character representing the studio weasels. “But that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Alan Grant whispers, half in shadow, blue eyes ablaze with a promise he didn’t know he was going to make. He can’t keep it. There are monsters in the kitchen. Spielberg’s next movie, released only a handful of months later, is Schindler’s List.

9. Duel

Such a seam scratches the tape; rewind, start again. Where did this begin? On TV, in the backseat of a car, backing out of the garage. Duel is the world’s most accomplished demo reel, cinema stripped down to its bare minimum to let the director’s preposterous surplus of talent shine through. It’s about a man (named Mann, both appropriate and touchingly pretentious) who pisses off a truck driver we never see, who then chases our protagonist with lethal intent, and that’s it.

And that’s all Spielberg needs. What follows is the future, a steel-shod gauntlet of precise camera angles and insidious sound design that builds the bridge between the B-movie and the blockbuster. By the end you feel spent but sated, as if every possible creative drop has been wrung out of the slim scenario. It’s nothing more nor less than the finest Roadrunner & Coyote episode imaginable, to the extent that George Miller was clearly reaching back to it for inspiration again and again in Fury Road. Indeed, while Duel is set in the modern day, Spielberg needs no trickery to make the antagonistic truck look positively apocalyptic.

It’s such a vivid example of the medium’s unique possibilities that you have to stop to remember that it was made for TV. And then you stop to think that he was only 24, same age Welles was when he made Citizen Kane. Lofty comparison, I know, but Duel proves it’s not what your movie is about, but how it’s about it that counts. Spielberg made it look easy, and so everyone followed. The road goes ever on and on…

8. Munich

…until it doesn’t. No exit.

Munich is the culmination of Spielberg’s Blue Period, his great here-comes-another-bloody-century trepidation, punctured by Stanley Kubrick’s death and 9/11. The former gave birth to A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the movies about closing doorways and agonized faces that followed. The latter palpably haunted Spielberg’s projects in its wake: even Minority Report, a script written years earlier and adapted from a decades-old story, was uncannily timely in its portrait of overreaching security and law enforcement built to placate (and control) a population reeling from loss. Then came the director’s outright Twin Towers Trilogy: The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich, addressing the event from different angles and through different filters. Of course, the intriguing and emotional setup in The Terminal’s opening minutes, framing post-9/11 bureaucracy as fluid chaos eating away at the state from within, quickly gives way to disappointing inanity. And while I maintain that War of the Worlds is absolutely perfect as an on-the-ground recreation of 9/11 as an alien attack for the first 50-60%, things go downhill fast once Tim Robbins shuffles onscreen.

Munich is the one that actually has the courage of its convictions, in large part because it’s about the director and protagonist alike breaking down in tears and admitting they don’t know what to believe anymore. Every set piece unfolds with a quiet chill and ends with you contemplating mortality. It’s a deliberately non-thrilling thriller. The ideology dissolves, not in neat bromides but in the day-to-day realities of ending human beings. Revenge fills you with fire, hot and bright, and then turns sour in your mouth. Narrative strands cross and recross, and the film’s inciting event, murder before the world’s watching eyes, sinks into that abyss known as Context.

By the end, you don’t even know what you’re fighting for anymore but your family, and you’re haunted by the knowledge that your kids will be fighting the same damn fight. The last thing to be corrupted, then, is the dinner table. Our protagonist begs to break bread with his handler, and the final word of the Blue Period is “no.” The camera tilts over to the Twin Towers, their loss contextualized as just another curl of a horrorshow helix, and the exorcism is complete. The anger and grief has largely vanished from Spielberg’s work since, as he’s settled into a comfortable John Ford mode. He left his questions here, unanswered.

7. Minority Report

If A.I. was Spielberg’s 2001, a millennia-spanning epitaph for humanity and a glimpse of what we leave behind, Minority Report (following the Kubrick trajectory) would be his Clockwork Orange, stepping down from the stars to gaze with cold horror on the things we do to one another with power. In the future, three young seers see crimes before they happen, enabling the state to lock people away for crimes they haven’t committed in the name of wiping out crime for good. Indeed, this fleet fluid fever dream makes explicit visual reference to Clockwork’s Ludovico scene (see above). In Spielberg’s memory machine, though, the image of an eye forcibly kept open by metal claws takes on a meaning beyond social and political analysis, though those are certainly still in there. It’s something more spiritual: Minority Report is about divine sight in a postmodern age.

Our protagonist’s rival went to seminary, his own men tell him they’re more priests than cops, but Tom Cruise’s John Anderton can’t bring himself to recognize the Spielberg Miracle at work here. The larger moral revelation of the “precogs,” the framing of their ability to see crimes before they happen as a techno-noir version of Biblical prophecy, is lost on Anderton because it can’t bring his son back. For him, that the future is known points to the futility of human existence. If there’s no free will, if we’re all doomed to perpetually fall in a fallen world, what’s the point?

And then one of the precogs asks him: “Do you see?” So begins the murder mystery that will see him accused of a future murder, that of the man who ostensibly killed his son. Anderton chooses mercy, only for the man to grab and pull the trigger because it’s all a setup to prevent Anderton from learning the truth about the precogs: they, too, are children stolen from their parents, all our characters trapped in a Möbius strip of loss they can only watch unfold, again and again, as if on the film’s countless screens. The images have been manipulated to hide the truth, the divine vision sullied by contact with the greedy exploitative systems of the Blue Period. But our detective finds the truth, and an existential triumph in making the right choice even if he can’t change the outcome. I’ve always taken the happy ending, a startling glimpse of green after a movie of blues and grays that look etched in stone, as just another vision. Closure is there, your family is there, in the future, in the past, just out of reach, smiling back at you. It hurts to look, but even as your eyes are torn out and replaced, you can’t look away.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Well now, see, this one’s a tad criticism-proof by design, being as it is smelted and shaped to get under your defenses. “Disarming” seems like a strange choice of defining adjective for this most white-knuckled of action/adventure movies, but for all the staggering moviemaking skill on display, Raiders is ultimately a puppy shoving its nose under your hand. Given the slightest opportunity, it will make you love it. Fun is its religion, so deeply felt and communicated is the generous desire to entertain, rooted in the pulp serials that first lit the fire in its makers’ bellies to create.

And that fire again burns hot and bright, which is Raiders’ other secret magic trick: underneath all the cleverness, the jokes within jokes and setpieces spilling into ever more elaborate ones, the sense that every single moment was designed to make the rest of the genre look paltry and stingy by comparison, what happens at the end is nothing less than the very specifically Old Testament God stepping in to fry Nazis’ faces off. It’s the Ghostbusters trick of grounding helium-high hijinks in metaphysical forces that are not in any way kidding around. Our action hero, at the climax of the movie, is simply the one who (in an inverse of Minority Report) is smart enough to look away. So many Spielberg movies boil down to a shaft of divine light, and sometimes the light burns.

Then came the bizarre, hallucinogenic Temple of Doom and the sturdy, winning Last Crusade and that fourth one we don’t talk about, but they’re all in some way reactions to the nigh-flawless original. All you can do is go back, wearing the leather deep, Indy ageless, his eyes blazing shut against the light.

5. Empire of the Sun

Equally criticism-proof, but for the exact opposite reasons. This is the one no one can quite explain. Spielberg isn’t telling; he might not have any more idea than the rest of us. It shares certain themes with the rest of his work, especially regarding how children process the collapse and change of their world, but the similarities are strictly on paper. It feels different. I don’t what it…is. What it’s for. What it means. These sound like bad things, but they’re not. Empire of the Sun is utterly arresting, every bit as much as those canonized Spielberg classics of which anyone can explain the appeal. It’s just that it unfolds like a dream, and I’m left grasping after it in the same way. It might be one of the more accurate adaptations put to film in only that it feels so much more novelistic in its thrust and tone than most.

What can be pinned down is a series of images and sounds about the fall and occupation of Shanghai by Japan in WWII, told from the perspective of the naive sheltered son of a British emissary. Our hero is played by Christian Bale, in what might be my favorite child performance. To the extent that Empire of the Sun is about anything beyond the experience of watching it, it’s about his breakdown, and that’s what grounds the dreamlike style: we’re watching a bubble burst. Death and decay unfold out of the corner of his eye, like a memory he can’t quite bear to fully recall. His childhood vanishes when he shrieks surrender at anyone who will listen, trusting the rules to snap back into place and the world to make sense again, only for the collapse to continue unabated.

It’s made out of smoke and corners and quiet sadnesses. It’s runny, like an egg. I dream about it sometimes. You should watch it if you haven’t.

4. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

*harrumphs, wipes eyes* so um uh my name is Emmett, you see, and it begins with a….an ends with a….shut up.

That’s the point, though, of the movie: identification so strong that it almost kills you. E.T. is love, that’s all. All of it is here, from pure warm glow to heart stopping loss, swept up in imagery and sound that seem to positively hum with rich rueful feeling. Much has been made of how much of the movie is shot from a child’s POV, but everything about the movie operates on kid-logic. ET himself, for example: botanist or pet? Both. The connection he forges with Elliott swirls all such categories together. Elliott needs this, is yearning for love so badly, and even when it hurts, he’s more alive than he was before, with Dad gone.

But what makes E.T. different from, say, Star Wars and Harry Potter is that our hero only gets a taste of this other world, his fingertips brushing against magic as he passes it in the night. The gold-and-purple-brushed cinematography and the ecstatic, eternally swelling score sweep the profound and mundane together as one, bike rides and trick-or-treating and a psychic connection with an alien, yet the narrative eventually teases them apart like a sad parent forced to tell their kid that the dog is dead, and what “dead” means. ET returns to life, the definitive Spielberg Miracle…and then he leaves. Elliott will go home to his melancholy, frustrating life. School is still hard. His emotions still confuse him. Dad is still gone. The final shot of his face is not one of wonder, but maturation. It’s the moment Elliott grows up, and it’s the very definition of bittersweet.

What do you do, when you’ve loved and lost? You go home, you play with your toys, you send letters into Weird Things and Such SF Monthly, you make movies in your backyard, and you watch the skies….

….until they come back.

All of them.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I smiled just typing the words. I whispered them to myself, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This movie is a lil shining red ball dancing in my eyes; it is glee given form, a rainbow-colored pony ridden by a Willy Wonka-suited Care Bear on twenty tabs of LSD. The last half-hour, all glowing light and warm noise, earns the cliche: it makes you feel like a kid again, in the best possible way. After a movie’s buildup of wonder and terror, the sight and sound of a colossal lit-up mothership cheerfully BWAMMing out a melody is so cathartic that it’s impossible to sit still.

As with Raiders, though, it’s worth digging into the movie’s layers to understand where that light is coming from, and what it costs you to look at it. Close Encounters is a movie about communication, of course, from the alien lights to the translator forever accompanying Francois Truffaut (a filmmaker who knows a thing or two about capturing kid-logic on screen). It’s a movie about the fragility of family life in the face of the unknown, hence that devastating scene around the dinner table: something’s wrong with Dad, a subject near and dear to the director’s heart.

But above all else, it’s a religious movie, the religious movie. It’s about rushing upwards, and leaving all else behind. Roy Neary sees a divine light in the sky, and can’t reconcile it with the life he was living. He obsessively recreates his vision in idols, chases it across the country, driving his wife and children away in favor of his fellow prophets: here are my mother and my brothers. And the sting in that gorgeous symphonic ending’s tail is that it’s so good that Roy sheds this mortal coil to join them in the heavens. Spielberg has said that if he made it now, he wouldn’t have let  Roy get on that ship. And when you look at E.T. or the movies he made from Schindler forward, it’s clear why: in joining the interstellar flock, the man-child left his family to the wolves. By the time Roy/Eliot came home, his skin had sagged, his hair had gone white, and his children were waiting for him with eyes that cut.

And what do their movies look like?

2. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

The ultimate deconstructed fairytale; a honeyvelvetacid-glazed gaze into a heart-shaped abyss; Kubrick a darkwinged angel looming over ET’s crib, brushing a final tear away from his metallic eye…

So does Steven Spielberg, our flesh and blood Peter Pan, grow old and tell the children he lied. The monster is inside the house, inside your head, and inside the stories. At the core is a child’s innocent love for his mother…programmed in him, by her, a debt she cannot and will not repay. “His love is real, but he is not.” Pinocchio but for robots, A.I. takes its sci-fi trappings as a launching pad for a guiding philosophical question: “if a robot could genuinely love a human, what responsibility would that person hold towards that mecha in return?” The boardroom exec who poses that question pauses, almost bashful to ask the next one in a room full of people who treat the abuse of robots like a joke or a PowerPoint presentation, and then proceeds: “it’s a moral question, isn’t it?”

