#the pain of feeling unimportant and forgettable again

[howlsofbloodhounds]

How do you have so many ideas about the chromatic crew??? My only thoughts about them only come to me in the shower 😭😭

Obsession.

[cosmicjoke]

There's an issue i personally have with jjk manga is that i keep having a hard time remembering the characters aside the notable cast and idk why they're so forgettable especially since I didn't have the same with others like naruto or attack on titan

With aot I easily remember characters from s1 like marco or mina carolina haha is that weird ?

I don't think it's weird at all, haha. I can't remember ANY of the characters in JJK other than the main cast. Every time someone's name gets mentioned, I'm like 'Who's that again?'. Most of the side-characters are completely unimportant and forgetable. I think for me, personally, it's also a product of me having a difficult time concentrating on the story itself, again because there's so often a digression from the actual plot to explain in painstaking detail how some stupid cursed technique works, which takes up several pages and narration boxes. It became so painful after a while, that I just stopped paying as much attention, and by the time I was able to work through the CT exposition, I didn't have the mental energy to stay alert for the rest of the chapter. I'm really serious when I talk about this being a huge problem with JJK. There's just way, way too much exposition, and exposition about something that's incredibly convoluted and difficult to understand, at that. It's like stopping your story in the middle of a chapter to start talking about math equations. It's NOT fun. In fact, it actively renders the chapters themselves way less engaging. So I think the difficulty in keeping track of the different characters themselves is probably largely a product of that.

Gege spends more time telling us about how a certain characters CT works than he does telling us about the character themselves, and so they just end up feeling like a plot device, instead of someone you should care about.

Defenders of JJK like to accuse anyone who criticizes it of simply hating it for being "heavy" or "dark" or "depressing", and can't seem to conceive of there being any other reason why people might have a problem with the writing. I laugh when I see those criticisms, because I personally love tragedy above just about everything else. I can't at all get into cute or fluffy stories, or stories where nothing really bad ever happens, or there aren't serious stakes or consequences, or where there's an easy solution to some problem. Stories like that just don't interest me. So JJK being dark and heavy and tragic doesn't bother me at all. I'm fine with it. What bothers me is what I outlined above, along with the awful pacing, and Gege's habit of using red-herring cliffhangers that turn out to be nothing but lies. That's what pisses me off about JJK and why I think the writing sucks, lol.

[cosmicatta]

I don't want to make this a habit, but if you don't mind I need to vent just a little bit, I need to sort out my feelings:

So I had a fall out with my (now ex) best friend a few months ago. She was the most important person in my life for about 20 years, I thought of her as my platonic soulmate. But for reasons I have yet to understand, our relationship started deteriorating last year. I won't go into detail, but in short I just feel very unloved, unimportant and neglected. I guess our bond was always more significant for me than it was for her, I was kind of aware (even if I tried to ignore it or deny it) that our relationship had never been 100% equal in terms of emotional investment, but I was okay with that because it still payed off. Until it didn't.

It's ugly when you need someone but they don't need you, when they don't even want you anymore, and you don't understand why, or where it went wrong, or what you did for things to end like this. It's painful to know that I was always replaceable, forgettable and inconvenient. After 20 years of selfless dedication, I don't know what to do with all this love. I can't even get closure.

This is seriously affecting my mental health, my self-image and the way I interact with other people in general, so I'm sorry if I seem off lately, or if I'm especially awkward. I'm struggling to navigate social relationships again after this, I really want to make new friends, have fun and be joyful, I try my best, but I know sometimes that's not enough.

Anyways, for anyone who might read this, thank you for listening and sorry for the trouble. I will be here just trying to find joy in the things that still make me happy.

[maxwell-grant]

OK, I know this will probably be painful, and I may be a bad mutual for asking but...would you be willing to identify what, in your opinion are the bottom five worst Shadow adaptations, and give a detailed breakdown of why they were so lousy?

Oh christ, okay. I don't think you're gonna get as much of a detailed breakdown for these compared to some of the others, because I take more issue with adaptations that do have good qualities but also big or deep problems to talk about.

For example, I can't include Garth Ennis's Shadow in this list because the comic has a lot of strong points to it, despite a deeply, deeply detestable take on The Shadow's character, where as the rest of the Dynamite run doesn't reach neither the lows or highs of his run. Likewise, Andy Helfer's run has a couple or a couple dozen moments every issue that make me want to tear something to shreds in frustration, but it's also at many points a really good comic with great art and some occasionally very inspired writing. Really, I'd just be repeating myself talking about what I hate in those.

But, fine, let's list some of the others.

I think I'm just gonna have to get the elephant in the room out of the way here, and address that I won't be including Si Spurrier's 2017 Dynamite mini in this list, and I think at least some of you might be angry it's not Number 1 by default. I'm doing this because I intend to one day really revisit it, think about it and it's reception and what it was trying to do, and talk about it on it's own, now that it's been 5 years and everyone has moved on and we can maybe talk about it without kneejerk hatred driving everyone nuts (your mileage may vary on how warranted it was).

I'm also not going to be talking about James Patterson's new novel, because I haven't read it. It seems to be considered a forgettable potboiler by mainstream critics and a resounding failure by everyone who likes the character whether they've read the book or not, and frankly I don't have it in me to learn what the fuzz was about anytime soon, I got my hands way too full as is.

And I won't be including the Batman x Shadow crossovers here, because again, they do have a lot of virtues that put them far ahead of some of the really worst Shadow media, and I've talked enough about how badly I think they mangled The Shadow, which is really the big problem I have with them (well, that and Tim Sale blatantly copying a Michael Kaluta cover, that was really shitty). I don't really hate them anymore, I just get tired and frustrated thinking about parts of them, I said my piece as is. Really, my frustration over this comic is what inspired me to start writing about The Shadow here, so I guess in a way I do owe it at least that much.

5: Archie Comics's Shadow

I think some of you might be wondering why this isn't ranked higher, but to be honest, I don't actually harbor any hatred towards this. I mean, I have to include it, but I find it kinda silly that some people even today actually care about the existence of this comic enough to hate it.

For fans back then? Oh yeah, obviously, but this dropped to such instantaneous backlash that it never really got to live past 6 issues. Really, everything wrong about it can be understood immediately from the covers, and I've actually read the comic in it's entirety to see if there was anything worth taking. I found only a couple of things of note but, no, this really is just a painfully mediocre superhero comic that happens to have a couple of Shadow names in it. If anything, it gets too much credit.

The actual contents of what it is are never going to justify it's reputation, but the existence of it and the disproportionate response to it is the funniest and most enduring legacy it could ever ask for. This whole comic is The Shadow's version of Spongebob's embarassing Christmas photo.

4: David Liss's The Shadow Now

This is another "The Shadow as an immortal in modern times" comic and I think you may have noticed the pattern with those by now. I may revisit this eventually and I do have some moments from it saved for reference, but overall: It sucks, and it doesn't even suck in a way that lets me talk much about it, it's a diet version of Chaykin's Shadow. If Archie's Shadow is a generic mediocre superhero comic wearing The Shadow's name, this is a generic crime story playing beats from movie. The Shadow is an asshole and not even a grandiose or sinister one, he just feels like a sleazy douche in a costume. The art is a 50/50 coin toss between appropriately moody and "Google images with a filter on them", I don't remember anything about the plot other than Khan had a bomb again and he had a daughter, and there were new versions of the agents and the Harry stand-in turned evil and Lamont shacked up with Margo's descendant which, uh, no. I don't really hate this but I really have nothing nice to say about this comic other than Colton Worley's art is nice sometimes. I can't really muster anything else to say here.

3: Invisible Avenger

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZZZZZZ...

...uuh, wha-

Yeah, I remember nothing about this one other than it's painfully boring and nothing about it, nothing at all, works in the slightest and I drift off to sleep even now trying to give this a rewatch. To be honest pretty much every other Shadow serial not starred by Victor Jory sucks and I don't really have anything to say about them, this one is just the worst of the lot. I dearly wish there was a good Shadow tv series but, if it was going to be like this pilot? Good riddance.

2: Harlan Ellison's The New York Review of Bird

This isn't really a Shadow story as much as it's a Harlan Ellison story that happens to feature The Shadow, but man am I glad that Ellison's "Dragon Shadows" was canned, because holy shit what a goddamn nightmare Harlan Ellison writing The Shadow for real could have been, going purely by the one time he ever touched the character. New York Review of Bird is a purely farcical parody story that wears real, real thin even before "Uncle Kent" shows up, and we get to see in it what is by far the most detestable and irredeemable take on The Shadow ever put on print, and not even in a critique or deconstructive way or anything that could be remotely worth discussing.

I don't hold any particular affection for Harlan Ellison and his writing (despite liking some of it) and I've come to notice the major red flag that is finding someone who looks up to Harlan Ellison in any capacity as a person, and this story in particular really feels like Ellison aggressively trying to channel his jackass tendencies through every line, just him being nasty because he built a personal brand on being nasty. The only reason this isn't Number One is because it's a very short story that saw zero influence or reputation, and thus it only exists as a brief mention in The Shadow wiki, and a brief mention is all it really calls for.

1: Howard Chaykin's Blood & Judgment

I'm guessing most of you already knew this one was in the top spot before I started writing.

I would actually rather not write a big piece on Blood & Judgment, because I think (or at least I hope) it's influence on The Shadow has waned a lot over the years and I would prefer to draw it the least amount of attention possible, but if I HAVE to talk about this, I guess I'd rather just vomit this out of my circuits now instead of giving it it's own post.

I would prefer to use a less unpleasant image on my blog, but if I'm going to talk about this comic, there's no image to better convey it than this drawing of macho asshole Cranston holding a sexualized mannequin at gunpoint. By leaps and bounds, Blood & Judgment is the most misogynistic Shadow story I've ever read. It's ironic that Chaykin justified the rampant misogyny he gave The Shadow with the idea that this is just a man from the 30s would act like, when he admits in the same breath that he never even touched the stories, and he wrote a story more sexist and demeaning to it's female characters than anything, literally anything, written in the Shadow pulps. It's almost impressive even.

I'll paste some segments from Randy Raynaldo's review

In Flagg, he intended to present his own point of view on American society while keeping his work tongue in cheek and acessible. But this vision dimmed, and Flagg had become a vehicle by which Chaykin could play out fetishes and portray gratuitous and stylish violence.

In The Shadow, stripped of the political and social veneer which was supposed to make Flagg unique, Chaykin's sensibilities and excesses become disturbingly apparent. For all of his liberal posturing, Chaykin's work demonstrates zero difference from the same kind of mentality exploited and made popular by similarly violent popular culture icons like Dirty Harry and Death Wish.

