On the last day of January 2018, #BellLetsTalk trended on Twitter. The account behind it wants to "end the stigma surrounding mental illness." In an attempt to add to that conversation, I thought I would provide a personal update to how I'm doing with my own efforts to live with dysthymia.
I wrote about how I've struggled with depression before, and how I even went ahead and filled the prescription for the generic version of Wellbutrin. That was back in October 2017. Here's the update: I'm doing better. I've been using the drug steadily since then, with a notable exception that I'll touch on in a bit. On the whole, the results are similar to what was advertised: A dulling of the depression, a removing of the bite, as it were. I've found myself feeling less angry, less sad, no less tired. Things that frustrate me frustrate me still. Things that bother me still do so. I may have assumed that there would be an automatic addition of apathy, but I haven't really found that to be the case, thankfully. I wouldn't want to live life numb: I'd rather be depressed and feel something, even if it were sadness. My doctor said that, after a couple of weeks, I could double the dosage if I felt I needed to. I tried that once, but I got really trembly and had a hard time processing what was going on internally. It could have been a fluke, but I haven't wanted to give that another go. For now, the dosage works for me. I noticed that if I skip a day, it doesn't affect me then, but the following day I feel more glum. It seems as though my body uses the day's pill to keep the momentum going, so the effects of any missed dosages are delayed. This leads to the one large exception: When I was hit with the flu at the end of December, I didn't bother taking the pills. Not only was I rather more concerned with the abject misery of being so sick, but I also had thrown up twice in the past week. There didn't seem to be much of a point in taking a pill that I might vomit out. While the prescription isn't immensely expensive, $15 a month adds up throughout a year. And though we're financially secure enough that we can afford that without sacrifice, I don't want to be wasteful. As a result, I was off the Wellbutrin for about seven or eight days. I made sure to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible so that I wasn't too depressed during Christmas (historically, my lowest point--often of the entire year). With the amount of additional sickness in my family, however, I can't say how much of a difference it made. Despite cranking out a novel during NaNoWriMo--and my earlier exultation about writing some fiction again--I have been having a serious case of creative removal. I don't want to say "writer's block", because I have stories that I can write about, I know what to do with them, and they're all in various stages of work. But the ability/desire to write more than just these few words a day has been severely lacking since October. Now, this could be a coincidence; indeed, that's what makes this a tricky experience. How do I know what's working and what's happenstance? After all, NaNoWriMo is an exhausting exercise, December is a draining month (even without a lengthy bout with the flu), and January's Winterim demands took me afk more than normal. So maybe it really is a matter of creative rust accumulating that needs to be knocked off. That being said, I'm not thinking of stopping my usage. It could be a placebo (how would I know?), but it seems to be working, for the most part. If I don't get enough sleep, I'm still cranky and can fall more easily into a bad day. Seemingly insoluble problems get under my skin and some of my core flaws aren't patched over by a tiny white pill. Nevertheless, I think this was a good step, and a right one. It was hard, though. Really, really hard. I realize that a statement like that lacks clarity, but I can't quite parse out any different way of approaching it. There were so many hangups, confusions, and distresses that went into the decision that I don't have the time or inclination to document here. In many ways, I'm still having to make an active choice to take the Wellbutrin. It wasn't enough, apparently, to hold the little pill in my palm back in October and, with an almost casual toss of my head, try to change my life. It's something that I have to do again and again, forcing myself to go back upstairs and medicate myself when I realize I forgot to do so before coming downstairs to get ready to leave in the morning. And that's part of what #BellLetsTalk is supposed to help us do: Become aware of the myriad ways in which people suffer mental illness and not let the previous, societal stigmatizations dictate how we get well. Even a well-intending family member recommended that I not be so open about my depression, to keep the struggle private. I understand the suggestion, but I can't abide the thought that someone might hear me and take comfort in seeing that it's possible to have depression and continue to function, to live, to love, and to be. I find such stigmatizations immensely damaging; indeed, one of my strongest impulses not to take the medication is because of these assumptions that what's wrong with me is embarrassing, shameful, or imaginary. I've had to push aside--and have had to continue to push aside--the assumed shame of saying things like "medicated". It's not been easy to slough off the horrible associations that I've had toward drugs, built from my earliest days in the D.A.R.E. program--when my friend and I would pass a grocery store and declare proudly (and, perhaps, naively) that we didn't do drugs, so we didn't need what they were advertising on their façade--and move into an area where I felt comfortable enough to try something that I had so long avoided. I'm still not comfortable with it. I tell my students about it, I don't hide it from anyone who asks. But I'm not comfortable with it. I'm comfortable talking about my kids or my passions--ask me about Shakespeare if you want to lose an afternoon's worth of time--but I'm not "comfortable" with who I am. I still hate that I have depression, that I have to medicate. I hate to use that word. But at least I'm around to hate it. Without love, support, and understanding from others--most particularly my wife--I can't really say for certain that I would still be here. Suicidal thoughts are less frequent with me now that I have Wellbutrin, and that's important enough to note. No, not to note, but to declare: I am here. And that's a victory in and of itself. During my teenage years, I played in a band. Well, to be more accurate, I played bass guitar in a band. To be even more accurate, I was the reserve bass player in a friend's band, called in to substitute whenever the real bassist couldn't make it because of parents. We were called The Moon Monsters and we played our own derivative brand of original ska music, taking cues from Five Iron Frenzy and the Aquabats. We had a horns section, lead, a couple of guitarists, and a drummer. It was quite the collection.