It is indeed, and for David’s adoptive family, the answer is none. He is abandoned, and chases his Blue Fairy and his happy ending across the apocalypse. As his fellow robots are torn apart to the cheers of the crowd in front of him, as his entire environment upends his hardwired fairytale logic into a sleazy neon-and-smoke nightmare, as his companion Gigolo Joe warns him presciently that “they made us too smart, too quick, and too many…they hate us because they know that when they’re gone, all that will be left is us,” David keeps looking for the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real boy so Mommy will love him again. He has no choice. His brain literally will not let him do otherwise. There is no will to power here, no core he can call upon to upend his puppet masters’ plan and prove himself Human After All. All he has is love, and they’ve used it to enslave him: at journey’s end, he finds his maker, who reveals that everything post-abandonment was staged to test if his love held. It did, and as such that love is now a corporate-approved field-tested quality-assured Feature that can be passed onto the hungry customer. This is not a Hero’s Journey, because you are not a person. You are a thing, and this is a product launch. David sees a dozen faces like his, stretched on a rack and ready. There is a row of boxes. They have David’s silhouette on them. All of a sudden, one starts to rattle and shake…

In the face of this existential horror (“my brain is falling out”) David promptly chooses suicide, whispering “Mommy” as he jumps from the statue he saw in his first moments. Down in the void, he finds the Blue Fairy and prays to her for millennia, but she cannot answer his eternal plea. She is a statue. An image, nothing more. She crumbles into a thousand pieces in his arms. He finds his mother, too. She is a fake, a digital mirage. Future robots create a simulacrum of her, as David himself was a simulacrum to replace her comatose son, designed in the image of his creator’s dead son…and of course, he cannot tell the difference. He gets his happy ending, on the surface. Underneath, what’s actually happening is that he’s an orphan who will never grow up being shown a movie and told everything is going to be all right. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts…

…but it doesn’t matter how much he wants it, that is not his mother and his mother never loved him. We know these things even if he doesn’t. He claps because he believes in fairies, forever, eyes and smile frozen, waiting for them to appear, any second now. This is Spielberg showing you a brain on Spielberg. David followed Story over the waterfall’s edge, and now has only time’s vasty deep into which to shout “I love you” and convince himself the echoes are his make-believe savior and his long-dead mom. There is only the water that swallowed up Manhattan, and then the world, and him with it…

Wait.

There’s something in the water.

1. Jaws

To borrow from Alien, the closest thing it has to a peer: Jaws’ structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. You could just call it the perfect movie and walk away, except that if you try the floor tilts up beneath you and down you go into the mouth, the most abyssal maw in imagination’s history, and those black eyes roll over to white and you beg for more.

Run down the pedestals at the Movie Museum: Citizen Kane wants you to breathe in a life. Rashomon wants you to question how storytelling works and what Truth actually is, or if it exists at all. Jaws wants to eat you. Not the characters, you. That’s what Spielberg figured out how to do, and the entire industry reshaped itself around copying him: tonal immersion so absolute that he could make the audience feel anything he wanted, on a dime. Hitchcock played your spine like the devil on a fiddle; Spielberg is a rainbow-wigged mad scientist strapping you on a rocket to the sun. He created his own genre, and it’s the one that still dominates the medium in every corner of the globe. With a shark. A shark that, as a prop, did not fucking work.

Details? How do you pull one strand out of a web like this one? I can only say “perfect” so many times, but I mean it. Shot for shot, line by line, beat by beat. Every domino falls. The calm moments and the funny ones and the frantic blood-soaked ones, everything is earned. As with Raiders, the highest compliment I can pay is that other movies taste like shit for a month afterwards. When I hear the word “craftsmanship” I do not think of cars or cabinets, I think of Jaws. It feels hewn.

The numbers came later. The myth, the legend, the pale imitations, the bad sequels, the ripple effects, all secondary. What Jaws is, is sensation. It cannot have been made, surely, it hatched. It was never launched. It will never fall. Smile, you son of a–

[thedogsled]

This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.

This episode was like Castiel, it literally wouldn’t let me sleep. I woke up still screaming from last night because omfgsoshookwtfwtf, but hopefully the rest of this will make more sense. This will ultimately be a “Destiel of it all” sort of post, so bear with me if that’s what you’re here for.

I was thinking about how often meta writers have to defend the ‘We’re not psychic don’t ask us to speculate’ thing, which from the perspective of all involved just sucks. If something doesn’t go as predicted then two things often happen: the reader ends up disappointed, and the meta writer gets it rubbed in their face. That sucks. But the thing is that particularly after episodes like last night’s, readers are going to be more convinced than ever that meta writers can see the future, and I wanted to go through some of the reasons why just so that you’re all on the same page about it.

By reading into the meta, meta writers observe the trends of both how the writers write, how they engage the audience in text and subtext, how the visual effects and everything else comes together to produce a storyline, and how parallels tie us into the present day. When you start with the premise that “every story is about Sam and Dean or Sam or Dean in some way” which PTB have stated in the past, then untangling what those stories mean about our boys makes perfect sense, and that’s what meta writers do. So Bloodlines? Was about our boys. That episode where Dean and Sam work Rufus and Bobby’s old case? Was about our boys. It’s all about Sam and Dean (and when it’s not, it’s about the people closest to them ftr).

Now a lot of it I will give you is that if you throw out enough words some of them will stick. It’s almost inevitable; there’s only so many stories you can tell, especially if you consider that the characters are going to be who they are. That’s helpful. That’s where reading character and subtext really comes in. When you’re complimenting a fanfiction writer on how IC their characters are, you’re complimenting their read of a character on screen. A good empathic reader will be able to generally predict how a character will act in a given situation because they’re following the general trend of their storyline and know how they deal with similar situations in the past (especially with such a huge canon to draw from as SPN).

Let me talk about 13x04, though, because we were screeching with delight all the way through it. I hate to say “I told you so” but... And while you read the following I want you to think – with an open mind - about this question: If meta writers were right about all of this based on our read of the text/subtext then maybe they’re not wrong about Destiel.

P.S. this is an instinctual first read, I haven’t even had a chance to rewatch the episode yet, and through conversation I expect I’ll change my mind here and there.

Under the cut because it’s HUGE

The Empty

Prediction: The Empty is the place where all angels go when they die. Castiel will face himself in the Empty. He will struggle with his past experiences, all the wrong he’s done and overcome it through force of will. He may have to confront his feelings for Dean in some way. The word love may come up. An act of free will – a choice to return – will set him free.

A handful of counter predictions: Cas will face someone else in the Empty. Jack will be the one to get Cas out. Cas will face all the other facets of himself. Cas will be the only thing in the Empty.

What we had to go on: A couple of interviews in which Misha mentioned how weird (and completely different to other things he’s done on SPN so far) the work he did for the Empty was, how boring it was, that he worked with another actor (and that the actor was handsome); Castiel’s depression arc; Jack can’t get him out; the tiniest flash in the promo after 13x03 of Godstiel and a gooey black figure. This is a show about choice and free will, not magic powers saving the day (look at the season 11 finale)

What we got: The Empty is the place when angels and demons go to when they die. Castiel faces himself in the Empty but it is in fact an ancient spirit older than God who just wants a nap. He’s forced to live out his past experiences, all the wrong he’s done, and overcomes it through force of will. He is forced to confront his feelings, the word love comes up, and he chooses to return to Earth.

To sum up: The show gives us some surprises, Misha trolls with us, but ultimately we get what we expect and meta writers look psychic.

 Sam Winchester’s Emotions

Prediction: Sam Winchester has feelings too. He is struggling in particular with the loss of Mary, and the reason why it’s predominately on his mind more than Cas is because he’s grieving her more than Dean. Sam is better at hiding what he feels, but he is hurting right now, and sooner or later we’ll see it. Probably in an episode that’s all about grief… In addition: Sam’s treatment of Jack is not healthy, and recalls Ruby’s training of Sam in a lot of creepy ways, and sooner or later someone has to call him on it. The way he’s treating Jack is due to his feelings about Mary and about himself.

Counter predictions: Sam Winchester’s feelings are more important than Dean’s, also he is totally right about Jack, and about his approach to Jack’s training etc. and nothing will go wrong with putting that much pressure on what is essentially a small child.

What we had to go on: 12 fucking seasons of Sam Winchester acting tough on the outside, needling Dean viciously about his emotions, and only sharing his own after he makes Dean crack. 12 seasons of Sam putting practicality before himself. 12 seasons of the boys bottling things up while you scream at them until you’ve had enough and they’ve had enough and they have a big fight and briefly go their separate ways. Have you watched them? Also: every time Mary was in the room Sam wanted to get closer to her physically since he couldn’t manage it emotionally. He never knew his mother, but Mary didn’t know him either, and Sam is much more a stranger to her than Dean is. Mary connects with Dean, and it’s Dean who gets to settle things with her in her nightmare world, and Sam is feeling a loss that he’s felt his entire life. Basically all Sam’s MOL arc.

What we got: Sam needled Dean about his grief, and then Sam fucking lost it. This was a surprise to half the audience who for some reason didn’t see it coming. And you know what Sam did after he lost it? He went back into hunter mode like it was out of style and went after the monster. That’s my boy.

To sum up: We don’t talk enough about Sam, but you know what? I feel most of us (unless we were somehow oblivious to Sam doing anything more than caring for the nougat and being Good) knew that Sam stuff was coming. Sam doesn’t have less emotions than Dean, he just has them differently.

 Jack Kline misses his mother and other stories

Prediction: Jack is all alone in the world and he misses his mother. He is genuinely scared of Dean. He still thinks Sam is using him. He thinks Dean is going to kill him and wants to earn his approval/wants Dean to like him. He just wants to be a real boy and play video games and watch tv. He will learn to use his powers more. Jack will be the boys’ intern (dig the grave) and be integral in dealing with the monster of the week. Jack is more human than Dean thinks and more monster than Sam thinks. He thinks he’s going to become a monster, but he’ll get to choose.

What we had to go on: Jack’s growth so far. Promo photos. Alexander’s interviews etc. etc. And the theme of this season which is “we can choose who we want to be”.

Other predictions: ……….were there any?

What we got: Totally owned it. On top of that we got a monster who was choosing to be good and doing good, who came into an episode ostensibly about ghosts and made it an episode 100% not about ghosts. I was surprised and delighted. And that monster shapeshifted into Jack’s mom and hugged him and told him he could be anyone he wanted to be. Also Anakin Skywalker references but I saw that coming 500 years ago.

To sum up: I love this kid and I love his storyline and what he reflects in Sam and Dean. Just like Sam, he misses his mom, and just like Dean, he misses Cas. What more can you ask for?

 Dean Winchester is a Dick

Prediction: Dean, who is feeling the loss of his love, is acting a lot like John when he lost Mary. Dean is in grieving and not handling it well. He’s throwing his rage around and it’s not making him or the people around him – who are also grieving – feel better. He’s being a dick. He will realize this at some point (either by grief counsellor or Sam’s needling) and start trying to work past it. He’ll also acknowledge that maybe the nougat isn’t all bad and start to like him a little bit (will need to acknowledge him somehow and put to rest the idea that he will turn around and kill him the second he knows how).

What we had to go on: How Dean has acted so far, and the general idea that the situation as it is is unsustainable. We as an audience needed Dean to start moving past his grief because it’s too hard to watch. We also had the recent interview tease that Sam and Dean’s perspectives on Jack would be flipping, and all of the callbacks and parallels that we’ve had to John so far this season.

Other predictions: DEAN ISN’T A DICK. DEAN IS NOT JOHN. STFU. Also Sam is the more emotional brother??? Er, and of course Dean can do no wrong and he is 100% right about his treatment of Jack and his delivery of the threat to kill him.