More than half a dozen individuals are indiscriminately and violently murdered in the first issue. Although the victims are characters who played major roles in the myth of The Shadow, we feel little sympathy for them, even for those of us who knew these characters at the outset. Who dies is unimportant, it's how they die that is the fascination.

Chaykin uses sexual decadence as a means by which to establish villains, and undercuts this device by making the protagonists as promiscuous as the villains. For all of Chaykin's seemingly liberal leanings, he demonstrates very little sensitivity in his portrayal of women.

Because everything works on rules of three, this comic also follows the pattern with other works mentioned here, as this isn't Howard Chaykin writing The Shadow: it's The Shadow reimagined as a Howard Chaykin character. He looks and acts exactly like Reuben Flagg and the typical macho protagonist of Chaykin's other works, he's a cynical sleaze with an entirely new origin who half-assedly dons a garb to machine gun people, and I already wrote a separate piece on why the machineguns are kind of emblematic of everything wrong with this take.

I understand that Chaykin has, or used to have, a big following of sorts, and I've tried to wrap my head around this for years, but I genuinely still don't get why Shadow fans stomach this comic unless they happen to be Chaykin fans first and foremost, I really don't. Everything, fucking everything Shadow fans hate about modern depictions of the character can be traced right back to this. The parts that stuck and changed the character for the worse, like him being defined as an immortal, bloodthirsty warmonger who got all his skills and powers from a magic city in Tibet, or Lamont Cranston being a coward who fears and hates the Shadow, or his agents being expendable slaves, stuff that has been ingrained into the mythos through this and the Alec Baldwin movie and other comics, to the point that people now think of it as the norm, that it's the baseline of what The Shadow is, and I hate it, I genuinely fucking hate it,

I hate it so much that it's a big part of the reason why I created this blog and why I want so badly to get to write The Shadow, because I plainly couldn't stand not having ways to tell people that this is all wrong, that this is actively shooting down the character's odds for success, and that they are missing out on something really great, because the well has been tainted with garbage that won't go away and everytime I read the words Shambala in a Shadow comic, even an otherwise good or great one, I get just a wee bit cross.

The only semi-redeeming aspects I can think of for this comic is one or two cool moments, like when The Shadow hijacks a concert using his Devil's Whisper or when he tames dogs with a stare. Just breadcrumbs of "not garbage" amidst an ocean of anything but. I hate that talking about why I hate this comic in-length can almost feel like I'm still enticing people to check it out of curiosity, but if you wanna do that, fine, just know this: The worst part of Blood & Judgment, even if you don't care at all about what it did to The Shadow, is that it's boring.

It is a deeply boring comic. If you like Howard Chaykin to begin with, you'll probably like this okay (although even Chaykin fans told me that this is his weakest work and that even he seems to agree). If you don't, I plain don't see what you could get out of this.

The comic itself is just nothing. It's the comic book equivalent of a pre-schooler trying to get a reaction by swearing. It has nothing whatsoever other than half-assed attempts at shock value. The plot isn't there, the ideas are stale, the dialogue is needlessly oblique and comprised entirely of unfinished sentences, interrupted conversations and one-liners without build-up. The characters are all unlikable and uninteresting stooges with no personality, or joyless cartoons. There's no heart or emotion or logic, and it isn't even funny enough to succeed as just an outrageous exercise in 80s excess. There's nothing in here.

I get "why" it was popular enough at the time, a rising star creator penning a modern revival of an old character based on controversy that pissed off the old fans, it's an old story that still gets repeated today. But manufactured controversy is not a replacement for storytelling and it rarely ever exists to benefit the people who actually want to enjoy the stories, it only benefits those for the crude benefit of those who want to sell you something out of the controversy.

I guess they got their money's worth back then.

------------------------------------------------

Phew, okay, I did it, I finally vomited out a piece on Blood & Judgment and some others, allright, let's put this piece of negativity behind us now.

[invitedeath]

THE WITCHER 3 PROMPTS

❛ how many have you already killed? how many more might you still? ❜ asked by @0bustersword0​

there was no simple method to describe that feeling which bubbled and boiled within his chest whenever the voice of cloud strife echoed across the landscape. whereas cloud had once faltered with his words, stumbling as he confronted the object of his confusion, of his pain, he spoke now with a strength which left sephiroth amused. turning, his stance only mirrored those words, how he looked like a true blockade to sephiroth’s intent. at least, he looked the part of it. there was no telling how easily he might get swept aside by just one swing of that infamous sword of his. 

“ cloud, haven’t you learned by now... “ he mocked, openly and clearly, mouth curved into a vicious jest of a smile. there was no brightness there, no warmth or familiarity. it was a cold, unnerving kind. twisted, eyes alight with obsessive disdain. again and again they would circle around on that merry-go-round of cat & mouse; the feline with his speed and strength to pin the mouse again, again, again, again. he might not kill cloud, maybe toss him about and break a bone or two. draw blood between his lips and clog his throat with crimson... maybe have him knelt before one or all of those surviving allies... their forgettable names unimportant in the moment.

anything to stifle that screeching inside, anything to silence that part of him that wanted to destroy it all. jenova, echoing...bidding him forward.

“ once, twice, a hundred more deaths? i will always return. i will always live. there is no end to me, no end to my existence. in this world... or the next. “

he had moved slowly, but already closed the distance quite a way. met with only the resistance of cloud’s weapon, sephiroth paused and continued smiling. 

“ death will plague this world until it is deemed suitable for my purpose. you should understand that. can you not feel it, that hollowness inside you that yearns for eternal silence? for the quiet of death? “

he needn’t go on, simply allowing the swirling tides of stormy weather to muse the coming end, to provide a taste of that darkness which bled from sephiroth’s manifested pain, from his hate. and cloud would watch it all, would be privy to the burning of the skies and the bodies sundered to ash before his eyes. sephiroth’s eyes fell closed, dark lashes sweeping cool, pale cheeks. he inhaled, deep and slowly.

“ our connection, cloud. it still keeps our fates bound together. i shall take what is owed, and you shall watch as i succeed. “

[heyitstords]

Dear.

Good evening! Welcome to my word vomit of pure emotion. It’s 12:41 AM, and I have to let out my feelings. I just finished listening to Cavetown’s new EP called Dear., and it’s the best thing I’ve heard this month. This is not a review, not a rant, not anything special; it’s just me letting out unfiltered thoughts and emotions because I am so in love with this EP. I am unable to form beautiful sentences right now. 

Dear. has four tracks; Just Add Water, Banana Bread, Dear, and Talk To Me. Every song struck a nerve. The lyrics are raw, so full of emotion, that I can’t help but feel things every time I listen to the songs. I’m a mix of sad, happy, and fragile right now. 

Just Add Water

Leave without me because I don’t wanna go Just add water and let me grow Please forget me and be happy on your own Just add water, let me go

I’m feeling salty, but I’m not the sea I’m fungus in fresh water, cobwebs in your cupboard I saw my friends leave after the party I wasn’t invited, never invited.

I relate to these two conflicting verses so much. Someone posted on Genius: “He wants to be alone, but he’s also hurt when his friends don’t invite him places. He wants to be hugged and loved, but he asks his friends to leave him. He isolates himself because he wants someone to love him enough to stay.” AND HONESTLY??? SAME!!! Even though I don’t want to leave the house sometimes, I think it still feels nice to be included and remembered by people you consider your friends. It’s such a sucky feeling to see everyone hanging out without you and you really begin to question your self-worth. Am I that forgettable? Replaceable? It’s such an ugly, unhealthy feeling that always finds it way to my brain, convincing me that I am unimportant, unloved, unmemorable. 

Banana Bread

I hope you’re alright I didn’t wanna wake up last night Cause I quite liked the dream I had of holding your hand It’s funny how slowly time goes when my thoughts have been racing all this time It’s alright to feel a little bit of darkness now and then I know I’ve said it once but I still tell myself again and again You’ll never be enough, but what is enough, you’re selfless Isn’t that enough

This song. It’s so beautiful. It’s romantic, but it’s also realistic. Every day is not going to be a good day, but that’s okay! Some days are wonderful, some days are terrible. The line “Banana bread before I go to bed will put the bees to sleep / Otherwise they’d buzz and sting my lungs all night inside of me” reminds me a lot about anxiety-ridden 3 AM thoughts. They’re so toxic, and you just keep on spiraling down this black hole. The demons in your brain are so alive, holding you back, not letting you breathe. This song is deep and wonderful and true and ufghruhgr!!!!nkjewhfke I am at a loss for words.

Dear

Everyone's got a thing A thing they don't like A thing that makes them stare in front of the sink With tears in their eyes Everyone's got a thing Maybe they won't cry Maybe they can't even bear to utter the words The doctor prescribed

I won't even lie I'm screaming inside all the time It seems like a breeze It feels like a dream But I don't wanna die

Even though this song is really sad and serious, I find it to be also hopeful. Despite everything going wrong, your mind relentlessly telling you that you’re worthless, you still want to fight. Stay alive. I think that’s really admirable. I think the lyrics speak for themselves.

Talk To Me

You don't have to be a hero to save the world It doesn't make you a narcissist to love yourself It feels like nothing is easy it'll never be That's alright, let it out, talk to me You don't have to be a prodigy to be unique You don't have to know what to say or what to think You don't have to be anybody you can never be That's alright, let it out, talk to me Anxiety tossing turning in your sleep Even if you run away you still see them in your dreams It's so dark tonight but you'll survive certainly It's alright, come inside, and talk to me We can talk here on the floor On the phone, if you prefer I'll be here until you're okay Let your words release your pain You and I will share the weight Growing stronger day by day It's so dark outside tonight Build a fire warm and bright And the wind it howls and bites Bite it back with all your might Anxiety tossing turning in your sleep Even if you run away you still see them in your dreams It's so dark tonight It looks nice, fall asleep It's alright, come inside, and talk to me

I’m attaching the full lyrics to this song since it’s my favorite out of all of them. This whole song was like a tight hug. It was hard to choose a favorite, but something about this song almost made me cry. This song was beautifully reassuring; from the melody to the lyrics. God, especially the lyrics. When you’re anxious about something, hearing “That's alright, let it out, talk to me” is heaven. This song reminds me about a person, someone really important to me. Personally, I prefer listening to other people, and I rarely talk about myself. This person? I could talk about the most boring mundane thing in the universe and he will still express so much interest in what I have to say. So many times in my life I just keep my mouth shut, since I feel like the person I’m talking to is not interested in what I have to say, yet this guy never fails to make me feel like I’m worth listening to and that I have nothing to be afraid of. He’s the human form of reassurance. He makes me feel like I’m okay, I will be okay. He always listens, he’s always concerned about me, he’s genuinely interested about my life, even in the most boring part about my day. Whenever I’m sad or scared or anxious, he always reminds me that I can talk to him about it. Anything, everything, nothing. He is the line “I'll be here until you're okay”, because it’s true. He’s really there for me. Ah, I shed a tear. Look at me. 