What we got: Sam said that Dean is acting like John and Dean asked if that was such a bad thing. Dean opened up about some of his feelings and triggered Sam’s outburst, he also acknowledged his anger, said out loud that he’s being a dick, exposed how bad a place he’s in emotionally, and acknowledged what his anger is doing to Jack. He let the nougatty goodness into his heart, and still suitably wary or not, he gave the kid a chance. He also made it clear that his pain is not all about Mary, because Sam who was more upset about Mary was freed up emotionally by talking about her with the grief counsellor while Dean is still not in a good place and as much as says so, with a direct “I have no faith” parallel right before a screen flip to Castiel getting out of the Empty when Cas is the one who introduced Dean to the nebulous idea of “faith” in the first place.

 Other things predicted that happened:

Sam and Dean resolved their dispute

Sam and Dean flipped opinions on Jack and Mary by finally listening to each other and taking each other’s opinions/feelings/instinct into account

More INCREDIBLE PARALLELS signed sealed and delivered

Jack is getting happier

The real unfettered Castiel loves nature

Mention of unrequited love?!?!

Post depression: “A brand new you” + new coat and new tie + SUNSHINE

idk some other stuff this episode was packed

 A caveat about meta writers, Castiel and Destiel:

We get excited too. We’re human and we’re excited for potential things that don’t happen too. Now while it became very clear that this would be an episode about motherhood a few days ago, for weeks we’ve been talking about just how nice it would be if Dean acknowledged his pain for Cas somehow too. But you know what? That wasn’t this episode, and that’s okay.

What isn’t okay is rubbing it in people’s faces and saying ‘haha Dean doesn’t care about Cas’ because bro, we’ve had three episodes where it was all about Cas. The thing was, Cas was in this episode (and not just because he was literally in this episode). He filled all the negative space. He is the source of Dean’s anger, which they were about to address when the monster of the week decided that their counselling session had run out of time.

Castiel was there, and I know for sure some of the folks around here will show you just how much in the coming week.

Did we want the counsellor to change into Cas too? Mm. Me personally no, because Dean’s grief doesn’t work like that. He’s not about to accept a replacement for Cas or his Mom. And hug the shapeshifter who may or may not (on her word alone) want to belly stab him? That would never happen; he wouldn’t let down his guard like that. So say I, but I’m sure there will be a heartbreaking coda where I get to read all about it so maybe my opinion will change.

Did I want him to talk about it? In retrospect no. Look, I’d love for a magic bullet to put Sam on the same page as Dean about Cas but actually…I’m quite happy with the subtext as it is. Dean talking about Cas with someone he doesn’t know out of the blue like that would cheapen it for me. Hell, in some ways I want Sam to work out and put a name to Dean’s love for Cas himself, because I think he’s the only person who can convince Dean that it’s alright.

So about Destiel. If you’ve been keeping up then this episode should be a primer for what meta writers are capable of extrapolating from a story based on where it’s been in the past, how storywriting works and what the characters are like. Now, if that can be accomplished for one episode, and we have all these clues to years of subtext between Dean and Castiel, then I have to ask you: do you believe us yet? And if not, why not? What key piece is missing at this point?

The thing is we look at the story, we look at the negative space, the cinematography, the tropes, and this bell is ringing noisily in our heads, train whistled and fangirl screams and all the rest of it: HERE COMES THE DESTIEL TRAIN! It’s impossible to ignore. It’s so impossible to ignore it makes people who’ve never seen the canon think they’re in love, it makes people who come into the show determined not to be swept away by Destiel see it anyway, and it makes members of the GA shift in their seat and go “There’s something weird about Dean and Cas right?”

So please. If you’re still not convinced that this show is going to go there, do me one small favour. Okay ‘small’ is a little off the mark, but. Go back and watch parts of the show again, but instead of watching it determined to ignore Dean’s feelings for Cas, watch for those moments instead. Watch it because you want to see it there: watch Dean stare through the Gas N Sip window at his friend; watch Dean’s face after April kills him; watch him stare into a mirror and try and remember Castiel’s name; watch Cas offer to die for him just so Dean doesn’t have to do it alone; watch as even Lucifer calls Dean out on the way he calls Cas’ name; feel the tension in the room where Dean shoves Cas back across the room and stares at his goddamn mouth; watch him mourn and mourn and mourn and pray and beg for his friend back.

Meta readers read what’s there. They aren’t psychic, they aren’t making predictions, and occasionally they’ll be wrong. But maybe, just maybe, we’re not wrong about this.

I believe, Dean. I believe.

[junker-town]

SB Nation reviews: Mewtwo

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The story of the powerful clone Pokemon is also a story of regaining innocence

Style 8

Content 9

Total 8.5

Team Rocket aren’t known for their insight. But halfway through Pokemon: The First Movie, the notoriously inept criminal gang are the ones who shed light on the story of the world’s most powerful Pokémon. The trio of Jessy, James, and Meowth, sneak into Mewtwo’s fortress, and after accidentally activating a video of Mewtwo’s creation inside the building’s replication center, Jessy says, “Oh, a real Pokenstein.”

Mewtwo is a legendary Pokémon introduced in the first generation of the games. He’s appeared in many different forms in the Pokémon universe, but his first major appearance, in Pokemon: The First Movie, is by far the most interesting. In what is ostensibly a children’s movie of love and belonging, Mewtwo grapples with themes of creation, grace and belonging, situating itself clearly alongside Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. But Mewtwo’s story, while derivative, adds to Shelley’s, moving beyond it in fascinating ways.

Both Mewtwo and Dr. Frankenstein’s infamous Creature are science experiments whose rage is fueled by rejection. The world around them sees them as monsters. Dr. Frankenstein flees from his firstborn; The scientists that cloned Mewtwo, and Giovanni, the leader of team Rocket who funded the program, reduced him to an object to be used, rather than a sentient being to be respected and cared for. Both Mewtwo and the Creature are pained by unimaginable loneliness.

Just before the Creature disappears for the last time, he says: “But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” The Creature, abandoned and denied companionship by his own creator, and shunned by the human world, is condemned to isolation forever.

Mewtwo, after destroying Giovanni’s lab when Giovanni claimed that the purpose of the Pokemon was simply to serve those who created him, stood over the rubble of the building and declared: “I was not born a Pokémon, I was created. And my creators have used and betrayed me. So, I stand alone.”

By the nature of their birth and being, both Mewtwo and the Creature are utterly forsaken.

Shelly referred to the Creature in Frankenstein as “Adam”, created and then shunned by his Maker. Mewtwo is not quite Adam. When Team Rocket watches the video of Mewtwo’s creation, Mew, the Pokémon that Mewtwo is cloned from, floats placidly behind them.

Unlike Mewtwo, the Creature is an original. There is none like him. Frankenstein, coerced, agreed to make a bride for him, but then destroyed the second creature before completion, which exacerbated the Creature’s loneliness and anger still further.

Mewtwo is a copy. The first thing he learns is that he is a clone of Mew. This knowledge, the fact that he is naught but ‘Mew’s shadow,’ enrages him.

He learns at the moment of birth the lesson what the Creature learned at the edge of death: he is the desolate result of an experiment, and no more. At least the Creature has the consolation of being singular, where Mewtwo was made from DNA extracted from Mew’s metaphorical rib.

Mewtwo is Eve to the creature’s Adam. He doesn’t fall from grace: he’s “born” already outside the gates of Eden. Adam is brought to life by Frankenstein, while Mewtwo willed himself to awareness, his first thought being, “I am ready to be.” And when his eyes opened, he spoke as if he was lost. He didn’t ask “who am I?”, but instead, where.

The rebuilt replication center is Mewtwo womb, allowing him to create life. Immediately after Team Rocket watched the video, a machine grabbed Meowth and plucked three of his hairs out. In a few seconds, it cloned the Pokemon and sent the clone Meowth into an incubation tube. The center had several Pokemon in such tubes already. There they slumbered, waiting for Mewtwo to awaken them with his psychic powers. He would will them to life, as he did for himself.

In Readings, the French poet and philosopher Hélène Cixous, writes that after the initial fall from grace, when the forbidden fruit has been consumed, “We can no longer be innocent innocents, since we belong to the world of the afterward ... We have left paradise or the space of the nonfault. We are now on the path between nonfault and the limit, rather than the effacement, of the fault.”

That first innocence of the garden can never be regained. “But all hope is not lost. A second innocence is not necessarily impure. It can be found again if ... following the loss of a first innocence, we go around the earth to arrive at the other side. ”

Mewtwo never went around the Earth. He never actually left the scene of his birth. He centers his story right outside the womb. He destroyed the lab which birthed him twice, once after his initial contact with the scientists who cloned him, and then after his time with Giovanni, only to rebuild it. Cast out of Eden, he constructed the walls anew. He hadn’t found a suitable reason to move forward.

The first time Mewtwo asked about his true purpose, Giovanni didn’t answer. He suggested instead that it would become clear in time. After Giovanni used Mewtwo to defeat Pokemon trainers for some time, Mewtwo returned to the question. What is my purpose? Giovanni responded by saying that Mewtwo was made to be a slave. He was created to serve his master.

Then Mewtwo said, “This cannot be.” He might have been created as an experiment and expected to serve, but the brute fact of creation cannot trespass within the vaults of one’s soul. Mewtwo knew innately that as a living thing, a sentient being, servitude could not possibly be his purpose of existence. Freedom was his natural right. And with that freedom came also the obligation to revolt against anyone who threatened to deny it.

Mewtwo then built his fortress, sent a message to Pokemon trainers around the world, and invited them to travel to his island to face the best Pokemon master. When he showed himself to the trainers, he said he was the strongest Pokemon in the world and explained his plan to rule it. Both ambitions were patched together from his birth and early days. Mewtwo was a child trying on the cruel skin of his parents.

In order for Mewtwo to leave his desolation, for him to begin that journey to the other side of paradise, he needed to know there was a possibility for a renewal of innocence.

The events that would open up that chance needed to be as jarring as his initial fall from grace. It had to reflect and describe the same force that closed him off to begin with. Three encounters pry open his heart and show him the path to salvation. The first was with Ash Ketchum’s Pikachu. After the trainers arrived in his fortress, he introduced himself and detailed that his plan was to take over the world. He denounced humans as cruel and their Pokémon as slaves for following them. Pikachu rebutted that he was wrong about the relationship between Pokémon and humans and that Ash was a friend, not a master.

Mewtwo called Pikachu pathetic, but his contempt arose from painful memory. Pikachu’s friendship with Ash, that equality and love, was what Mewtwo had sought in Giovanni. It was through that weakness he was first exploited.

Pikachu is what Mewtwo had hoped to become before his experiences closed him off to the possibility of such a relationship. When he called Pikachu pathetic, he was also condemning his younger self’s naiveté, in the same way that Frankenstein’s Creature looked back in pity and anger at how he had once “falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.” But unlike the Creature, there was still a chance for Mewtwo, who hadn’t truly begun his journey.

The first event shook Mewtwo, but not forcefully enough. Nor did the second, his encounter with Mew. When Mew appeared, it had no intention of fighting Mewtwo, and casually ignored its clone. Mewtwo wasn’t a threat. But for Mewtwo, Mew’s existence was a reminder of his own contemptible nature. Mew was singular. It had the consolation of possessing a life that wasn’t merely the dim, somber reflection of another’s light. But Mewtwo, the Eve, didn’t have that solace. In his pain he reasoned that by killing Mew, by surpassing his original, he would be free from being a mere shadow.

After Mewtwo challenged Mew to fight, Mew told him that true power comes only from the heart, not special powers. But the nature of the messenger annihilated the message. Mewtwo would not be moved by that which he hated so much. Of course Mew had the privilege to spew such sentimental li(n)es: it never had to question the worth of its existence in the same way that Mewtwo did. What did Adam know about the griefs of Eve?

Mewtwo rebuked Mew’s sentiment and the two began to fight. Mewtwo’s clone Pokemon also fought their originals. As this fight was happening, Ash was climbing down the fortress. He had been launched into the air by Mewtwo after declaring he wouldn’t let Mewtwo set the Pokemon and their clones against each other. He wanted all of them to live peacefully together. He made it back to the ground at the same time that Mewtwo and Mew were about to launch their strongest attacks against each other.

Ash ran between them and screamed for them to stop. His words didn’t stop them. Instead, he was hit by both attacks, which turned him to stone, essentially killing him. Mewtwo was shocked. He softly called Ash’s action foolish, not in condemnation but in surprise that someone would make such a sacrifice. At last, Mewtwo was moved.