That ends this emotion-fueled post! I’m thankful I have this blog slash online diary, that way I’m really able to let all my feelings out. I feel great too because I was really able to release my thoughts, opinions, and overall love for Cavetown’s EP. He is a genius, and I’m so happy I found him and his music. I’m not going to proofread this because these are my raw, unfiltered thoughts. 

To more beautiful music,

T

[enrychan]

comparison mass effect andromeda / dragon age 2, yeah or nope? i hear that a lot around the fandom

short answer: nope

extremely long answer [lots of MEA negativity and Personal Opinions™ under the cut, you’ve been warned. Please don’t read if you enjoyed the game and/or you are tired of hearing negative things about it, believe me i totally understand the feeling]:

alright i’m not going to act like DA2 wasn’t disappointing because yes, it was. especially after a game like DAO which remains among the best RPGs i’ve ever played. so I would compare MEA to DA2 because they are both disappointments. that said, i still disagree with the part of the fandom that says they are similar because of the “smaller story” and/or “the focus on the characters”. DA2 is a smaller story than DAO, but it’s laser focused on the delivery of that story within a three chapters arc, and through its characters. Exploration is almost non-existent and the fetch quests are few and so unimportant you can skip them without missing anything. The companions are the true narrative and emotional center, and each one of them has a personal mission during each one of the three chapters of the story. Some of them (especially Anders and Fenris) represent a piece of the problems and politics of Thedas and force Hawke to make decisions regarding those problems. Their growth and fate depend almost entirely on their relationship with Hawke and on the choices of the player.

On the other hand, MEA is all over the place. it gives me a number of huge maps filled with nothing but fetch quests that don’t make the narrative proceed in any way and are entirely forgettable. The game also gives me a humongous researching/developing system for weapons and armor with an absolutely ridiculous and confusing as hell UI, which requires three different currencies (milky way tech, kett tech, remnant tech), that you have to collect by scanning things, just to research the projects for said weapons and armor, not to mention the materials to actually build the fucking things - which come in like six or seven different levels, so if you want to update your weapon or armor to the next level you have to gather the materials all over again. That’s insane. At some point I just skipped that mess altogether and went through the rest of the game with my shitty level 2 gear because i was sick and tired of scanning and gathering and researching just to discover lately that i didn’t like how my new weapon worked and i wasted time for nothing. Obviously that meant the combat was much harder for me than it needed to be. There is a more in depth analysis on the researching/developing system in this review, if you’re interested. I’m not going to delve into the ridiculous implications of having to scan the rebels’ tech on Kadara to get milky way tech currency, like on the Nexus they don’t have, I don’t know, archives or books on their own technology?

I’ll also add that while the combat is probably the best part of the game, and it’s much more dynamic than in the trilogy, it’s still much less fun for me because they took away the option to order your companions to use a certain power, preventing me from planning any tactic or combo. this also had the side effect of creating another layer of separation between my Ryder and her companions; like there weren’t enough already, with the mediocre writing and everything else going wrong in this game. Basically I always fought like I was alone and most time i actually was because my two companions were KO and i didn’t care, as they were almost useless to me.

I should probably add that the quest design in MEA is atrocious, the worst of every bioware game i’ve played - and i played most of them. for almost every mission i was required to go to a certain planet, than back to the ship, than back to a planet, then back to the ship… each time going through unskippable cutscenes and loading screens. Luckily for me when i played the game they already patched the galactic map, letting me skip the cutscenes of the voyage between planets, which are very pretty at first but at the fifteenth time they start to really grate on your nerves. And despite the patch, the voyage is still very slow compared to, say, ME3. I cannot even imagine the pain of the day 1 players who were forced to suffer through those unskippable cutscenes hundreds of times. Some missions (the worst ones imo) require you to follow a signal through more than two solar systems, reading a series of five or six “false positives” or whatever, before finally finding the “real one” and conclude the mission; an utter pain in the ass and a complete waste of time. I understand that MEA had huge problems during its development, but this kind of stuff has nothing to do with those problems and everything to do with artificially extending your gaming time with boring activities, just to say that the game is “100 hours long”.

At this point I want to make clear that I would have forgiven everything - the fetch quests, the confusing crafting system, the awful quest design - if Bioware gave me a good protagonist and/or interesting companions. Not even a good story really, I didn’t even care about that, just give me a fully flashed out crew with clear motivations and backgrounds and I’ll be happy. That’s basically the reason why I forgive every shortcoming in DA2 - and there are a loooot of those. But nope, Andromeda fails there too.

With the exception of Jaal and to a lesser extent, Cora, the loyalty missions of the companions are completely disjointed from the main story and universe in which they are set and don’t make us understand more of this new galaxy in any way. This lack of relevance would still be ok if the relationship between the companions and the protagonist and/or the protagonist’s choices actually mattered (like in DA2, where the companions’ loyalty determines who lives and who dies in the end) but unfortunately they don’t, and i mean at all.

Speaking of the protagonist, again the comparison with Hawke doesn’t hold. Hawke could have three very distinct personalities which made them somewhat memorable, for good or bad. Ryder on the other hand has two or more kind of replies that are almost always the same, just with slightly different wording (as this video says: do you know the difference between “now we are building again” and “this is vital to our progress”? - not that i agree with everything said in that review but here i agree completely). Ryder fares even worse if compared to other bioware protagonists like the Warden, who had a wide range of reactions that in some cases could even include outright killing their interlocutor. Combine this with the almost complete lack of choices and/or consequences in MEA and you get the most forgettable and boring protagonist of a bioware game to date; and yeah, I’m including the Inquisitor, because while the choices of dialogue in DAI were similar to those in MEA, at least the facial animations were decent so you could have a connection with your own protagonist on some level.

To be clear, it’s not lost to me what the original intention was with Ryder’s character arc. Ryder is specifically written as inadequate, uncharismatic and sometimes incompetent, because they weren’t the intended heir to the title of Pathfinder. They kinda found themselves thrown into that role and had to adapt. On its own that’s not a bad character arc at all. On the contrary, it could have been even more interesting than Shepard’s, who was a leader even before the first mission in ME1. Unfortunately there is no actual character arc for Ryder, only premises. Ryder never becomes more charismatic or assertive during the story, in fact they make very few choices at all, and even those few have little to no consequences both in the main story and in their relationships with the other characters. Ryder is just kinda there, reacting with various shades of tone to other characters actually making choices. Again compare that to Hawke’s arc, since we are discussing whether or not the two games resemble each other. In DA2 there is a simple premise (Hawke is a poor refugee who runs from the Blight and has to survive in an unforgiving city like Kirkwall) and a very clear payoff (Hawke becomes one of the central political figures in Kirkwall, while ironically still not being able to save their own family and, possibly, friends). With Ryder there is a clear premise but no payoff. At least not on a personal level, which is important in creating a connection with our character. Of course the story goes on anyway, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect my protagonist or change them in any way, so it remains almost irrelevant to me.

Everything said until now would be already experience breaking on its own, but it becomes even more remarkable in Ryder’s specific case, because Ryder comes with an extra passenger, aka SAM - and SAM is a very invasive extra passenger. To the point that most of the time you’re convinced it’s not actually Ryder the one in charge of that brain, or of the Pathfinder team. 99% of the time it’s SAM who solves problems and tells you and the others what to do. Sometimes is becomes frankly annoying. I’m not even talking about the vaults. You have to solve a murder case? SAM doesn’t just gather the evidence, oh no, he also tells you exactly what the evidence means and how it must be interpreted, like Ryder is too stupid to connect the dots. You intervene in a beating or a robbery on Kadara, either to stop it or just to understand what’s going on? SAM tells you not to get involved. And guess what? Ryder does exactly that, instead of, idk, telling SAM to shut the fuck up? SAM also becomes downright unbearable on Voeld and on Elaaden where it keeps telling you that the temperature is rising or falling or that it’s within acceptable range. I don’t know if they finally patched the thing but god was that annoying.

In any case my point is, since it’s actually SAM and not Ryder that does all the work, you have the distinct feeling that you are not actually the protagonist in this story, just a vessel. That could have been a cool premise if, for example, Ryder leaned too much on SAM and then halfway through the story it was taken away or shut down. That could have been a dramatic moment of growth for Ryder, where they were forced to finally rely on their own strenght and actually become the Pathfinder humanity needed. But again: cool premise, no payoff. SAM is taken away only near the end of the story and Ryder almost dies because of that. And even when they can’t access their SAM during the final mission, there is still the SAM inside the other Ryder sibling’s brain to tell them and you what to do. In short, Ryder is almost entirely dependent on SAM throughout the entire story, making them even less memorable as a protagonist, if possible.

Unfortunately, the same could be said of most of the characters that populate Andromeda and particularly the Tempest. Jaal is relevant only because he is an angara, the only new friendly species introduced in MEA (another disappointment), but he is otherwise completely forgettable on his own. It’s repeated over and over again how the angara have an extremely open behaviour towards each other, expressing feelings without many constraints like we do, but the problem is, without good and complex facial/body animations, that kind of behaviour is hard if not impossible to deliver. I think that’s one of the main problems with Jaal’s character. The other main problem is of course the writing, always generic and kind of vague. For example when you ask him about his relationship with the Moshae, he tells you that she “inspires” and he “loves her”, but he doesn’t give you anything that actually communicates that inspiration and that love, even only through the tone of his voice (has anyone given some direction to these voice actors?). It’s only telling without showing. Compare that to Dorian talking about Felix, for example. With just one image (Felix sneaking him treats from the kitchen while he was studying) he gives you an idea of both the person that Felix was and his relationship with him.