Ash was the anti-Giovanni. He was a symbol of innocence, grace, and selfless love. Where Giovanni was manipulative, domineering, and selfish, Ash was so driven by his own selflessness that he put his own life on the line to put an end to the violence. It was only such a grand act of sacrifice, by someone who represented the innocence that Mewtwo had almost given up on, which could shake him out of his despair and pain.

Ash’s death was moving not just Mewtwo but for all the Pokemon in the fortress. Pikachu grieved for him and the others, clones and originals, joined in crying. Their tears and combined sorrow brought him back to life. Mewtwo, finally seeing Cixous’s bright path, gathered up his clone Pokémon and readied to leave the scene of birth. Ash asked him where he was going, and as he flew away, he responded: “To where my heart can learn what yours knows so well.” His journey towards his second innocence may not bear fruit, but the important thing is that it was underway. Unlike Frankenstein’s Creature, his story didn’t end. His conclusion was instead a new beginning.

He was reborn.

[ganymedesclock]

Hi! I know a lot of people in the SU fandom think White Diamond is the one who shattered Pink Diamond, like, in a very round-about way and with the help of Rose Quartz, but what I don't get is why the Crewniverse hasn't introduced her if she's a main villain. She's had 0 screen time. That's not very good writing---usually, main villains show up right off the bat. They're clear goals to beat, especially in children's shows. What do you think?

Couple of thoughts about this.

One: I don’t think anyone but Rose was responsible for what happened. Pretty much because Rose has absolutely nothing to gain from taking the fall for any Diamond.

Two: Probably because the Diamonds are not main villains, or any kind of villains. The writers of the show have been very explicit about that. They occupy stereotypically villainous roles but that does not make them villains. Kind of like how Steven occupies a stereotypical role usually given to a bumbling idealist who eventually learns how to do everything the way of his mentors but with a unique and endearing twist, which he hasn’t done at all.

If you stop thinking of the Diamonds as stereotypical villains, and the plot as a straight railroad to ultimately end up with Steven punching all of the Diamonds in their gems, killing them immediately, then suddenly a lot of alleged inconsistencies in the writing actually make perfect sense. Because this was pretty blatantly from the start never supposed to be that kind of story.

Something I always stand by here is that the first half of season 1- Gem Glow to Ocean Gem- was intended to stand alone in case they couldn’t get CN to back the rest of the show.

During that time, there was no antagonistic figure who was not rendered sympathetic. This includes Lars (Lars And The Cool Kids already highlights the doubt and insecurity that plague him as a character), this includes the corrupted Gems (Monster Buddy and driven home further in Ocean Gem)

And it includes Lapis.

In that microcosm of the series, we see some important bookends. This half-season starts with Steven’s first, involuntary, unreliable summoning of his shield. It ends with Steven willing his shield into existence deliberately and voluntarily for the first time. It starts with the defeat of Steven’s first corrupted Gem and ends with his first facing a non-corrupted Gem antagonist, who Steven pointedly refuses to fight and obstinately pursues a peaceful solution with.

Lapis was the prototype final boss of Steven Universe. She was handled, and presented, ultimately, as a sympathetic figure. What she wanted was reasonable and perfectly understandable. What she was doing to try and get to that reasonable end was not, and Steven very effectively navigated that: “I know that home is important to you, and I want to help you get that. I don’t want to make you give up on that, but, also, my planet and my home needs the ocean back. Can we talk and put our heads together on this? I’m sure there’s a way for you to go home without taking the ocean, because it looks like taking the ocean hasn’t even gotten you what you want.”

And Steven was right, and they did find another way, combining resources that neither of them had alone (Lapis’s wings, Steven’s healing powers), and Lapis undoes the harm done by her prior actions.

This is basically, exactly what the show seems to be setting us up for with the Diamonds.

Think about it. The Diamonds’ actual goals are understandable. They want the Gems as a species to not die. Very reasonable. They are also grieving a loss. Once again- very reasonable! Basically the entire show has had an underlying case study in all of the myriad ways grief can absolutely mess you up as a person, and how long, and hard, it can be to put yourself back together again. Pink Diamond to Homeworld is exactly what Rose was to the Crystal Gems- safety and stability and support now suddenly lost to them. “They’re a mess without her guidance.”

What’s not understandable about the Diamonds is their means that they are trying to act on these reasonable goals. It’s basically doing everything Lapis’s theft of the ocean is: they’re hurting others, and they’re ultimately failing to actually fix any of their problems.

Even if the Cluster blew up Earth, none of the Diamonds would feel better. Peridot even points out that wasting Earth’s potential as a colony would make Homeworld’s resource starvation worse.

And it doesn’t even touch some of their major problems. Lapis stealing the ocean ostensibly tries to get her home, but fails at that, and doesn’t address her cracked gem. The Diamonds trying to hunt down Rose Quartz and execute her ostensibly tries to get closure for Pink, but fails at that, and doesn’t address the Gems’ unsustainable parasitism- or that they’re crumbling away without it.

We’re not supposed to hate the Diamonds, and hang a picture of them on the wall to remind us of everything we should despise. Steven is not supposed to be focusing on the Diamonds and drilling himself to defeat them. Pretty implicitly, with the device from Lion 2 that seems covered in White’s motifs, that’s exactly what Rose was doing.

And Rose, in many ways, didn’t succeed. She delayed things but she didn’t really solve any of her problems.

Getting a little bit back to your point directly: this is why I can believe, exactly that so much of the Diamonds and their situation is in the dark for us.

Because this is not a game to see how rotten the Diamonds are and hunt them down.

This is a game where the winning move is to understand the Diamonds’ situations in a way that helps them get to their understandable goals of closure and prosperity while taking them away from the harmful, destructive methods that are failing to get them there.

In that sense, the curious differences between Blue Diamond past and present, the exact nature of what is a Diamond’s duty, the fate of Pink Diamond, the absence of White- these are the formidable adversaries for our hero. Because they’re shrouded in mysteries, and unraveling these mysteries and understanding them is integral to Steven being able to actually win this game. And Crewniverse isn’t going to make it easy by giving us any insight into the Diamonds we don’t need right at that moment.

This isn’t an adventure story about one hero killing his way through stronger and stronger enemies.

This is a mystery story where all of Steven’s progress comes from untangling the messy, complex, and intensely emotionally charged landscape of the past- with regards to Earth, Homeworld, the Diamonds, Rose, and what personal role he has in all of this.

[aion-rsa]

Game of Thrones: The Early Mad Queen Moment That Defined Daenerys Targaryen’s Fate

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We look back to Game of Thrones Season 5 to find a reminder of what a stressed and mourning Daenerys Targaryen always looked like.

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This article contains Game of Thrones spoilers for the whole series, including season 8, episode 5: “The Bells.”

Over the last four days, a division among Game of Thrones fans has grown as deep as the scorched earth left by dragonfire. Daenerys Targaryen, one of the ostensible heroes of the series and definite protagonists, had finally gotten everything she always dreamed of: her birthright returned to her. Years of fighting, of killing, and of suffering finally brought her to the home she’d never known. Off in the distance, the palace where her father was stabbed in the back by his Kingsguard was now hers, along with the city at her feet—a city that so resisted her that she lost another of her beloved children, Rhaegal, and her best friend Missandei.

… It wasn’t enough. Losing complete perspective of who she is supposed to be or wants to be, she embraces who she apparently always was. “A dragon,” as the most perceptive character on the series, Olenna Tyrell, once surmised. Laying waste with a genocidal fire that consumed the innocent and guilty alike, Daenerys’ rampage left thousands, mayhaps tens of thousands, dead and fans divided over whether the Daenerys many of them came to love was ever even capable of that—never mind if she could’ve done it in that moment. As I detailed in my review, I am of mixed feelings about it. I do not think season 8 properly built to a naturalistic tipping point for Dany where the penny drops and the dragon awakens, but beyond the thematic brilliance of this ending (which George R.R. Martin is likely to have revealed to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as his intended endpoint), it is easy to forget that the Daenerys of the early seasons could have done this. In fact, we have seen this side of the Mother of Dragons on a micro-scale from years before the show romanticized her to the point where the heel turn felt inorganic.

While in the last few days there have been a lot of articles listing all the foreshadowings of Daenerys’ descent, including those that would appear to retcon snow as ash, it is likely better to focus on the moment when Dany’s was a hair’s breadth away from being the dragon (and still might in the books). Many of House Targaryen’s fiercest advocates will point to the fact that she was also the Breaker of Chains in her early seasons, liberating one oppressed people from bondage at a time. But those moments of benevolence recall when everything was coming up roses for the Khaleesi. After taking Astapor—in Fire and Blood—and destroying most of a slaver’s city, she had an army of freed Unsullied who willingly followed her to the ends of the world, fighting and dying for her. Magnanimity was easy for her when each city she conquered had vast populaces who welcomed her as a “Mhysa,” a mother to millions after losing her one and only human child. Yet when the chips are down, and the stresses of ruling instead of conquering crept across Daenerys’ troubled mind, a definite pattern became visible.

The first time she felt overwhelming grief, Daenerys Targaryen had almost nothing to command. Not even a Mother of Dragons, the loss of Khal Drogo and all the power that is supposed to come with being a Khaleesi evaporated over a terrible night. What remained to Dany was the loyalty of some of Drogo’s bloodriders, the infatuated support of an exiled Bear Knight, an enslaved witch who she could blame for her most immediate problems, and three fossilized dragon eggs. The only person she could take her grief out on was Mirri Maz Duur, a witch who did wrong her (though with justifiable reasons given how Khal Drogo’s people treated her, and the knowledge that their baby would burn more cities to ash). Thus while burning Mirri Maz Duur alive, Dany made a decision that seemed baffling and even insane to Jorah and her few remaining followers: she walked into an open funeral pyre where three stone eggs rested with her husband… and she came out with all the wonder of a Biblical fable.

But the real moment that best illustrates how Dany handles pressure came during the full length of season 5. The final season directly based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire,” it is the year where the Breaker of Chains discovers it is much harder to rule a people than conquer them. Even her ideas of justice proved rash and unstable. The most vindictive slave masters of Meereen crucified 163 children on her path to the pyramid city—one for each mile on the Dragon Queen’s journey to the cities walls. Her response was to indiscriminately crucify 163 of Meereen’s aristocrats and noblemen, not caring about their complicity or lack thereof in the atrocity she saw. She couldn’t conceive of any being innocent.

Yet according to Hizdahr zo Loraq, more than a few were, including Hizdahr’s father. A young nobleman made the head of his house, he only gained that power after Dany had Papa Loraq nailed to a cross. But Hizdahr insisted with understandable anger that his father actually was an opponent of the local slave trade, and something of a Meereenese abolitionist. Now, admittedly, Daenerys has every right to take Hizdahr’s claim with a grain of salt since a political dissident may say anything to undermine a new occupying ruler. However, the fact remains Daenerys did nothing before or after to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the men she crucified. And that was when she perceived herself as a calm and loving Mhysa. It is that sense of empathy that even forces her to reluctantly entomb two of her dragons, Rhaegal and Viserion, for this misdeeds of Drogon.

After her favorite child burned an innocent shepherd’s son alive for a midday snack, Dany walls off the literal part of herself that is dragon. She commits an act of self-sacrifice for the well-being of Meereen’s residents. It is only then that the pressures and loneliness begin. Around the same time as Rhaegal and Viserion’s imprisonment, she also is forced to banish her once most trusted advisor and friend, Jorah Mormont, the only remaining member of the inner-circle who had been with her since the beginning. The loss of Jorah weighed on the Dragon Queen as much as the loss of her dragons—both wounds she inflicted on herself because she could not trust them and thus the source of her power and strength.

read more: What Did Ser Davos Smuggle for Tyrion?

Which then brings us to season 8’s most prescient reverberation from the past. Daenerys gave much of herself away for Meereen and expected the city to love her in return like the Unsullied do. Instead a city that welcomed her with open arms grew an insurgent and virulent resistance, the Sons of the Harpy, who attacked her men in the streets. They then killed her other most wise advisor and injured the captain of her forces. Ser Barristan Selmy was Daenerys’ last connection with her Westerosi heritage after Viserys’ death and Jorah’s banishment, and only moments after teasing a kernel of his knowledge about the father and brother she never knew, Selmy was cut down in the streets like a dog.

With Selmy slaughtered and Grey Worm on death’s door, possibly never to recover, Daenerys’ rage was piqued by grief for the first time since Khal Drogo’s death. This is the moment that most foreshadowed who Dany is when someone seriously damages her calm. And her reaction is as illuminating as the fires that still burn King’s Landing.

In the fifth episode of Game of Thrones Season 5, Dany walks away from Barristan’s still warm corpse and Missandei’s late night vigil by Grey Worm’s sick bed to summon the heads of all the remaining “Great Houses of Meereen.” Yes, that includes Hizdahr zo Loraq, the son of a possible abolitionist. With a little more than a half-dozen aristocrats gathered beneath the Great Pyramid of Meereen, Daenerys introduces these rich men to her two children still ruefully in chains.

Video of Game of Thrones (S05E05) - Daenerys feeds her Dragons with nobles of Meereen

“They will eat you if I tell them to. They may eat you even if I don’t. Some say I should give up on them, but a good mother never gives up on her children. She disciplines them if she must, but she does not give up on them. Who is innocent? Maybe some of you are, maybe none of you are. Maybe I should let the dragons decide.”

As Daenerys speaks these words, she is savoring the terror of these great men before her children, pushing the one praying the loudest before Rhaegal, pausing only long enough to savor Rhaegal barbecuing him to a cinder. Only after Rhaegal and Viserion begin to chow down on his remains does she add, “Who is innocent? Maybe some of you are, maybe none of you are.” She’ll let her dragons decide.

This is who Dany is when things are not going her way and she has literal power to burn. As Daenerys points out, any of them could be guiltily in league with the Sons of the Harpy, or mayhaps they all could be innocent. The truth is she doesn’t care, because they’re all complicit in her eyes and all worthy of being food for the Dragon. Yet there is an obvious method in this cruelty too. By randomly feeding a man who might be innocent to her dragons, she instills an unimaginable dread in the survivors. If they do hate her—and likely all the nobles in Meereen do—she hopes they will not cross her after this grisly sight. “Let it be fear then.”

And sure enough, it is only a week later she returns to that same chamber to force Hizdahr zo Loraq to marry her at dragon’s point, assuming a political marriage along with fear will keep Meereen in line and scare off the Sons of the Harpy. It does not work, of course, and the Sons of the Harpy attempt another political assassination on her own royal head, murdering Hizdahr in the process, suggesting he was not part of the conspiracy and his family were actually anti-slavery. It makes no matter now, he and his father are dead, and Daenerys’ rule over Meereen appears to be in complete tatters when season 5 ends.

read more: Game of Thrones Season 8 - Meaning of the White Horse Explained

It should be noted that this is also where George R.R. Martin’s guidepost source material also ends. And while the details are different—Dany never actually feeds any noblemen to her dragons in the books and Hizdahr and Selmy are alive—her exasperation with Meereen and the Sons of the Harpy seems to be even in a darker place. When A Dance with Dragons concludes, and Dany has barely evaded her assassination due to Drogon’s intervention, she has a moment to reflect on the Great Grass Sea, and in the book concludes about her recent experiences, “You are the blood of the dragon… Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. ‘Fire and Blood,’ Daenerys told the swaying grass.”

This is the moment where she seems to accept all of her choices up to that point have been wrong and counterintuitive to “being the dragon.” Chaining up Rhaegal and Viserion to protect innocents was a mistake; showing leniency to Meereen after the Sons of the Harpy’s attacks was a mistake. “Fire and Blood” suggested to many readers that Daenerys might burn Meereen down in The Winds of Winter. And she still might, as we do not know how Martin ends his Meereenese knot, but all book readers were a bit skeptical when Tyrion, in Season 6 of Game of Thrones, convinces Daenerys not to “return their cities to the dirt” and instead rather incredulously breaks their siege with minimal death. I imagine her answer of breaking the other Slave Cities’ siege of Meereen will be much more bloodthirsty in the books, including for the residents of the city.

Be that as it may, the show still underscored what Dany thinking “dragons do not plant” looks like in season 5. She feeds a potentially innocent man to her dragons while contemplating doing the same to others. And in the process, she hopes to instill enough fear in them that the people of Meereen will be obedient. When she says, “A good mother never gives up on her children. She disciplines them if she must, but she does not give up on them,” she isn’t just referring to her dragons. As she views herself as Mhysa to all the cities she conquers, she is implicitly referring to these noblemen as her children. And like naughty boys, she is forcing them to take their medicine.

Which brings us back to her perched on the walls of King’s Landing hearing the bells of surrender. She expected to be greeted as a liberator in her homeland, even if she scoffed at Varys’ kind words in season 7. Instead they despise her. Jon Snow got all the credit in the North for the victory over the White Walkers, even though it was her Dothraki that bore the biggest casualties and it was her dragon that Jon was riding. Meanwhile King’s Landing’s residents cower in fear, hoping that her one remaining child will be killed just like how their current queen had Rhaegal murdered. And also like how Cersei slaughtered Missandei.

Just as when Daenerys lost Selmy Barristan and potentially Grey Worm—and she had no Jorah shoulder to cry on—Daenerys has lost her best friend in Missandei and two-thirds of her children for this capital. Jorah has also left her again, this time never to return, and unlike in Meereen her claim is already being questioned due to Jon Snow’s parentage. In Meereen she was greeted as “Mhysa,” but then her “children” still disobeyed her and tried to kill her. In King’s Landing she is welcomed as an aggressive tyrant.

“Who is innocent? Maybe some of you are, maybe none of you are. Maybe I should let the dragons decide.” In “The Bells,” she returned to that mindset but with no desire for one last chance to “plant,” as with her arranged marriage to Hizdahr zo Loraq. She now knows that way won’t work and the only eligible bachelor that could keep the peace, Jon Snow, has rejected her. So she indulges in letting “the dragons decide” who is guilty and innocent, and rains dragonfire down on both. All will be purged. It is a macro-scale of what she did to that one nobleman in the dark of season 5, but now it’s thousands in the light of day in season 8. Let King’s Landing be a lesson to all who deny my right to rule.

read more: The Real History of Daenerys Targaryen

All of this is not to say that I think the execution was perfect or even satisfactory. Seasons 7 and 8, in retrospect, clearly needed to show more of the Daenerys we saw in season 5. There was the execution of Randyll and Dickon Tarly, but that was presented in a way that again looked too close to veering on reasonable, even if it disregarded a modern understanding of the Geneva Convention. They were officers who opposed her rule and she made an example out of them to completely destroy the resistance of their army, plus audiences were predisposed to hate Randyll Tarly for his treatment of Sam and treachery toward the Tyrells. We needed to see Daenerys disregard guilt and innocence like she did in Meereen before she did it on a genocidal scale. Perhaps having her show no quarter to the Lannister forces altogether, or destroying large swaths of Meereen—still a city full of slavers, thus dividing audience loyalties between right and wrong—would have made it clearer in the later seasons just who Dany is. Instead the showrunners chose to focus solely on her refusing to be “Queen of the Ashes” and riding to Jon Snow’s rescue multiple times with an open heart.

A focus on the romantic and heroic side of Daenerys, with nary a hint of the conqueror from the early seasons turned paranoid in season 5, made her sudden heel turn in less than two full episodes rushed and unconvincing. Nevertheless, this has always been part of Daenerys. We’ve seen this from her before. It’s a fitting end to her character, even if the later seasons failed to remind you until it was too late.

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

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Feature

Books

David Crow

May 15, 2019

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones Season 8

Emilia Clarke

George R.R. Martin

HBO

from Books http://bit.ly/2JFXe1u

[rudra-writes]

Pallas Meets Belaar (Part 1)

Part of a roleplay story with Telurin’s player. At Karabor, Pallas’s romantic involvement with a death knight is discovered by one of the high priests, who seeks to confine and discipline him. Aware that something is amiss, Telurin requests his mentor, Anchorite Belaar, look into the situation.

About a month has passed since Telurin returned Pallas to Karabor. Although Pallas misses the death knight's presence, he is pleased to learn that Telurin is willing to contact him, even as soon as a week later. The death knight is checking on him, and the priest tells him about what he's up to these days: Mainly looking after patients and making them comfortable, and healing everything from war injuries to illness. He is kept busy and has little free time, but he tells Telurin that he often thinks of him.

And it's true. Pallas often thinks of the death knight, and wonders why he is not with him. He looks through his sketchbook of the drawings of Telurin he had made, thinking back on the other man's presence and the sound of his voice. He's too far away.

'Too far away...' Pallas thinks to himself, curled up in a ball under the sheets as he tries to sleep at night. 'I long for his presence in my mind.'

He knew he had made a risk to enter Karabor in the presence of a death knight. Before long, rumors began to circulate. It was infuriating to the young priest, and although it might have gone better for him if he had kept his mouth shut, he defended his guardian in argument. Eventually, his behavior aroused the suspicions of the high priest, Forza.

He was brought into Forza's office, and questioned. Pallas found the nature of the questions invasive, and after a while declined to answer. He had not counted on the reality that Forza was an accomplished Shadow user, and more ruthless than he could have known.

Pallas stopped replying to Telurin's communicator afterward, strangely.

Concerned by the sudden loss of contact, Telurin begins to worry about the cause, and begins to fret. His own attempts are met with failure, barred as he is from the main portions of the temple, but it's enough to find that something is amiss. He turns to the Belaar of this Draenor for help, stating his case and asking the older Anchorite to search where he cannot.

Belaar agrees, and begins making a few inquiries into the whereabouts of Telurin's wayward Anchorite. When a passing neophyte recalls that Pallas is under Anchorite Forza's tutelage, Belaar thanks the boy and begins a much more subtle, indirect approach, switching his morning walks in the gardens to the lesser used corridors, keeping his mental 'ears' open for any signs of distress. He wouldn't put it past Forza to keep one of his underlings confined....

It's true, Anchorite Pallas no longer comes around the places he might have before been found. Apparently the explanation that he needed 'tutelage' from High Anchorite Forza is enough to satisfy the curiosity of most of the other priests here. Belaar knows the old headmaster better than most, however: He is an opinionated, severe man.

One morning, on precisely one such subtle walk through Karabor's more personal corridors, Belaar finds what he is looking for: A sense of emotional distress from another sentient, living creature. These were studies and extra rooms reserved for the senior Anchorites.

If Belaar is upset at having his objectionable guess confirmed, it doesn't show on his face, which he keeps carefully neutral as he wanders with apparent aimlessness nearer to the source of the distress. Inside, behind his carefully mirrored shields however, there's the beginnings of anger stirring, heating with each step he takes. How he had hoped the young Anchorite had tired of Telurin's games! How much simpler would it have been to deal with, instead of the abhorrent behavior of his colleague and fellow Anchorite against one of their own. Still, however bad it seems, Belaar is aware he has very little to go on, which is why he sticks to his neutral expression and calm outer demeanor. No use tipping his hand before he's seen the whole board, to mix his gaming metaphors. He turns the corner, and the feelings of distress and despair increase. The source must be along this hallway.

Belaar follows the feelings of sadness, despair, and outrage to a guest quarters that is normally vacant. From behind the door comes a soft sobbing. The door itself, if Belaar tries it, has been locked via a crystal, of a type commonly used here. The crystal might be in Forza's office.

Belaar tries his own overrides, but he's not surprised to find the locks have been set to Forza's alone. He sighs. This part of the temple is rather nice, being for the senior staff, and as such, the hallways are wide with the occasional rest spot in the form of a bench and a potted plant, or perhaps a crystalline sculpture. There is, in fact, one of these such places a few paces away from the door in question, and he turns to go to it, sitting down and pulling one hoof up to inspect the fetlock as if it's happenstance he's stopped here. With his mind, however, he tests the wards along the room and if they're able to be breached without alarming their owner, does so, to look more closely at the mind that is so distraught. He projects a mild curiosity over his own shields, as well as his sincerity, but refrains from mind speech in favor of sending a simple inquiry that encompasses the whole of "who are you/why are you here?"  Translated to a physical gesture, it would be the the equivalent of eye contact and a slightly tilted head.

Belaar is able to breach the wards. Mentalists with abilities as strong as his own are not common, even at a draenei temple.

The quiet crying abruptly stops. There is the sound of someone's movement coming closer from the other side of the door. The emotions of despair and grief are replaced by uncertain excitement.

'I am Anchorite Pallas,' the mind on the other side of the door tries to send in return. 'I am being held here against my will.'