Cora is similar to Ryder in the fact that her character has good premises, but no payoff. She has two main character traits: she was trained as an asari commando and has great admiration for them; and she was the second in command under Alec Ryder, so she should have become the Pathfinder, but she didn’t. Aside from the fact that in my opinion she repeats that she was trained as an asari commando a little too many times, like she wanted to be 200% sure we got the message, and that becomes kind of annoying after a while… if we take a look at her character arc we see that there is a great disappointment when she finds out that the asari heroine that she admired the most lied about the death of the asari Pathfinder for her own personal gain. This should have set in motion a series of consequences on her character journey similar to those Liara experienced when she found out that the Protheans weren’t actually the ethereal, moral beings she thought they were, but instead they were conquerors and imposed a totalitarian regime on the galaxy. But while Liara at first gets angry and sad and then she slowly accepts to re-examine her own previous work under a new light, no relevant change can be seen within Cora’s character. More on this comparison can be found in this excellent video. In a similar way, her other main trait (the fact that she was the designated successor to Alec but she didn’t get the Pathfinder title in the end), also doesn’t have any payoff. In fact she is just slightly disappointed/irritated at first but she gets over it very quickly (even if Ryder is clearly not the charismatic figure humanity needs) leaving little to no consequence on her relationship with Ryder. In these conditions, the scenes in which she talks about her hobby ring hollow because I didn’t previously build my relationship with her on anything substantial, so I don’t really care about her plants.

I’d say the only companion who gets a very simple but complete character arc is Peebee, because she starts as kind of an outsider in the group, extremely afraid of commitment (the writers made sure it was super obvious with the “I live in an escape pod” thing), and in the end she learns to relax a little and trust Ryder and the rest of the crew more. Unfortunately I also found her annoying as hell since her first appearance, so that didn’t do a thing for me.

I could go on with the other companions, but this reply would become a bible. I’ll just add that the “good premises - no payoff” thing includes non-companion characters as well, Reyes for example. For the first 40/45 hours I didn’t romance anyone because, well, I found every possible LI either boring, paper thin or annoying af. That’s something I never experienced in any other Bioware game, but hey there’s a first time for everything I guess. Then I went to Kadara, I met Reyes and honestly he was a breath of fresh air. I’m not saying he was particularly deep or complex, but at least he was somewhat charismatic and charming (also, that accent), so I decided to romance him. Unfortunately both his character and his romance get no satisfying closure, as there is literally no change whatsoever, external or internal, if you let him kill Sloane; and you can’t really confront him on the fact that he used you and lied to you, even if you romanced him so it should have been kind of a big deal. bigger deal. whatever.

I’m not preteding that something like this never happened before. Speaking about the Mass Effect trilogy, Jacob is the most infamous example of boring, not entirely flashed out companion. Moving to the most recent Dragon Age, I’d say Blackwall also suffers from something similar, since he has good premises (she is vague and evasive at first because he’s lying about his true identity) but little payoff (even after the big reveal he remains pretty vague and generic about himself and his own story, nor he behaves even slightly different than before), though he’s still more interesting than the majority of the MEA crew. The point is, some shortcomigs are normal and expected and, if counter-balanced with other high points, they can be forgiven. But Andromeda didn’t shine in any way. Outside of combat the gameplay was boring and clunky, basically go from point A to point B, scan stuff, gather stuff, repeat. The sudoku puzzles were boring af and honesly ridiculous. No one ever solved them before you? is everyone in the Heleus cluster a moron?

In fact, the whole foundation of the story is that no one in the Heleus cluster could gain access to the vaults and activate them, despite having known and studied them for centuries. One day a complete stranger from another galaxy comes and solves everything in literally five minutes. And I’m supposed to believe that. I mean my suspension of disbelief can stretch a lot, but this is a little too much for me. Also that makes the angara seem like a bunch of idiots, which is not exactly flattering for the only new friendly species we meet in Andromeda.

The writing in general is poor to say the least. I understand that the writers were included too late into the project due to the huge problems experienced during the earlier stages of development, but some of these mistakes are super basic, like writing from the POV of the omniscient narrator instead of the POV of the characters. So we get dialogues in which the characters know that they are in no real danger even though they have been shot, they are about to get shot, they risk getting spaced, and so on and so forth.

I get that the writers were aiming at something completely different from the grim, fatalistic atmosphere of ME3, but the problem is: if the script doesn’t take itself seriously, why should I take it seriously.I mean I’m all for jokes and lighthearted moments, there were a lot of those in the trilogy and i loved them (most of them), but the entire MEA script doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. The stakes SHOULD be high - the Pathfinders have the responsibility of 100.000 souls on their shoulders - but not for a moment you feel that burden, that responsibility.

Even the real reason of the voyage itself (escaping the Milky Way before the Reapers annihilate every advanced organic society) is kept secret from the player until you gather all the “memory triggers” your father left behind. Until then the whole Initiative - a huge, extremely dangerous and exceedingly expensive project - is presented like a fun stroll through a new galaxy, just because “we are explorers” and we like new beginnings and whatnot. This is another incomprehensible narrative choice that doesn’t make sense, no matter how you look at it. If you played the trilogy, the Reaper threat is certainly no surprise to you so the “plot twist” doesn’t work. If you’re a newcomer to the series you don’t even know what a Reaper is so the “plot twist” still doesn’t work. Not to mention that for some reason Alec Ryder’s “memory triggers” are scattered on planets he never even visited in his life. Instead of placing them somewhere among his things, idk, family pictures, books or music he loved, where it made sense to find them?

And even after you discover everything about the Reapers, and that everyone back in the Milky Way may have been dead for the last 600 years, there is again no consequence in the story or in the dialogues whasoever. Not even Ryder seems to be particularly affected by the terrible news. But we should be happy because we found out that their mom is still alive! Too bad we don’t care about her because we don’t know her. Exactly like in the beginning we didn’t care about Alec’s death because we didn’t know him. Those are extremely basic narrative mistakes. The whole experience is on this same, boring, safe, non-consequential level. Bioware is so much better than that.

(sorry for the long rant. I had a lot to say)

[glare-gryphon]

Yay! Because I've been wondering for a while - what if, after viewing the security recording, Obi-Wan had stuck to his guns and refused to fight Anakin? Maybe Yoda wasn't there to push it? And Obi-Wan runs, possibly after dropping by Padme's to warn her - and afterwards, Vaderkin focuses on hunting down Obi-Wan and Obi thinks it's to kill him, but no its because he wants Obi to marry him - he wants his Master back, to raise his kids since Padme died, and obi-Wan is HIS after all...

First of all, I have to throw a shoutout to @fireflyfish. Her fic After the End of the World is almost this exact prompt, minus the marriage part and + Fem!Obi. It’s a great fic, and you should definitely read it if you aren’t yet.

Without further ado…

Ring

Rating: T

Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader

Additional Tags: Post-Mustafar AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Vaderkin

~2500 Words

The cold of the spaceport is miserable, biting at his skin and sinking down into his bones. The few civilian clothes he’s managed to obtain in his years of wandering are better suited for warmer climates than the wet chill of this place. It always seems to be raining, here; when it isn’t, a heavy mist settles over the port in its place.

Another nameless spaceport on another nameless world, unimportant but for the fact that the Empire has been slow to reach it. No notable exports of desirable resources, there was no pressing need for Imperial presence. Ben has inhabited it for the past few months, making rent for a dingy apartment off under-the-table mechanical work. He is neither the best, nor the worst. Average and forgettable in the way of a man who does not want to be noticed.

It’s agonizingly dull work. Sometimes he imagines himself a bounty hunter, or a pirate, or a leader at the head of the growing Rebellion he sees discussed on the holo from time to time. Something more exciting than his life as it is now: an endless parade of broken parts and frayed wiring. Alas, this is not the life meant for him, now. Obi-Wan Kenobi cannot draw attention to himself if he wishes to live long enough to see the end of the Empire’s tyranny.

This is why he must move again, his belongings stowed in a small pack he crafted from the tattered remnants of his Jedi robe. Even after trading his tunics for a set of civilian clothes, he’d continued to wear the robe out of some lingering sentiment for the life he’d left behind. It was close enough to a standard traveling cloak that no one noticed the difference, and he’d kept it until the seams wore beyond repair. It’s been given a new life beyond its intended purpose, now. Just like its owner.

“Passenger Shuttle 239 now boarding in bay seven,” a robotic voice announces over the intercom system.

Ben rises from the waiting bench, swinging the pack over his shoulder and pulling out his identification documents for inspection. He’d traded the last of his credits for these papers, listing his name as Ben Lars. The forger had promised they’d pass the scrutiny of lazy dockworkers, but there are no lazy dockworkers here.

Instead there is an Imperial Officer in a sharp-cut olive uniform, flanked by two stormtroopers in their signature white armor. They stand out amongst the planet’s continual misty-grey atmosphere, drawing the eyes of passersby and reminding them of the Imperial presence that’s descended upon their unimportant little world. Ben had hoped to get out of here before they took full control of the ports; it seems he is just a few hours too late

Gritting his teeth, he steps into line. He doesn’t have another option now but to run the gauntlet and hope for the best. He can’t remain on this planet much longer. Heightened security around the ports has cost him his job, temporary housing for troops has cost him his room, and more Imperial eyes means more risk of getting caught.

The Gran ahead of him is waved past into the bay, and it is Ben’s turn to hand over his papers. His hands do not shake as he drops them into the officer’s expectant palm, but it is a close thing.

“Ben Lars,” the officer announces to no one in particular, his eyes flickering briefly between Ben and the attached photo before slipping his ID chip into a scanner. For a tense moment, nothing happens, and it feels as though Ben’s heart as frozen in his chest. As though his lungs cannot draw enough oxygen.

Then the scanner beeps, a pleasant chime, and the light along its surface glows green. The officer pulls the chip out, proceeding to then shove the chip and his papers into Ben’s chest. “Continue.”

Ben clutches the bundle to his chest, momentarily dazed by the realization that everything had worked. It’s only when one of the ‘troopers harshly shoves him, combined with a command to, “Move along,” do his legs remember how to move. They carry him on autopilot up the boarding ramp of the transport and into his seat. Only when he’s settled does he dare release a relieved sigh. He’s past the checkpoint; he’s on his way to a new planet. What could possibly go wrong now?

He isn’t sure when he dozed off, but Ben is woken when the transport shutters violently around him. He scrubs at bleary eyes, righting himself in his seat as other passengers to the same. They seem to have stopped moving, but they have not reached their destination. Outside the viewports is only the vast expanse of space.

“What’s going on?” He asks, turning to the passenger next to him, and receives only a disinterested shrug in return.

“Probably mechanical problems. These transports are always breaking down,” the Rodian grumbles.