'And I am Anchorite Belaar.' he sends back with the mental equivalent of an amused snort along with his credentials. 'You are in quite a predicament, Anchorite Pallas. What have you done to gain the ire of an old curmudgeon like Forza? it certainly must be good...'

His mental voice is rich with meaning, and Pallas should be able to glean that Belaar is no friend of Forza's, and potentially his mixed relief at having found Pallas along with his own ire at Pallas's predicament.

Pallas responds emotionally with some relief, but also uncertainty. 'I have done nothing wrong,' his own mental voice responds stiffly, as if ready for an argument. 'The headmaster, he...'

He pauses. How much trouble does he want Forza, and possibly himself, to get into? 'How did you know to look for me here?' the younger priest asks, switching his train of thought for the moment. 'Did you find my absence strange?'

'Peace.' Belaar soothes. 'We share a mutual acquaintance. He seemed quite worried about you.' He has yet to press Pallas's own shields, beyond what is necessary for speech, but he he does so now, ostensibly to send Pallas the impression of his talk with Telurin, but also to see how far he can, to see the extent of Forza's influence on the boy and how much of a hassle it's going to be to get him out.

'Telurin?!' Pallas is immediately excited. 'Are you a friend of his? Oh! He must have become suspicious when I could no longer answer the comm.'

Belaar is able to send Pallas his memory, but he can sense that the young Anchorite accepts with discomfort, even fright. 'I... I'm sorry, Sir... The headmaster has been forcing himself into my head without my consent. He wanted to see my, um, friendship with Telurin. He mistrusts death knights strongly, says they are a plague upon Draenor and Legion creations, no better than Sargerei! It's wrong, but I could have lived with his prejudice, if he had not forced himself in like that!" Pallas seems to be becoming upset again.

Belaar retreats back to 'speaking' distance as soon as he feels Pallas's discomfort, and such, the younger Anchorite does not get the full emotional range of Belaar's response, but his disapproval does come across clearly.

'You could use a few more grains of common sense, Pallas. Do you not know when to keep your mouth shut? Especially with a fanatic like Forza? Thank the Light Telurin still had the habit to come to me instead of getting involved himself...' Belaar trails off, as if that last had not been meant for Pallas to overhear. 'Now, tell me quickly what you have told Forza, and I will see about getting you out from under his nose. Sound good?'

'I did not say anything that was not right!' Pallas doesn't seem to react well to being told he should have exercised more common sense. 'They mistrusted me simply for speaking with Telurin, I didn't do anything wrong! It's true I defended him, but what else should I have done?'

There is a pause when Belaar asks Pallas to tell him what he's told Forza. 'Forza forcibly looked at my memories to see that we are friends.' Friends. That statement didn't seem completely honest. 'He thinks Telurin has corrupted me or something, it's madness!'

'Do not *lie,* Pallas.' Belaar's mental voice snaps. 'Do you think I cannot feel it when you do? That Forza cannot?'

Belaar takes a moment to collect himself, his mental voice is scrubbed clean of all emotion. 'You should have stayed silent. Undoubtedly, to Forza and many others, you *are* corrupted by Telurin's presence.’

Pallas seems to recoil mentally, and then there is embarrassment. Does Belaar know how close he truly is to Telurin? '...I didn't willingly tell anyone how close we've become,' he tries again, more quiet and anxious this time. 'But, I did not think that Forza would invade my thoughts to find it, either. Please, Anchorite Belaar, help me to escape? I don't know how you can, Forza holds so much leverage here.'

'Let me worry about Forza.' There's a bit of exasperation that rides along with that tone, as if Belaar can't believe Pallas didn't already think that he was going to help. 'Just, do not make things worse in the meantime.' He stands, looking for all the world as if he's not currently having this conversation, and begins to head in the direction of Forza's office.

[auburnfamilynews]

Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports

Base your guesses on who we don’t pick for premium accuracy!

Here we go, heavy on the PAC-12 and we get yet another Michigan game for Crow to scoff at. If you’d like to submit your picks as well, just visit the link below to make sure they’re documented!

MASH THAT BUTTON

Oregon (-3) @ Washington (O/U 51)

Washington has been a huge let down this year. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt dropping that weird rain delay-ed game vs Cal, but they then lost to a god-awful Stanford team. I know this game is in Seattle, but I can’t help but think UW should be getting at least a touchdown in this one. If the Ducks win here, the division is practically wrapped up for them. I think the #1 defense in the country gets it done, 27-17 Ducks. - Ryan Sterritt

So, when thinking about this game, I just don’t trust the Huskies. And after doing research, I really don’t. Since Peterson got to Seattle, the Huskies are 10-14 vs AP Top 25 teams and 0-2 against Oregon teams that enter the game ranked in the top 25. Good enough for me, especially since I think Oregon is the best team in the Pac-14 or whatever. Oregon covers, 28-17 and under. - Drew Mac

I feel like we, as fans, like to project success onto former opponents, even though it may not mean very much, because it inflates Auburn’s resume in some way. Folks, this ain’t that. Oregon is a great football team. Their defense is pretty remarkable, and I think they’re getting better. Oregon right now is on pace to allow less (fewer? Whatever) touchdowns to conference opponents than they did to Auburn (don’t check my math there). I like Oregon here, and big. Oregon 35, Washington 13. - Josh Dub

This one is a sneaky matchup. The Ducks might have one of the best QBs in the country but his receiving corps is very limited due to injuries which now includes his go to target in tight end Jacob Breeland. On the flip side, Washington has put together two really bad clunkers this season but still have the potential to take the Ducks down. I think this one is low scoring with Oregon’s #1 ranked defense proving the difference. UO 27 UW 13. - AU Nerd

Washington is an up and down squad that’s lost to both Bay Area schools. The Ducks have rolled right along since the opener and arguably, this might be their toughest game left on the schedule. But the Ducks offense is rolling right now and as Auburn fans, the more Oregon wins, the better Auburn looks perception wise. Oregon 38 Washington 24 - Will McLaughlin

Having not really kept up with the PAC 12 very much, I thought “Oh, this has to be the decider for the division right?” In a way, I guess it is since if Oregon wins there isn’t much chance they will slip up enough to let any of the other teams catch them. However, even if they lose they are still firmly in the driver’s seat. From what little I’ve seen I think Oregon is the best team in the conference and they’ll take another step towards a title with a win here. Oregon 26, Washington 24 - AU Chief

Oregon is by far the more consistent team. My biggest point of frustration with Oregon was my biggest point of gratitude in week 1…they run the ball too often when they should pass with a dynamic quarterback. I don’t expect the Huskies to be able to hold up against an Oregon team that should be playing more of an up-tempo, pass-centric style of offense instead of having their Saban-minded coach hold them back. Oregon 34 Washington 24 - Josh Black

Oregon continues to be really good. The win over the ducks by auburn gives me hope against the teams remaining on our schedule. Washington is really tough to predict all the sudden, so I’m going with the ducks. Oregon 35 Washington 20 - Son of Crow

Washington has been an unpredictable mess all season. They’ve blown out BYU after the Cougars upset USC and Tennessee. They’ve lost to an average Stanford team. I think they’ll be ready for this one, but I don’t think it will be enough. Oregon will control the game, run the ball more than they should, and keep the Huskies at arm’s length. Oregon 24, Washington 14 (Oregon covers, UNDER) - James Jones

Belushi’s all the Washington fans after they suffer yet another loss.

One Georgia transfer QB does well (Justin Fields) and the other one does not-as-well and plays for a not-as-good team (Jacob Eason). Oregon’s loved by all the metrics and the fact that their defense gets better and better looks nice for us. Duckies win 38-14. - Jack Condon

Arizona State @ Utah (-14) (O/U 49.5)

Just as the Pac 12 North could be decided this week, the winner of this one will be in the driver’s seat in the South. Utah is ostensibly the better team here, but damn it if I don’t REALLY want Herm to be successful in Tempe. The Utah defensive line will be the best unit on the field, so I’ll take them to win in a super low scoring game. 20-7 Utes. - Ryan Sterritt

This one is really interesting. I thought the Herm Edwards project was going to be a dumpster fire to watch. Instead it is somehow working. I don’t think they win this one on the road in Salt Lake but I think they get really close and have a shot at the end. State with the backdoor cover but Utes win 38-34 and the over. - Drew Mac

I get WHY were picking this game, bug I just don’t care. I’m too old to stay up and watch these. So, team Herm I guess. Arizona State 31, Utah 28 - Josh Dub

Don’t mind Herm, he’s just leading his Sun Devils to the top of the PAC-12 South standings is all.... Utah is absolutely the better team but being the better team hasn’t mattered a ton playing Arizona State this year. I expect this to be an ugly affair with the Utes questioning the reason for their existence midway through the 3rd quarter. But in the end, Utah’s stout DL proves too much and they are able to knock Herm off his perch. Utah 28 Arizona State 17 - AU Nerd

This is a Top 20 contest and unless you’re one of the few that have Pac-12 Network, you won’t be able to watch it. I wanna give some credit to Arizona State for going out of the box and hiring Herm Edwards. When he was hired, a vast majority of people (and I did too) thought what on earth were the Sun Devils thinking. But he’s got his team at 5-1 so far this year in Edwards 2nd year and helped put the Sun Devils back on the map. Utah has quietly gone about their business and also sit at 5-1 on the year. I think Utah wins but the Sun Devils cover. Utah 28 Arizona State 20 - Will McLaughlin

So I had to double check the spread on this one. Utah is favored by 2 TDs? Sounds like the Herm Edwards experiment is going really well. The Sun Devil’s have the same record as the Utes, so I guess it’s not all bad, but dang that’s a helluva spread. Anyway, I knowing nothing about either of these teams I guess I’ll go with Utah. Utah 32, Arizona State 21 - AU Chief

If a game is on the Pac-12 Network, does it even exist? Utah 27 Arizona State 20. - Josh Black

I haven’t watched one minute of either of these teams but I know herm Edwards hasn’t exactly installed the air raid. Utah 30, ASU 14. - Son of Crow

The Sun Devils can open it up when necessary, and they play a close game nearly every week. They’re very much a 10-6 style NFL team. Plenty of games within the margins. When Utah is healthy, they’re the best team in the PAC-12 South. They win at home, but I don’t like them to cover that number. Utah 31, Arizona State 25 (Utah wins, ASU covers, OVER) - James Jones

Wasn’t Utah supposed to be incredible this year? Best defensive line in the country? Admittedly I haven’t watched any of their snaps, but I just feel like going with Hermie here. Sun Devils spring the upset 31-27. - Jack Condon

Michigan @ Penn State (-8.5) (O/U 45.5)

At a certain point, you just have to accept the Michigan offense is trash. I’ll give Penn State the benefit of the doubt from last week, as Iowa is prone to do that to people, but otherwise their offense has been a ton of fun to watch to far. QB Sean Clifford is completing 65% of his passes for nearly 10 YPA, but he’s far from a pocket passer. He’s the team’s second leading rusher with 252 yards on the ground on 59 attempts (most on the team). Give me Penn State 28-17, and cue up the Jim Harbaugh 3rd Place memes. - Ryan Sterritt

*begins to read matchup*

*get to the “Mich’ part*

Yup, the other team.

Not Michigan covers and wins 24-10 and the under - Drew Mac

The B1G brand of football right now is gritty, low scoring, tough football games. Penn State is doing everything right (except the Pitt game. Ignore Pitt.) If Michigan wins, they’ll be right back in the conversation. If they lose, Harbaugh might have some uncomfortable conversations coming up with his superiors. Penn State 24, Michigan 22 - Josh Dub

I don’t trust either of these teams. Both have an insane amount of talent but are lead by coaches who thrive at snatching defeats from the jaws of victory. But do I really trust Shea Patterson to go on the road & get a big W? I do not.... Nittany Lions get it done. PSU 24 MICH 14 - AU Nerd

These two have wins over Iowa the last two weeks, and I picked Iowa both times. Never again Iowa... Anyways, a Whiteout at night and no faith in Michigan, I have to go Nittany Lions here. Penn State 24, Michigan 13 - Will McLaughlin

Penn State 28, Michigan 21 - AU Chief

Good grief Michigan has a horrendous offense. I’m honestly surprised the spread isn’t a tad bit wider since the game is in Happy Valley. I don’t view what happened at Iowa last week to be indicative of much for Penn State, as playing poorly in Iowa is a thing that happens to just about everybody. Penn State 27 Michigan 10 - Josh Black

Jack is trolling us. I’d rather talk about the NBA. Penn state 22, MICH 12. - Son of Crow

Bad offensive lines don’t travel. I could potentially have a bit of a vested interest here. Penn State struggles on offense at times, and they tend to make mistakes that kill drives. However, I don’t think Michigan can do anything to punish them. Defensive touchdown picks up the front door cover, but it stays under by the hook. Penn State 28, Michigan 17 (Penn State covers, UNDER) - James Jones

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Why are we picking this game? Because I like watching Crow and Chief suffer when they’re forced to acknowledge B1G football. Michigan is just not good, and boring to watch. Penn State is slightly less boring. Lions 34-20. - Jack Condon

Tennessee @ Alabama (-35) (O/U 61.5)

We’re seriously picking this one? Ugh, fine. Tua is gonna blast these guys and pad his Heisman numbers before he has to go up against Burrow in a few weeks. 52-20 Tide. - Ryan Sterritt

Last week Tenneseee got their first SEC win of the year.

They won’t get one this week...

The team Tennessee is playing wins and covers.

48-10 - Drew Mac

Don’t let an SEC win fool you, Tennessee is still a massive dumpster fire. Alabama gets to cakewalk through their biggest rival once again. Alabama 51, Tennessee 17 - Josh Dub

Lol. Alabama 52 Tennessee 17 - AU Nerd

Our National Nightmare is over!!!! Alabama finally got a night game!!! (They got one next week too). Guess they’ll have to find something else to gripe about now. Alabama 55, Tennessee 14 - Will McLaughlin

Remember that time Tennessee almost beat Alabama? That was 10 freaking years ago. Oof. Alabama 56, Tennessee 10 - AU Chief

Alabama may hit the over here by themselves. The only good thing to come out of this game is the complaint out of Tide fans that the game is kicking off…too late. You just hate to see it. Alabama 59 Tennessee 13 - Josh Black

Alabama is going to destroy Tennessee, as is the ritual. Let the record show I have been respectful to the tide. Alabama 45 Tenn 4 - Son of Crow

Vegas is daring you to take Tennessee in this one. If this line was under 30, everybody would bet Alabama. I still think they probably cover. I’m not sure that UT can do anything against Alabama’s secondary. Alabama 55, Tennessee 10 (Alabama covers, OVER) - James Jones

I refuse to find a GIF to pimp a pick on an Alabama win. Tide names the score. With kickoff at 8 pm CST, they’ll guarantee that the students will be there at night to see those idiot lights. Bama 59-21. - Jack Condon

Florida (-5.5) @ South Carolina (O/U 49.5)

Yeah, I do NOT trust Sakerlina to do something good two weeks in a row, especially now that Grantham will have a week to prepare for this third string Gamecock quarterback. I’ll take Florida 30-14. - Ryan Sterritt

Is it just me or were you more impressed with Florida after the LSU game than in the Auburn win? I was. I was also impressed that South Carolina beat Georgia with their 3rd string QB. What’s that? Oh, you didn’t hear that the Gamecocks beat the 3rd ranked Georgia Bulldogs between the hedges with their 3rd string QB? That’s crazy... because that absolutely happened... Carolina beating Georgia that is. But they won’t beat Florida. Florida and the under. 31-10 - Drew Mac

This line seems like an overreaction to Florida losing to the best team in the country and South Carolina beating Georgia. Florida will bounce back in a big way here. Florida 35, South Carolina 14 - Josh Dub

Oh man... This one I am VERY interested to see what happens. Ryan Hillinski is reportedly going to play while Florida’s top 2 pass rushers are not. Gamecocks got a ton of momentum while UF is looking to rebound from a strong but ultimately losing showing last weekend. I don’t think either of these teams have great offenses so it comes down to defense. If UF was fully healthy, I would give them the edge. But this is on the road in Columbia against a team that believes again.... But it’s Will Muschamp. This is the exact type of game you would confidently predict him to pull out only for his squad to pull a stinker. I trust Trask at this point more than a banged up Hillinski. Unless he throws 3 picks, including a pick 6 to end the half then I think Gators get out alive though maybe not as convincingly as AU fans would like. UF 28 SCAR 20 - AU Nerd

This game is VERY interesting now. After the Roosters shocked the world and beat Georgia in Athens (thank you very much), we’ll see who plays at QB after Ryan Hilinski left last week’s game. Yeah that’s right, South Carolina beat Georgia in Athens, with a 3rd string QB. The Gators have had back to back tough games against Auburn and LSU so we’ll see how up they get for this one. They have a bye next week before their clash with Georgia in 2 weeks. I want to pick South Carolina here badly but I learned the hard way the last time I picked South Carolina so I think Florida wins a close game. Florida 23 South Carolina 17 - Will McLaughlin

Boom really coach those boys up last weekend. What an amazing thing to see. I really don’t see it happening two weeks in a row. Although if it did it would make things pretty interesting in the East. Florida 24, South Carolina 17 - AU Chief

I’m interested to see how well the Gators can hold up with this being the tail end of a brutal 3-game stretch. Going back out on the road a week after being in Baton Rouge is going to affect this bunch, and South Carolina’s defensive front 7 is no joke. The problem is that South Carolina’s offense is all but nonexistent without Ryan Hilinski. He’s going to play Saturday according to Muschamp, but I would be shocked to see him healthy enough to lead this team to victory 2 weeks in a row. Florida 24 South Carolina 13 - Josh Black

South Carolina can’t string two competent games together. I don’t care that it’s a home game. They have coach boom, who is a buffoon. Florida 30, Scar 13. - Son of Crow

This is all in how each team reacts to their games last week. I think Florida takes some positives in what they were able to do on offense, and South Carolina won’t be able to count on a team refusing to throw over the middle or down the field. I think Florida puts it on the Gamecocks. Florida 37, South Carolina 16 (Florida covers, OVER) - James Jones

I’m gonna venture that the Gamecocks don’t score more than about 13 points in this one, and there’s no way they get two stupid games in a row to score two huge upset wins. Georgia just Georgia’d, as they’ve been known to do. Florida is going to win a really boring game and all the people that think USC has a chance to pull this one off are going to be sorely let down early on. (Please prove me wrong, Carolina). Gators 31-10. - Jack Condon

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/10/18/20921026/staff-picks-college-football-week-8

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – Feb. 12, 2018

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

  What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

  What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

  Archive

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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[pat78701]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[repwincostl4m0a2]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[grgedoors02142]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2q942Yp

[junker-town]

THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, Texas is just hopping mad

Texas leads a wide-ranging tour of the angry college football internet after Week 9.

Welcome back to THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, your weekly rocket ship ride through the most infuriated regions of the college football galaxy. Last week, this page focused exclusively on Ohio State, because that was the only logical choice. This week, we’re taking a journey around a small handful of furious fanbases on the internet.

Texas lost to Oklahoma State, knocking the Longhorns out of the top 10.

Though they remain in the thick of a chaotic Big 12 race, it’s a disappointing moment for Tom Herman’s bunch. Said one Longhorn fan afterward:

I don’t want to watch football anymore

That was the title of a message board thread. This was the profound body:

.

And there you have it.

A former Texas linebacker got into a fast-escalating online beef with a current Texas cornerback, who’d been suspended for the first quarter.

Ex-Horn Emmanuel Acho initially defended the suspended Kris Boyd, because Texas sitting down a starting cornerback had the side effect of helping OSU get lots of yards:

I understand all the, “teach your players a lesson” tweets, but YALL understand, if Saban benched players everytime they violated team or American laws, Bama might not have a single national title.

— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) October 28, 2018

But then Acho — who’s now an ESPN analyst — got rougher.

Bruh, you can’t be late to meetings THEN come out here and get mossed. Your team needs you. #Texas #OkState

— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) October 28, 2018

And then he used the “trash” word ...

I can’t watch this dude play defense anymore. It’s actually trash. If you know. You know. #Texas

— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) October 28, 2018

... and said he wasn’t talking specifically about Boyd, but, uh:

Naw I feel u, and I didn’t say I was talking about Kris, I would never put nobody on front street like that... but anybody who feels that tweet applies to them should probably step up. I played hella trash games in my day lol. U grow and move on u feel me

— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) October 28, 2018

How’d Boyd respond? Aggressively.

Boyd going straight after Acho on Instagram. Smart. pic.twitter.com/0LuqqMGzl4

— Burnt Orange Nation (@BON_SBNation) October 28, 2018

Fortunately for Boyd, INSTAGRAM ASSAULT is not a violation of team rules.

One fan had a spicy take about what should be done to the game’s officiating crew: They should all be handed over to the mob.

Refs are screwing us again

The offsides on that 4th down was f%<*¥ing criminal. Somebody send the mafia to threaten the refs to pay these dickheads back for 2015.

Texas fans were livid at the officiating in 2015’s OSU-UT game, when a few apparent officiating errors went against the Horns. Every other Big 12 fan in the universe thought it was deeply ironic to see Texas fans upset about refs.

(Texas actually had a legit beef about that offside call, yeah. Oklahoma State sent a bunch of guys in a “motion” that looked a lot like emulating live play, and refs didn’t call a false start, but instead penalized the Horns for jumping off. The Horns also probably got away with a penalty in their end zone later in the game. Either way, Sicilian crime families must get involved.)

This Horns fan was MAD and only got MADDER when nobody wanted to join in being EXTREMELY MAD.

User TexasHorn started this thread on the team’s 247Sports message board before Texas’ body was even cold, while it was still the second half:

A COMPLETE JOKE

Dan Neil, we have our answer, NO, Texas is not mature enough to handle success

Being destroyed on national television - not sure if the Horns can recover before next week because wvu has a better team than osu

Nobody responded, so they added:

Sorry for being honest - where am I wrong guys, seriously?

Any one thrilled with this performance?

Still, nobody responded, so they added again:

Explain the off sides guys - want to argue the complete joke comment?

So tired or posting without any response - gutless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, someone replied:

We’re playing scared like a bunch of pussies. Coaches and players.

Persistence always pays off.

THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE is usually about fans, but Tom Herman is now the second head coach to make an appearance, thanks to the end of the game.

This is the sort of sprinting velocity that can only be generated by pure anger.

Recap of Tom Herman & Mike Gundy in the late scrap, their postgame handshake and Gundy's interview explanation pic.twitter.com/CMzJpKwzpw

— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) October 28, 2018

(Herman and Mike Gundy are fine.)

Herman joins Jeremy Pruitt, who kicked a whiteboard and was thus included by rule:

Hey Knoxville... how's it going? #UFvsUT pic.twitter.com/HxplOn0uRQ

— Mike Gillespie (@MikeABCColumbia) September 23, 2018

Washington lost to Cal as a disappointing season became a total failure.

The Huskies are not even making a New Year’s Six bowl in Jake Browning’s senior year, two years after getting to the Playoff with him as a sophomore.

In some corners of the web, faith’s running short in Chris Petersen.

At HardcoreHusky.com, someone started a thread: People you have more faith in than CP, reflecting the fanbase’s growing impatience with Petersen, whose job titles are head coach, Guy Who Won a Million Games at Boise State, and Guy Who Got Washington to the College Football Playoff.

This was the only thing there:

Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

This was another fan’s measured response:

FUCK THSI PROGRUM IM FUCKING OUT

WE SUCK SND SHOULDNT LOSE TO CAL. WE ARE A LOSER PROGRUM. UPPER CAMPUS DGAF ABOUT WINNING. FIRE PEENERMAN. END TNIS FUCKING TEAM.I WANT DONG JAMES BACK. I WANT TO FUCKING WIN. NO JUAN IN THIS FANBASE HAS DTANDARS EXCEPT FOR THOS SITE. YOU GUYS GET ITZ PETERMAM DOES NOT. FUCK EVERYTHING.

Someone urged this poster to say calm:

Stay positive! Fuck Petersen!

But this blunt response to the loss pretty much summed it up:

We lost to cal

Lol I’m done. Fuck Husky football. Fuck Petersen. Fuck Browning. Fuck Haener. Fuck everything. Roll tide.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but UW fans have wanted Bama since early in 2016:

Settle down, Washington pic.twitter.com/4lnFCfcJ4i

— College Football by SB Nation (@SBNationCFB) September 3, 2016

Miami lost to Boston College, which means it’s time to look at how Hurricanes fans responded to the team’s official Twitter account in real time.