Ben is just about to push himself to his feet, about to go and offer his help with whatever is holding up their trip, when the shriek of metal cuts through the ship. An emergency exit panel on the roof is ripped open, exposing them not to the vacuum of space, but some kind of boarding hatch. He already knows what’s about to happen before four pirate drop through the hole into the transport.

The insignias worn on their clothes are not any of those he is familiar with, but there are countless pirate crews roaming the hyperspace lanes of the Outer Rim. Those that he does know are constantly changing: alliances being made and broken, captains overthrown and crews killed in crossfire. Even Ben cannot keep up—especially now that he is without the Order’s resources.

The apparent leader, a Zygerian male, draws a large blaster from its holster at his hip and fires one shot at the Imperials who had scanned their documents at the gates, traveling with them and apparently attempting to play hero. The bolt cuts clean through one 'trooper’s armor, splattering gore across his compatriots and the cabin wall. Several passengers scream; the other Imps are cowed into inaction.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” the Pirate Captain announces as his three lackeys spread out through the transport. “You’re all going to give us your things, and if we like what you’ve got, we might just let you live. Anybody else tries anything funny, well…” He trails off them, tipping his head pointedly in the direction of the 'trooper’s corpse.

If Ben were anyone else, he might have been content with handing over his meager belongings and hoping for the best. He might have played the role of frightened passenger and hoped against hope that the pirates let them be at the end of this. Unfortunately for Ben, he is not anyone else. He is Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi, this is a transport full of defenseless civilians, and the familiar weight of his lightsaber’s hilt is suddenly heavy in his sleeve.

He has always valued the lives of others more than his own.

“Don’t be stupid,” the Rodian beside him says in an urgent whisper when Ben makes to rise to his feet. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

“No one else is going to die here,” Ben replies, pushing past him and stepping out into the aisle.

His movement draws the attention of the Captain, who turns to inspect him with a disdainful smirk. “What do we have here?” The Zygerian asks. “Do you have a problem, friend?”

Ben meets his eyes with a smirk of his own, sharp and dangerous in a way he hasn’t been since the Clone Wars. The thrill of combat settles into his skin like an old friend; stars, he’s missed this. “I’m going to give you until the count of ten, by which time I expect you and your men to be off this vessel and on your way,” he announces.

“Are you?” The Captain scoffs. “And if we aren’t? What do you think you’re going to do about it?”

He gestures with the blaster, a truly ungainly thing, in a way that is probably meant to be threatening. The effect, however, is lost on Ben. The weapon is too big and clunky for the close quarter of the cabin. Powerful, yes, but a misplaced shot could easily rip through the ship’s hull, killing the pirates as well as the passengers upon exposure to space’s vacuum. He needs a clear shot—a slow moving target—in order to fire.

Ben will give him neither of these things.

Between one heartbeat and the next, he draws his 'saber from his sleeve, igniting the hilt and relishing in the recognition that flashes in the Captain’s eyes. The fear. And while Ben slightly out of practice, his situation not allowing the time nor privacy to practice his forms to the full extent, he still has the upper hand over these pirates.

It is nothing to cut them down, shaken as they are by the appearance of a Jedi. Perhaps not the grand combat he’d hoped for, but better still than the monotony that has been his life for the last three years.  He stands over their bodies, barely breathing hard, and doesn’t even consider the repercussions of exposing himself until a blinding pain erupts in the back of his skull. He staggers, braces himself on a seat back, and gets a blurry glimpse of a terrified Imperial Offer before his legs give out and his vision goes black. For a long time, he knows no more.

The second time Ben wakes, it is to the sounds of conversation. He’s been moved, he realizes before he’s even pried his eyes open. There is cold metal beneath his cheek and his hands are now cuffed behind him. His head spins and aches from the earlier blow.

The dimensions of whatever room he’s in are small, a glance around revealing stacked boxes and a powered-down cleaning droid. Some kind of supply closet, then.

Bits and pieces of the conversation float through the door to his makeshift cell, heard but not fully understood. Ben is still too disoriented for that.

“—captured a Jedi aboard this passenger transport, while on route to—”

“—description you sent. Are you sure—”

“Yes, sir. Human male, red hair, blue eyes—”

Everything swims back into focus with the pronouncement of, “Bring him to me,” from an eerily familiar voice. Obi-Wan has not heard it since that last day, years ago.

It used to carry with it the associations of nights beneath the warmth a shared blanket, the chaos of war set aside for a few brief hours of comfort and rest; of days filled with sweat and strain, laughter ringing through the training halls as they try to pin each other to the mats; of feelings unacknowledged and words unspoken, lingering touches and furtive glances.

Now it only brings the bitter reminder of destruction and death.

The Officer from earlier, along with two new troopers, appear when they slide open the door to his closet. He vaguely recognizes the style of their helm, the blue paint: Anakin’s 501st. They are not gentle as they haul him to his feet, dragging him along when his legs refuse to cooperate. He is no longer the trusted General Kenobi to them; instead, another despised member of traitorous Jedi Order. Ben stares at the floor as they pull him down the transport’s center aisle, still too disoriented to put up a proper struggle. From what he can see from this angle, the rest if the passengers must have already departed.

They stop in front of a familiar black boots, and a gloved finger hooks under his chin to pull his unresisting head up.

Standing before him is Darth Vader, though this is no surprise. Ben can’t even work up the energy for a proper scowl and his former pupil scrutinizes him, the look on his face something between hunger and awe. “Hello, Obi-Wan,” he says breathlessly.

“'lo,” Ben slurs back, tongue clumsy. He definitely has a concussion.

Vader’s eyes narrow at the uncharacteristic greeting, using his free hand to comb through Ben’s hair in a gesture that’s familiar from their days at war. The hair at the back of his head is wet and matted; Vader’s fingers pull away coated with blood. “What happened?” The Sith demands, rounding on the Officer.

“W-we had to secure him somehow!” The man sputters, obviously startled by the Sith’s reaction. “I hit him with–”

He does not finish that sentence. With a jerk of Vader’s hand and swell of the Dark that turns Ben’s stomach, the Officer’s head twists, breaking with a sharp crack. His body tumbles lifelessly to the floor, and Ben frowns at it.

“Well, that was uncalled for,” he sighs, almost petulantly, and Vader’s attention returns to him. “Don’t see why it matters that he hit me, when you’re just going to kill me anyways.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Obi-Wan,” Vader says, stepping into his space. Ben strains weakly against the hold on him, tries to pull away from the hands that cup gently his face. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

This, Ben knows. It is the reason he had stayed in hiding: from the Imperials, the Rebels, and the remnants of the Jedi alike. With Vader’s dogged pursuit looming over him, he would have been a danger to everyone around him. But if Vader truly doesn’t wish to kill him, then—

“Why?”

The Sith’s smile is pitying. Ben hates it. “You know why, Obi-Wan,” he says, and Ben shakes his head in denial.

“No, I don’t.”

Vader is so close to him now, his breath ghosting across Ben’s face, nose brushing against his. If he weren’t being held up by the clones, he imagines he legs would be weak. This moment, this intimacy, is everything he once wanted. He’s disgusted to find that a part of him still wants it.

“Don’t lie to yourself. I know what you feel for me; I feel it, too. I need you as much as you need me.” He reaches into a pocket of his utility belt, producing from it something that looks suspiciously like—

A ring. It’s a simple thing: a wide, gold band, likely hand-crafted by Vader himself. Ben stares at it as though it is a poisonous viper. He’d had fantasies about a ring since he found out the truth of Anakin’s marriage, but they never went anything like this.

“You are going to be mine, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Vader breathes into his ear, clones holding him still while he slides the band onto Ben’s finger. Then the Sith is pressing his lips hungrily to Ben’s own to seal a promise the elder never made.

He suddenly can’t help but mourn those monotonous days at port.

[newhologram]