When Miami loses, checking Twitter’s important, because Canes fans are always the most direct in college football. The classic of this genre:

I’m gonna jump off a building

— Heat 3x (@Jbazo5D) September 3, 2018

As Boston College put a thumping on the Canes, fans responded well. Just follow along with various score updates and quarter breaks.

1. After the first Boston College score:

Already with the bs

— Howard Webster (@TbearCane17) October 26, 2018

2. After, um, a Miami score:

Right...embarrassing.

— Carlos Marante (@ItsACanesThing5) October 27, 2018

3. After another BC score:

Is this a retweet?

— Tucker McFall (@RealTuckMcFall) October 26, 2018

4. End of the first quarter!

pic.twitter.com/UqrP2scamn

— Brandon English (@BEnglish007) October 26, 2018

5. After some ostensibly good news?

Way to look at the bright side.

— Brandon English (@BEnglish007) October 27, 2018

6. After an actual good play:

Throw the ball in front of the receiver and it could've been 6

— Christopher Gray (@Barclayallday26) October 27, 2018

7. After a touchdown by Miami:

How on Gods green earth do you have a -5 yard punt return, inside the 10-yard line, with not one but TWO blocks in the back on the return? That's piss poor

— Tucker McFall (@RealTuckMcFall) October 27, 2018

8. After a defensive stop by Miami:

We must be trying to run the clock out....ridiculous

— umcane (@umcane26) October 27, 2018

9. Halftime!

Yes a dogfight with BC! Proud day for the Canes.

— Bryant Jensen (@Bjensen630) October 27, 2018

10. After another good play by Miami’s defense:

BC knows our QB can’t hit the side of a barn further than ten yards so they playing up on the line

— solidlifefitness (@solidlifefitnes) October 27, 2018

11. A little later:

This guy is worse than Jacory Harris

— The Bad Hombre (@jbjammin34) October 27, 2018

12. Things getting desperate:

Get Jimmy Johnson out of retirement

— John Bennett (@DirtyBirdz19) October 27, 2018

13. The Turnover Chain is out! This is good for Miami!

This is the most remedial offense I've ever seen

— The Bad Hombre (@jbjammin34) October 27, 2018

14. End of the third quarter!

Social Media dude.. let Coach know Malik ain't it. Thanks boss.

— Joey Inza (@JoeyInza) October 27, 2018

15. Game over.

Joke.

— Nick Alvarez (@NicksTake22) October 27, 2018

I’ve said it before, but Miami fans are the overprotective relative who will roast you all day but threaten to burn down the house of anyone else who criticizes you.

I respect and fear them in equal measure.

Ultimately, it was best to just step away.

recap, 3 stars, good, bad, and ugly up on https://t.co/W9gmsOyW7d i have nothing else to say. i'm going to play #RDR2 bye.

— StateOfTheU.com (@TheStateOfTheU) October 27, 2018

Florida lost to Georgia, ending the Gators’ dreams of winning the SEC East.

Gators fans were actually pretty reasonable about it. I don’t have jokes. I’m just making the note here so that you know I was as disappointed to learn this as you were. I checked.

In all kinds of weather, y'all, and go Gators pic.twitter.com/jTaaNcXnvS

— BUM CHILLUPS (@edsbs) October 27, 2018

And TCU lost to Kansas, thus earning automatic inclusion as the last team on this list.

Things are dark in Fort Worth.

Is this how Baylor Feels?

For the first time I am embarrassed to wear my TCU gear in public.

The last spot in this list is now just tradition, devoted to any team that might lose to Kansas in a given week.

In Week 3, a Rutgers fan asked after losing to KU: “What stage of grief are you in?”

They have grinded me down into not caring about college football at all just like the Knicks and the Mets have done in basketball and baseball respectively. In a way it’s good. I can enjoy my kids without having to give a hoot about the scores on Saturdays.

Before that, in Week 2, a fan of the MAC’s Central Michigan wrote this:

Fire Bonamego

I know I’ll hear a lot of the usual “it’s too soon in the season” and “MAC play hasn’t even started”, but I’ve been a die-hard supporter of the football program and I EXPECT us to compete against the power teams every year. There’s no reason that we can’t be like Boise State or better. We need to strive to be better and we shouldn’t settle for mediocracy.

Again, that was a MAC fan distraught about losing to a Big 12 team.

Congrats to the Horned Frogs and their fans on joining this prestigious club.

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Why Sheryl Sandberg Decided To Speak Openly About Losing Her Husband

Nearly two years ago, Sheryl Sandberg poured 1,743 words of raw emotion into a Facebook post that essentially made everyone on the internet cry.

Her husband, Dave Goldberg, had died suddenly at the age of 47, not even 30 days earlier. The calendar marked the end of the traditional Jewish mourning period for spouses, but she hardly felt done with grief. Sandberg wasn’t even sure she would hit publish, the Facebook executive told HuffPost last week. She wrote feverishly, put it aside and went to bed.

The post was her desperate attempt to connect with friends and coworkers from whom she felt increasingly isolated in her mourning. “I woke up and thought, this is so bad. And I hit post,” she said.

The writing is pure heartbreak. Sandberg writes over and over about her sadness. About mothering her children while they screamed and cried in pain. “I have lived thirty years in these thirty days. I am thirty years sadder. I feel like I am thirty years wiser,” she writes. “When tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning.”

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Sandberg’s essay marked a clear tipping point in her journey back from the hell of a shocking loss. By opening up about her feelings, Sandberg was inviting others to support her ― including colleagues and friends who’d been unsure of what to say. The post offered guidance.

And that guidance formed the basis for Sandberg’s next project. Her latest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, out Monday, tackles a universal yet enduringly under-discussed subject: grief.

While her Silicon Valley peers have worked for years on technologies that would extend life, Sandberg’s project offers up a path to happiness based not on fantasies of immortality but on the reality of the sorrow of life itself.

At the time she first posted about Goldberg’s death, Sandberg had already returned to work at Facebook, where she’d been chief operating officer for nearly a decade. She was feeling increasingly lonely.

A notoriously outgoing and collaborative manager, she was surrounded by familiar colleagues and friendly faces. Yet, with the exception of her boss, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, no one at the office seemed to know what to say to her. 

“When I came back to work there was a real feeling of isolation,” she said. “It felt like no one was talking to me.... The chitchat ground to a halt. People looked at me like I was a ghost.”

Just a few years ago, Sandberg wrote Lean In, exhorting women to be ambitious, to ask for what they want, to be their full selves at work.  

“Losing Dave brought that home for me,” she said. “My whole self was so sad.”

She found herself increasingly holed up in a conference room with Zuckerberg, hiding from the awkwardness of the office. “Mark was the person I turned to,” Sandberg said. 

Sandberg, who first met Zuckerberg when he was a 23-year-old CEO struggling with his role, has long been credited with guiding him to maturity. But this time he was helping her.

“Mark is one of the first people I called when I lost Dave,” she said. “Mark planned the funeral.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were frequent visitors to Sandberg’s house in Menlo Park during the days and weeks after Goldberg’s death. They played with Sandberg’s kids. Zuckerberg helped her son with his math homework, she said.

At work, Zuckerberg was supportive in a very traditional way, telling Sandberg to take as much time as she needed. But, crucially, he also encouraged her actual work. In one of her first meetings after she returned, Sandberg was a bit out of it, she writes. She even misidentified a colleague, and instead of criticizing her or saying something about how he understands she’s still adjusting, Zuckerberg insisted she would’ve made the mistake before Goldberg died. And, even better, also told her she made a great point in the meeting. In short, he made her feel valued.

Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they’re doing OK, and that is key to helping a colleague in grief, Sandberg said. She wanted to feel like she was still a productive worker. “I had no idea how he knew ― I am older and I didn’t know how to do these things. I don’t think this is me teaching him, it’s him teaching me,” she said.

Typically, no one knows what to say to someone who is suffering a loss or an illness or a trauma, Sandberg said. “You want to silence a room? Get cancer. Have a friend or a family member who goes to prison. Lose a job,” she said. “We isolate ourselves.” 

In her post, Sandberg offered guidance on what to say.

“When people say to me, ‘You and your children will find happiness again,’ my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, ‘You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good’ comfort me more because they know and speak the truth,’” she wrote in her post.

“Even a simple ‘How are you?’—almost always asked with the best of intentions— is better replaced with ‘How are you today?’ When I am asked ‘How are you?’ I stop myself from shouting, My husband died a month ago, how do you think I am? When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day.”

Sandberg was opening up about death in a real way. For many who’ve struggled with grief, to read an honest piece from the accomplished executive, about a subject so taboo and painful, was a revelation. The post today has more than 400,000 shares, close to 1 million likes and tens of thousands of comments.

The effect for Sandberg was immediate, she said. “Everyone started saying, ‘How are you today?’” Sandberg said. People started telling her about their own experiences with loss.

“I felt connected to a larger experience of life. There’s so much hardship out there,” she said. “The grief didn’t change, but the isolation did. I felt so much less alone.”

When I hear ‘How are you today?’ I realize the person knows that the best I can do right now is to get through each day. Sheryl Sandberg

Like Lean In, the new book is part memoir. She writes of the agony of telling her two young children, just 7 and 10 years old, that their father was dead. “I have terrible news. Terrible,” she told them. “Daddy died.”

“The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day,” she writes.

The book is also a practical guide for handling grief and adversity. With her coauthor, and friend, psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Sandberg lays out anecdotes ― she’s spoken with rape survivors, people who’ve gone to prison, refugees ―  and research on perseverance and resilience.

Acutely aware that she’s a billionaire privileged beyond all imagining, Sandberg is extremely careful to write about the suffering of others. In conversation, she acknowledges her privilege repeatedly. When asked about her struggles to parent as a single mother, she demurred. “So many people have immense hardship.” 

In Sandbergian fashion she has also launched a website, OptionB.org, where people can turn for support and guidance in the face of loss.

Surely, an unintentional side benefit to Sandberg’s latest project is that she’s essentially made the case for Facebook ― it offers human connection ― at a time when the social network is under criticism for increasing political polarization.

The new book and website is an attempt to open up conversations about difficult subjects on a mass scale, furthering Facebook’s ostensible mission.

Sandberg found her husband, already dead, on the floor in a hotel gym in Mexico where the two were celebrating a friend’s birthday. Sandberg had unwittingly spoken her last words to him, “I’m falling asleep,” while laying poolside earlier that day, ending a game of Settlers of Catan they were playing on their iPads. That afternoon she had told her son she’d have to talk to his dad before they could make a decision about buying new sneakers.

An autopsy would later confirm that Goldberg, who was CEO of Survey Monkey and a well-known Silicon Valley figure, had a fatal cardiac arrhythmia, caused by coronary artery disease, while running on the treadmill.

They were married for 11 years; friends for longer than that.  

Now she’s dating again. “I never wanted to,” she said. “I wanted to spend my life with Dave. That’s a choice I don’t get to make.”

Sandberg, who is 47-years-old, used to joke about getting older. No more. “There’s only two choices we grow older or we don’t,” she said. “I took it for granted I would grow old and Dave would grow old. It never occurred to me we wouldn’t,” she said.

Finding growth and ultimately joy is the project of Option B. Sandberg makes a point of emphasizing this aspect. The title echoes something a friend told her after Goldberg’s passing. 

When Sandberg was sad she couldn’t bring Goldberg to a school event and had to find someone else to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she said to her friend, as she recounted in her post and again in the book. “He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.’ “

A chronic over-achiever, Sandberg has definitely lived up to that plan. After Goldberg’s death, she was just struggling to make it through the day she said. But with this book it’s clear that the Harvard MBA, former Google executive is just as ambitious as ever.

Still, things have changed. Sandberg said she travels much less than she used to. Long gone are the days of hosting women’s dinners at her house, she said. “Dave covered when I would have a women’s dinner,” she said. “I don’t do those things anymore.” But she quickly added: “So many people have so much hardship. That’s not what I mourn for. Of course, I had to make big changes.”

And when asked her about her career goals, she pivoted, saying it’s important to live your dreams and find things you want to do. “Even small silly things,” she said. “I’m a really bad piano player and I sing worse, but in those moments I can’t think about anything else. I won’t pretend the grief doesn’t still hit.”

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