It's late and I'm in pain and trying to make sense of my childhood and figure out why people were so mean to me other than the obvious answer of "I was literally an undiagnosed mentally disabled kid and this made me an easy target because of how 'weird' I was." And I figured out why Tumblr's "...anyway" thing always makes my heart rate go up and upsets me. Why did people ignore me so much my whole life? Even if it wasn't deliberate and was just me being non-maliciously forgotten, it hurt me so much because it happened constantly. It made me feel so horrible. It definitely contributed to me growing up wishing I had never been born (I felt this way as early as 5 years old) because I felt so just... unnecessary, like people were all just annoyed that I existed and so I started feeling that way about myself. Every time this happened or I was being bullied, I just thought it was my fault. Was it because I was weird, and kids are assholes? But it's adults too and it definitely continued to happen into my early adulthood. Lotta teachers ignored me a lot. I know I'm weird and I was a hyper "BLaAAAah!!!" kid with no volume control, a weird laugh, intense special interests, very easily overstimulated and drained. I know I was and am weird but I'm trying to understand why that made people delight in hurting me, or have no problem ignoring me even if they weren't bad people. Why I am so forgettable and unimportant. In class discussions, very often when I spoke I was ignored and not acknowledged by the teacher or my classmates. Too often to just be random. It was a constant thing. Even in college this happened and one day I finally said, "Okay, cool, just ignore me completely, I guess" and didn't participate anymore. My classmates glanced at me like they were confused, but it was like. This was a small class of like 7 people. We were all sitting together. Whenever I contributed to the conversation, the teacher would just ignore me and keep talking. I remember a time this happened in 10th grade. I had been excited and happy because the teacher said he spent the summer playing RE4 and that's literally what I did that summer too. And he just stared at me like I was crazy when I said "I did too!!" and the whole class was silent and then he just went on talking as if I hadn't said anything at all. I felt humiliated, to have this happen in front of my whole class, year after year, in different ways. I was also not called on a lot. I would have my hand raised so long that it hurt, I had something I really wanted to ask or say, and they would ignore me. Again it happened too often to just be random or me being too sensitive. More on the mean side, the mind games ignoring happened with classmates and even "friends". 6th grade, I liked a girl's shirt and I asked where she got it. She ignored me and just turned to someone else to start chatting. Not quite aware yet that I was being deliberately ignored, I asked again. She rolled her eyes and kept ignoring. At this point I was like, "dude, I'm asking you a question??" and so she snappily said she got it at a swap meet and acted like I was being so unreasonable for asking. Later when we were grouped up for a project, I asked her and the other girl how they would like to split the work up. They both looked at me, looked at each other, and then just talked to each other. When I tried to speak again, they giggled and smiled and turned away from me. I realized then that I was officially being ignored. To keep from crying, I gave up and pulled out a comic book. I got in trouble for not working on the project and tried to explain that my group was ignoring me but that apparently wasn't an excuse and I was forced to just sit there and be ignored by these two girls. They kept giggling to each other like it was a game. Around 5th grade, I went to a summer daycare type thing with the daughter of a woman my dad was seeing. Everything seemed normal until we got dropped off. She immediately paired up with another girl. I sat in the grass making flower bracelets for everyone. I gave one to her and she threw it on the ground, stepped on it, and they both giggled and left me there. They played together and kept glancing at me from afar, making a point to laugh to each other when they saw me sitting alone crying the rest of the day. I don't think her mother ever knew how her daughter treated me. When we were sent to a week long summer camp together on an island, she ignored me the entire time and acted annoyed whenever I tried to talk to her. I was already very lonely and upset about being so far from my dad for so long and cried every night in my bunk bed and I thought maybe I had a friend to keep me company but she was still just ignoring me for whatever reason. This might not be worth mentioning, but I was always a lot smaller than other people in my age group and I often wonder if this contributed at all to me having an apparent target on my heart. It definitely made it easier for kids to steal things from me and hold them out of reach, or hold my head under water at the pool. By college, the sad feelings about this turned to rage. I would be walking to a cafe with a classmate, telling a story or whatever, and they would just completely interrupt me to say something random and unrelated. And then not even say sorry or ask me to continue. (because hey, I am very excitable and sometimes still have a bad habit of interrupting but I at least say sorry) Just silence. I walked with them wondering, are they going to acknowledge that I was in the middle of a story? Did they even know or care that I had been talking? By the time we crossed the street and they still said nothing, I had my answer. This happened repeatedly the entire time we were in school, and every time I would be so upset but couldn't say anything about it because I knew I would blow up. That's how mad it made me because by that point I had lived through a lifetime of being ignored and I was sick of it and I really really wished my parents had never met. Even when it wasn't on purpose, it really fucked me up. When I got picked up from school, I would be telling my dad about my day. He would get calls from work, which interrupted my story. When the call ended, my dad had completely forgotten I was telling him a story, so he wouldn't ask me to continue. He would just keep driving. At first I would just continue on my own but as this happened pretty much daily, I soon learned he wasn't going to ever ask. So I started getting pissed every time it happened. I would cry and cry because I felt like he didn't care about me, that he was just like everyone else who ignore me. When really, my dad was very busy with work and they constantly needed to call him and he also has ADD. In this case it wasn't his fault but it still hurt me so much because if everyone at school did this to me, and my dad also didn't care enough to hear about my day, then no one cared and I was worthless. And even if no one called, I would be talking to him and there would be no response at all. Nothing. Like I hadn't said anything. Wherever we were, whether in the car, at home, at dinner, about to see a musical. We had a fight right before seeing Wicked and I silently cried through the entire opening because I had called him out on flat out fucking ignoring his daughter to her face and naturally he responded defensively. It happens still to this day but I just have to reel it in and breathe and be patient with him, but it still hurts so damn much to feel that nothing I say is worth a response and sometimes I just give up trying to talk because I know I'll just be interrupted or ignored. It hurts so much. I hate this feeling. These kinds of things happened to me constantly and they still happen. I feel like all I ever was to people was an annoyance. I was just always ignored. I was treated like I deserved it, so I thought I did. I thought as a child, "why do people hate me? what is wrong with me that people ignore me so often?" And I was always crying my eyes out so pathetically. It hurt so much and it still upsets me to think back on it because I don't know what I did. I don't know what I did. I don't know why I was always treated this way. I don't know why and I just wish I had had a friend, a real one, to help me realize that it wasn't my fault.

[thelowercasegimmick]

YA Review, 8/22/16: The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

I can’t describe my love for Patrick Ness.  If I had to pick one YA writer whose books I would take to a desert island with me, it would probably be him - Suzanne Collins is the only other author who might make me hesitate.  He’s consistently shown himself to be one of the most innovative, intelligent, and powerful writers in YA.  And I’m not the only one who feels this way - while he’s a little too weird to be broadly popular, he’s developed a cult following over the years that love him as much as I do.  Because of that, I feel like he suffers the burden of very high expectations.  For pretty much every book he’s written since A Monster Calls (2011), the general consensus seems to be that it’s pretty good, but underwhelming compared to Ness’ potential.  And I will concede that A Monster Calls was a tough act to follow - it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, and it will almost certainly go down as Ness’ opus.  Still, I hope that this doesn’t make too many people overlook how good his follow-up novels were.  Was this novel a bit underwhelming compared to A Monster Calls and Chaos Walking?  Undeniably.  But I still think it’s an exceptionally inventive and honest YA novel, and I don’t think it deserves to be ignored.

One of the best things about Ness is how willing he is to experiment and try new things.  He doesn’t have any set genre or style - no one of his novels fits particularly well with the others.  That’s no less true of this novel than anything else he’s written.  The novel focuses on Mikey, a relatively normal guy surrounded by people more interesting than him.  He lives in what seems to be a generic urban fantasy world, where there are lots of intense fights between ‘indie kids’, or Regular High School Students with magical powers, and evil forces bent on destroying the world.  But Mikey isn’t an indie kid - he’s someone genuinely normal, simply going about his life.  We only see the activities of the indie kids from a distance, as their collateral damage tangentially affects Mikey’s life.  The closest we get to their story is the brief summaries of their activity at the beginning of each chapter.  Instead, the story focuses on Mikey doing relatively normal things, like trying to connect with his distant politician mother, taking care of his alcoholic dad, and working up the courage to ask out his longtime crush.

Basically, this is a novel about being a regular student at Sunnydale High School, watching Buffy fighting vampires from a distance without much investment in the income, because such supernatural fights are pretty much normal at this point.  Ness asked what it was like to live in an urban fantasy world, but instead of writing something dark and intense, he came close to writing a typical contemporary novel.  In the days of everything being dark and edgy, it’s an interesting twist to see something painted so light.  Learning that an indie kid has died and interacting with his spirit isn’t disturbing or bad, because it’s just how life is, and it isn’t hard to just accept it and move on with life.  And that’s played totally unironically - it isn’t just some lie the characters tell themselves to get through the day.  Ness paints it in a genuinely convincing way.

So what we get is something that challenges the idea of ‘normal’.  Most of Mikey’s attention isn’t on being killed by demons, it’s on his OCD and his protective instincts toward his little sister.  Mikey’s panic attacks don’t feel normal to him - he wants those to go away as soon as possible.  His mom’s distant nature doesn’t feel normal to him - he’s consistently resentful and dissatisfied.  But a war for the fate of the universe?  Eh.  No big deal.  The only time he ever shows serious concern about it is when an explosion at a concert endangers his siblings, and once he realizes they’re safe, he doesn’t particularly care about what caused it and how to prevent it from happening again.  The main consequence of that event turns out to be a blow to his mom’s political career when his sister assaults a reporter.

In short, this is a validation of the everyday struggles that we all face.  This is a reminder that, in a big world full of events that are far beyond us, we still matter.  You don’t have to change the world to be important, to your friends if not to anyone else.  I think a lot of fantasy and sci-fi fans are under the impression that contemporary stories are forgettable and unimportant.  But there’s nothing forgettable about Mikey and his friends.  Without any extraordinary superpowers, or really, even any extraordinary life circumstances, they’re so relatable and real that you can’t forget them.  Ness writes characters that most contemporary Americans can see themselves in, at least to an extent, and he makes them matter to us.

I also have to give credit to Ness for the fact that his conception of what a ‘normal’ person is doesn’t involve the standard middle class ideal of a white nuclear family with good parents and no serious traumas.  Jared is Jewish; Hanna is mixed race; Mikey has OCD; Mel has an eating disorder; Jared is gay; Mikey and Mel’s mother is a politician and their father is an alcoholic.  These aren’t normal by Hollywood standards - any one of the aforementioned would be enough for some directors to make an entire movie around.  But it’s remarkable how light Ness is in his handling of all this.  He’s not careless, or insensitive to the fact that some of these things cause a lot of pain and difficulty.  But at the same time, they never dominate the story or any of the characters.  It reminds me a lot of The Boyfriend List (2005), where the protagonist’s anxiety disorder was a distinct factor in the novel, but not a defining one.  At first, I was disappointed in how low-key the story was.  And while that is a bit of a problem, I understand why Ness made that decision.  He wanted to emphasize that despite the fact that these things do make the characters’ lives harder, the characters aren’t in constant crisis.  And at the end of the day, they don’t make them particularly abnormal.  And that makes sense.  Being a POC, being gay, being mentally ill... these are all fairly normal aspects of being a contemporary American in the real world.  Ness understands that, and doesn’t have much interest in pretending otherwise.  In the process, he gives excellent representation to people of those categories, and I appreciate it a lot.

Is this Ness’ best novel?  No.  The story is a bit unfocused at times, and this is easily the blandest prose of any Ness novel I’ve ever read.  But it’s not exactly a crushing insult to say that a novel isn’t as good as A Monster Calls or Chaos Walking - a novel of this quality would still be a hell of an accomplishment for basically anyone other than Ness.  Maybe he’ll never write anything as good as A Monster Calls again, but if he can keep up this level of quality, I don’t see any reason to be dissatisfied.

[anthonybialy]

Bankrupt Repeat

Of course Joe Biden sucks. Anyone surprised by hope evaporating still thinks pro wrestling is real. Frustration as the default setting is the natural result of winning by default. Nominate someone who isn't awful next time if you'd like to beat the equivalent of a Democratic write-in.

I don't want to review the case against Donald Trump one last time, but it's still not taking with a certain percentage of frenzied believers even after a full term of toxic exposure. So, we'll once again note the singularly unpleasant human is a wannabe elitist New York City liberal who never follows through.

A human black hole who brought out the worst in others spent his entire alleged business career faking success, too. The only difference now is we know his unfortunate tendencies applied to the presidency.

The remaining Trump diehards note with as much snark as they can muster fro their bunkers that at least there are no more mean tweets whenever Biden does something regrettable, which means we encounter the alleged defense regularly. But the decidedly rejected president's behavior is precisely what put the oafish incumbent in a position where his horrid opinions have meaning. It was the actions that accompanied the alarming social media posts. Psychiatrists would have only begun by expressing concern at his syntax.

Character is apparently unimportant as with Bill Clinton. And you claim the parties are different. Trump exhibits a hideous demeanor that sucks the soul out of any decent creature who had the misfortune to encounter an attempt to be triumphant, calculating, and impressive while screwing up spectacularly in every sense. But at least he massively expanded government.

Perhaps Republicans could avoid nominating a unique phony who's genuinely miserable for such an alleged victor. Once was probably enough. Learning lessons from what didn't work is for low-energy losers, which is why Trump boldly came up short at being president just like he did at countless businesses.

But at least there's no dignity in forced retirement. Picturing how awful it'd be to have a conversation with him if you'd like regular life to seem less painful. Spending 10 minutes talking with Trump would be the best way to give people a sense of why they want to avoid an eternity somewhere worse than his hotels. Anyone suckered into thinking he's interesting should have to go first.

Those who didn't grasp how full of it he was never will, which is why the notion of re-nominating the least deserving option possible remains depressingly possible. Trump's flimsy posing was the precise opposite of toughness. It's hard to believe it's still being debated. Of course, it was hard to believe in the mid-'80s when the undefeated business stud took down his own football league and brought even more vacancy to Atlantic City.

I extend best wishes to anyone attempting to dissuade unfortunate zombies still dreaming of re-election. The last defenders of the indefensible remain convinced their savior is the dreamy muscular embodiment of keeping his noble word even after a career spent doing the opposite.

Living as the most prominent phony merely culminated in a rather public presidential term. If you think this is another year that shows we've been abandoned by any supernatural force for goodness and decency, wait until 2024 when we hear from the worst sort of nostalgia crutch-users how the former board game pitchman and forgettable executive deserves another chance.

Anyone seeking a foe to face Kamala Harris and whoever her alleged boss is should start by spotting principled ideology, which is to say a bit more depth than praising those who praise him. Trump condemns anyone who accurately notes his ample shortcomings. The most psychologically simple human imaginable reacted like a true leader by figuring out what he thought voters wanted and crudely restating it. I'm as shocked as you by the lack of a finished border wall.

The last Republican president is ever so charmingly the precise opposite of what he says to be, especially for someone who runs his mouth without effect constantly. Pretending that snipping at anyone who hurts his precious feelings is toughness made the nation as masculine as expected. Don't even think of mustering enough dignity to rising above critics who should be below you.

A lack of integrity affects everything. The unwillingness of Earth's most powerful man to ignore the slightest negative feedback explains why he never signed Obamacare repeal. Please accept a threadbare excuse for the alpha male's weakness.

It's tough to claim being for the Constitution when you've never read it. The document is nowhere near as enthralling as Think Big and Kick Ass.

An incursion that went as disastrously as the campaign was a perfect finish to a rather imperfect term. Anyone aware of Trump since he brought bankruptcy when he boasted of prosperity was prepared for him to bitch about losing unfairly. But why research a dreamboat success's history? He said he was awesome, and who would doubt him now after a term like that?

Republicans still cope with the results of a loss by someone who did nothing with a victory. The poser's entire shtick is based in winning for winning's sake, which serves as the shallow liberal screenwriter's idea of commerce. Thank him for confirming the ghastly stereotype of soulless business titans instead of as attentive innovators engaged in negotiations with customers.

The worst thing about the post-Trump recovery is making it so liberals have a point. They got to gesture to a prototypically selfish, heartless faker and say he represented their foes. Biden's struggling to remember his name, much less his wretched agenda. But he receives undeserved praise for not being the cruel lunkhead he beat. All it took to beat him was not being him.

Trump's legacy is Biden. That really ticks him off, which is the only benefit. The rather depressing sequence makes it tougher to giggle about Obama's legacy being Trump.

Such a poor option winning surely must've involved skulduggery, which naturally ended with the all-time failure refusing to accept it. At least we know why Trump likes Confederate generals, as the fellow insurrectionist defeated lowlifes also couldn't take the Capitol. And that's the story of how America ended up with an addled government-adoring oaf who's still accomplished nothing outside of promising everything. Thanks, Donald!

[strivesy]

Empty Chairs Matter

Day 35 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Every day I go around the classroom and greet every child by name, and I inquire about the empty chairs. If a child is out, I want all of the other kids to know that child is important to me. Sometimes I’ll send an email, or I might need to ask the front office where they are. But always know, and I always inquire.

Because how I treat the empty chairs is how the rest of these kids know I feel about them when they’re gone too. They are important and empty chairs matter.

How do you treat empty chair?

The same thing happens at family Thanksgiving lunch. There are empty chairs there. Grandmother Martin, Granny Adams, Granddaddy Adams, and Uncle Caroll. They emptied their chair and Thanksgiving will never be the same again. The empty chairs matter. When we pray, we thank God for those people who sat in the empty chairs and send a message to our kids that we do not forget those who mean something to us.

Essentially, the way we deal with the empty chairs is a signal to this current generation of how they’ll deal with our empty chair one day. Life matters. And every single person matters.

Additionally, when someone leaves your business or office, how you treat the empty chair matters. It shows if you’re building a legacy or if every single person is forgettable and unimportant. Do you trash everyone who leaves? Or do you work hard to celebrate the wins and wish them well?

How you treat the empty chair matters.

There’s a haunting scene in Les Miserables where the young hero, Marius, sings the song  Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. He knows his life will never be the same because those chairs are empty where they used to laugh and converse and talk.

Life can change in an instant.

Tell People You Appreciate Them While Their Ears Can Hear It

So I’m going to ask you something today. Don’t be like the kid after the person dies who suddenly comes out in tears and claims they are best friends.

Appreciate the empty chair while the warm body is still sitting in it.  Tell people you appreciate what they mean to you now. It may be awkward but why not? When tragedy happens or when they leave, you told them now.

If there’s any great tragedy is this —that people are dying and they don’t know what they mean to us.

We will all leave an empty chair one day. What we leave behind are the memories of the mind. One of us might be the last voice singing empty chairs and empty tables. But even when chairs are empty we still have hope because we still have life!

Some cultures deal with death better than others. How we mourn empty chairs sets a precedent for how our empty chair will be grieved.

Remember the Empty Chair

When my friends sing no more, I will make new friends. But the old friends always have a place in my heart. Their chair will always be empty at the table. I can replace my couch when it gets old, but not these people. Each of them was unique. No one can fill their place.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Students.

Irreplaceable. We just learn to live with a new normal. When people are gone, we have to move on, yet we can celebrate and remember.

How will you handle the empty chair?

There would be the biggest tragedy of all. That is if the person who sat in the chair meant something to you, and for you to completely go on as if nothing happened. Don’t stuff it in. Mourn and mourn well. For how we deal with death or loss is often how we deal with life.

How we respect the empty chair matters.

There are empty chairs and empty tables. What song will you sing in tribute? How will you live life differently?

How do you treat the empty chair?

The answer may say more about how you feel about life and people than anything else you do.

As when my Grandmother Martin died, I will not stop living, but I will start living better. For when my day comes to leave my chair and travel from reality to glorious eternity, I hope I leave behind people I touched and encouraged in the short puff-of-smoke life I lived here.

Got an empty chair? Treat it well.

Know someone that when their chair is empty, you’ll feel the pain? Tell them now.

Feel time passing? Live your life as a legacy of a life well lived. Write the story only you can write.

Empty chairs matter. So do full ones. Every single human being is a precious gift to be treasured and loved. May we live out that legacy.

The post Empty Chairs Matter appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Empty Chairs Matter published first on https://medium.com/@seminarsacademy

[growthvue]

Empty Chairs Matter

Day 35 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Every day I go around the classroom and greet every child by name, and I inquire about the empty chairs. If a child is out, I want all of the other kids to know that child is important to me. Sometimes I’ll send an email, or I might need to ask the front office where they are. But always know, and I always inquire.

Because how I treat the empty chairs is how the rest of these kids know I feel about them when they’re gone too. They are important and empty chairs matter.

How do you treat empty chair?

The same thing happens at family Thanksgiving lunch. There are empty chairs there. Grandmother Martin, Granny Adams, Granddaddy Adams, and Uncle Caroll. They emptied their chair and Thanksgiving will never be the same again. The empty chairs matter. When we pray, we thank God for those people who sat in the empty chairs and send a message to our kids that we do not forget those who mean something to us.

Essentially, the way we deal with the empty chairs is a signal to this current generation of how they’ll deal with our empty chair one day. Life matters. And every single person matters.

Additionally, when someone leaves your business or office, how you treat the empty chair matters. It shows if you’re building a legacy or if every single person is forgettable and unimportant. Do you trash everyone who leaves? Or do you work hard to celebrate the wins and wish them well?

How you treat the empty chair matters.

There’s a haunting scene in Les Miserables where the young hero, Marius, sings the song  Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. He knows his life will never be the same because those chairs are empty where they used to laugh and converse and talk.

Life can change in an instant.

Tell People You Appreciate Them While Their Ears Can Hear It

So I’m going to ask you something today. Don’t be like the kid after the person dies who suddenly comes out in tears and claims they are best friends.

Appreciate the empty chair while the warm body is still sitting in it.  Tell people you appreciate what they mean to you now. It may be awkward but why not? When tragedy happens or when they leave, you told them now.

If there’s any great tragedy is this —that people are dying and they don’t know what they mean to us.

We will all leave an empty chair one day. What we leave behind are the memories of the mind. One of us might be the last voice singing empty chairs and empty tables. But even when chairs are empty we still have hope because we still have life!

Some cultures deal with death better than others. How we mourn empty chairs sets a precedent for how our empty chair will be grieved.

Remember the Empty Chair

When my friends sing no more, I will make new friends. But the old friends always have a place in my heart. Their chair will always be empty at the table. I can replace my couch when it gets old, but not these people. Each of them was unique. No one can fill their place.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Students.

Irreplaceable. We just learn to live with a new normal. When people are gone, we have to move on, yet we can celebrate and remember.

How will you handle the empty chair?

There would be the biggest tragedy of all. That is if the person who sat in the chair meant something to you, and for you to completely go on as if nothing happened. Don’t stuff it in. Mourn and mourn well. For how we deal with death or loss is often how we deal with life.

How we respect the empty chair matters.

There are empty chairs and empty tables. What song will you sing in tribute? How will you live life differently?

How do you treat the empty chair?

The answer may say more about how you feel about life and people than anything else you do.

As when my Grandmother Martin died, I will not stop living, but I will start living better. For when my day comes to leave my chair and travel from reality to glorious eternity, I hope I leave behind people I touched and encouraged in the short puff-of-smoke life I lived here.

Got an empty chair? Treat it well.

Know someone that when their chair is empty, you’ll feel the pain? Tell them now.

Feel time passing? Live your life as a legacy of a life well lived. Write the story only you can write.

Empty chairs matter. So do full ones. Every single human being is a precious gift to be treasured and loved. May we live out that legacy.

The post Empty Chairs Matter appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Empty Chairs Matter published first on https://getnewdlbusiness.tumblr.com/

[succeedly]

Empty Chairs Matter

Day 35 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Every day I go around the classroom and greet every child by name, and I inquire about the empty chairs. If a child is out, I want all of the other kids to know that child is important to me. Sometimes I’ll send an email, or I might need to ask the front office where they are. But always know, and I always inquire.

Because how I treat the empty chairs is how the rest of these kids know I feel about them when they’re gone too. They are important and empty chairs matter.

How do you treat empty chair?

The same thing happens at family Thanksgiving lunch. There are empty chairs there. Grandmother Martin, Granny Adams, Granddaddy Adams, and Uncle Caroll. They emptied their chair and Thanksgiving will never be the same again. The empty chairs matter. When we pray, we thank God for those people who sat in the empty chairs and send a message to our kids that we do not forget those who mean something to us.

Essentially, the way we deal with the empty chairs is a signal to this current generation of how they’ll deal with our empty chair one day. Life matters. And every single person matters.

Additionally, when someone leaves your business or office, how you treat the empty chair matters. It shows if you’re building a legacy or if every single person is forgettable and unimportant. Do you trash everyone who leaves? Or do you work hard to celebrate the wins and wish them well?

How you treat the empty chair matters.

There’s a haunting scene in Les Miserables where the young hero, Marius, sings the song  Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. He knows his life will never be the same because those chairs are empty where they used to laugh and converse and talk.

Life can change in an instant.

Tell People You Appreciate Them While Their Ears Can Hear It

So I’m going to ask you something today. Don’t be like the kid after the person dies who suddenly comes out in tears and claims they are best friends.

Appreciate the empty chair while the warm body is still sitting in it.  Tell people you appreciate what they mean to you now. It may be awkward but why not? When tragedy happens or when they leave, you told them now.

If there’s any great tragedy is this —that people are dying and they don’t know what they mean to us.

We will all leave an empty chair one day. What we leave behind are the memories of the mind. One of us might be the last voice singing empty chairs and empty tables. But even when chairs are empty we still have hope because we still have life!

Some cultures deal with death better than others. How we mourn empty chairs sets a precedent for how our empty chair will be grieved.

Remember the Empty Chair

When my friends sing no more, I will make new friends. But the old friends always have a place in my heart. Their chair will always be empty at the table. I can replace my couch when it gets old, but not these people. Each of them was unique. No one can fill their place.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Students.

Irreplaceable. We just learn to live with a new normal. When people are gone, we have to move on, yet we can celebrate and remember.

How will you handle the empty chair?

There would be the biggest tragedy of all. That is if the person who sat in the chair meant something to you, and for you to completely go on as if nothing happened. Don’t stuff it in. Mourn and mourn well. For how we deal with death or loss is often how we deal with life.

How we respect the empty chair matters.

There are empty chairs and empty tables. What song will you sing in tribute? How will you live life differently?

How do you treat the empty chair?

The answer may say more about how you feel about life and people than anything else you do.

As when my Grandmother Martin died, I will not stop living, but I will start living better. For when my day comes to leave my chair and travel from reality to glorious eternity, I hope I leave behind people I touched and encouraged in the short puff-of-smoke life I lived here.

Got an empty chair? Treat it well.

Know someone that when their chair is empty, you’ll feel the pain? Tell them now.

Feel time passing? Live your life as a legacy of a life well lived. Write the story only you can write.

Empty chairs matter. So do full ones. Every single human being is a precious gift to be treasured and loved. May we live out that legacy.

The post Empty Chairs Matter appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Empty Chairs Matter published first on https://getnewcourse.tumblr.com/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

Empty Chairs Matter

Day 35 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Every day I go around the classroom and greet every child by name, and I inquire about the empty chairs. If a child is out, I want all of the other kids to know that child is important to me. Sometimes I’ll send an email, or I might need to ask the front office where they are. But always know, and I always inquire.

Because how I treat the empty chairs is how the rest of these kids know I feel about them when they’re gone too. They are important and empty chairs matter.

How do you treat empty chair?

The same thing happens at family Thanksgiving lunch. There are empty chairs there. Grandmother Martin, Granny Adams, Granddaddy Adams, and Uncle Caroll. They emptied their chair and Thanksgiving will never be the same again. The empty chairs matter. When we pray, we thank God for those people who sat in the empty chairs and send a message to our kids that we do not forget those who mean something to us.

Essentially, the way we deal with the empty chairs is a signal to this current generation of how they’ll deal with our empty chair one day. Life matters. And every single person matters.

Additionally, when someone leaves your business or office, how you treat the empty chair matters. It shows if you’re building a legacy or if every single person is forgettable and unimportant. Do you trash everyone who leaves? Or do you work hard to celebrate the wins and wish them well?

How you treat the empty chair matters.

There’s a haunting scene in Les Miserables where the young hero, Marius, sings the song  Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. He knows his life will never be the same because those chairs are empty where they used to laugh and converse and talk.

Life can change in an instant.

Tell People You Appreciate Them While Their Ears Can Hear It

So I’m going to ask you something today. Don’t be like the kid after the person dies who suddenly comes out in tears and claims they are best friends.

Appreciate the empty chair while the warm body is still sitting in it.  Tell people you appreciate what they mean to you now. It may be awkward but why not? When tragedy happens or when they leave, you told them now.

If there’s any great tragedy is this —that people are dying and they don’t know what they mean to us.

We will all leave an empty chair one day. What we leave behind are the memories of the mind. One of us might be the last voice singing empty chairs and empty tables. But even when chairs are empty we still have hope because we still have life!

Some cultures deal with death better than others. How we mourn empty chairs sets a precedent for how our empty chair will be grieved.

Remember the Empty Chair

When my friends sing no more, I will make new friends. But the old friends always have a place in my heart. Their chair will always be empty at the table. I can replace my couch when it gets old, but not these people. Each of them was unique. No one can fill their place.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Students.

Irreplaceable. We just learn to live with a new normal. When people are gone, we have to move on, yet we can celebrate and remember.

How will you handle the empty chair?

There would be the biggest tragedy of all. That is if the person who sat in the chair meant something to you, and for you to completely go on as if nothing happened. Don’t stuff it in. Mourn and mourn well. For how we deal with death or loss is often how we deal with life.

How we respect the empty chair matters.

There are empty chairs and empty tables. What song will you sing in tribute? How will you live life differently?

How do you treat the empty chair?

The answer may say more about how you feel about life and people than anything else you do.

As when my Grandmother Martin died, I will not stop living, but I will start living better. For when my day comes to leave my chair and travel from reality to glorious eternity, I hope I leave behind people I touched and encouraged in the short puff-of-smoke life I lived here.

Got an empty chair? Treat it well.

Know someone that when their chair is empty, you’ll feel the pain? Tell them now.

Feel time passing? Live your life as a legacy of a life well lived. Write the story only you can write.

Empty chairs matter. So do full ones. Every single human being is a precious gift to be treasured and loved. May we live out that legacy.

The post Empty Chairs Matter appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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Empty Chairs Matter

Day 35 of 80 Days of Excellence

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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Every day I go around the classroom and greet every child by name, and I inquire about the empty chairs. If a child is out, I want all of the other kids to know that child is important to me. Sometimes I’ll send an email, or I might need to ask the front office where they are. But always know, and I always inquire.

Because how I treat the empty chairs is how the rest of these kids know I feel about them when they’re gone too. They are important and empty chairs matter.

How do you treat empty chair?

The same thing happens at family Thanksgiving lunch. There are empty chairs there. Grandmother Martin, Granny Adams, Granddaddy Adams, and Uncle Caroll. They emptied their chair and Thanksgiving will never be the same again. The empty chairs matter. When we pray, we thank God for those people who sat in the empty chairs and send a message to our kids that we do not forget those who mean something to us.

Essentially, the way we deal with the empty chairs is a signal to this current generation of how they’ll deal with our empty chair one day. Life matters. And every single person matters.

Additionally, when someone leaves your business or office, how you treat the empty chair matters. It shows if you’re building a legacy or if every single person is forgettable and unimportant. Do you trash everyone who leaves? Or do you work hard to celebrate the wins and wish them well?

How you treat the empty chair matters.

There’s a haunting scene in Les Miserables where the young hero, Marius, sings the song  Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. He knows his life will never be the same because those chairs are empty where they used to laugh and converse and talk.

Life can change in an instant.

Tell People You Appreciate Them While Their Ears Can Hear It

So I’m going to ask you something today. Don’t be like the kid after the person dies who suddenly comes out in tears and claims they are best friends.

Appreciate the empty chair while the warm body is still sitting in it.  Tell people you appreciate what they mean to you now. It may be awkward but why not? When tragedy happens or when they leave, you told them now.

If there’s any great tragedy is this —that people are dying and they don’t know what they mean to us.

We will all leave an empty chair one day. What we leave behind are the memories of the mind. One of us might be the last voice singing empty chairs and empty tables. But even when chairs are empty we still have hope because we still have life!

Some cultures deal with death better than others. How we mourn empty chairs sets a precedent for how our empty chair will be grieved.

Remember the Empty Chair

When my friends sing no more, I will make new friends. But the old friends always have a place in my heart. Their chair will always be empty at the table. I can replace my couch when it gets old, but not these people. Each of them was unique. No one can fill their place.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. Students.

Irreplaceable. We just learn to live with a new normal. When people are gone, we have to move on, yet we can celebrate and remember.

How will you handle the empty chair?

There would be the biggest tragedy of all. That is if the person who sat in the chair meant something to you, and for you to completely go on as if nothing happened. Don’t stuff it in. Mourn and mourn well. For how we deal with death or loss is often how we deal with life.

How we respect the empty chair matters.

There are empty chairs and empty tables. What song will you sing in tribute? How will you live life differently?

How do you treat the empty chair?

The answer may say more about how you feel about life and people than anything else you do.

As when my Grandmother Martin died, I will not stop living, but I will start living better. For when my day comes to leave my chair and travel from reality to glorious eternity, I hope I leave behind people I touched and encouraged in the short puff-of-smoke life I lived here.

Got an empty chair? Treat it well.

Know someone that when their chair is empty, you’ll feel the pain? Tell them now.

Feel time passing? Live your life as a legacy of a life well lived. Write the story only you can write.

Empty chairs matter. So do full ones. Every single human being is a precious gift to be treasured and loved. May we live out that legacy.

The post Empty Chairs Matter appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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