I'm really grateful for the time I got to spend with the Monsters. We played a couple of shows that were a ton of fun--in the silly, anxious way that one has fun as a teenager--and I had some experiences that I couldn't have had any other way. (Indeed, it's memories of those moments that I makes me worry about what chances my kids will get as they age, particularly since we aren't pressuring them to pick up an instrument.) And, as most things about high school tend to be, it's both encouraging and embarrassing to think about: On the one hand, it's inspiring to know that I really did learn and grow from those experiences. On the other, it makes the warm ooze of embarrassment slip down my face when I think of how ridiculous I was. In many ways, I was much more sure of myself then than I am now, and though naïveté accounts for most of that, I can certainly pine for a time when I felt as though I understood the world and my place in it. But, like many of the potentially greatest bands in the world, we all went different ways after graduating high school. I think I have the EP my friend recorded (I wasn't asked to participate, since I wasn't an official member, but I did play as a special guest in an early couple of cuts from the demo), but I really don't know for sure. That effort has evaporated, transforming from a real experience into the vapors of memory. Like any high school kid with a guitar, I imagined myself both better than I actually was, and destined to be a part of something larger. I wanted to make a band with a creative name that really lived up to what I perceived as my greatest strength: My imagination and creativity. Plus, I love big words (a perennial sesquipedalian, I). Add to that my observation that the letters CE were carved into almost everything--though no one knew why--and I realized that, were I to create a band, I could do what the Stone Temple Pilots did, and have my initials be part of a ubiquitous brand. Putting all of these considerations together, and you have the name of a band that never was: Consistently Eclectic. I can't fault much of the logic behind it (and I like the paradox inherent in the phrase), but the name itself isn't as punchy as I thought back when I dreamed it up. My plan was to take disparate sounds and let them be--heavy acoustic parts because of my love of the Dave Matthews Band, along with horns and ska-like rhythms because of my love for that brief moment in music history. Some rock, some funk…whatever we wanted. We wouldn't be defined as a particular type of musicians, because we were--obviously--consistently eclectic. I never got past the name, really. After I got home from my mission and in the early days of my marriage, my friend from the Moon Monsters would come over. He and I would write songs with the idea of cribbing styles that we liked--a Muse-style song, an Rx Bandits-style song, a Live-style song--and turning that into something, but we never really went anywhere with it. I still remember (and occasionally play) a lot of those songs, but my own self-consciousness about my voice prevented me from feeling comfortable in writing or singing the lyrics, and without other musicians to be around, I could never find the momentum I needed to launch another band. Since then, life has complicated itself like a recursive fractal and I'm not likely to ever try that again. Originally, I started this essay out to say that I try to be consistently eclectic with what I write about here--and that much, I think is true. I have essays of all sorts, ranging from profound to political to polemical--but I realize that the quasi-regret of never pursuing more from music is worth looking at, too. After all, life is nothing but the perpetual cycle of choice and consequence. Sometimes those choices are clear and direct, like when I had to decide to marry my wife (easiest decision of my life). Sometimes the choices are expected and worthwhile as a result (I'd file my mission in there). Sometimes the choices are habitual and engrained (like my pursuit of English and reading). But sometimes the choices come because of different currents that are unintelligible until farther down the path. I didn't pursue music because I was busy reading and writing, working my way through school in a job I hated and dealing with, what I realize now, a hefty dose of depression. I didn't make Consistently Eclectic because I wanted other things more. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. That's the great secret of living: You'll never be able to do all you would mildly like to do. I still get to perform every once in a while. At the school, we sometimes put together a teacher band and I play the guitar for that, as well as a bit of guest starring with the orchestra during the Christmas/Winter Concert. Those little drips are enjoyable, and they're a bit of a payoff for the hours I stand in the cramped corner next to my bed where my guitars sit. But I also read, write, play games, raise a family, and teach--among other things--and that's a good thing to have, too. In this way, I suppose, my life has the variety and routine enough that I could say that, while I haven't a band of the name, I can say that my life really is consistently eclectic. I reread Pride and Prejudice for the seventh (I think?) year in a row. My annual trip to Regency England--enjoying Netherfield and Longbourn and then on to Kent for a visit to Rosings and, later, a visit to Pemberley in Derbyshire--is a treat. Part of it is because the month is already rather gray: With the end of Winterim and the continued poor weather (this year, it's comparatively warm, so though there isn't snow with which to contend, the death-yellow hue of the lawns and the naked silhouettes of the trees beneath the fingerprint-smudge of Utah Valley pollution don't make for particularly picturesque world), I end up feeling a need for a pick-me-up. Pride and Prejudice gives that to me every time.
Yes, it can be a bit laborious to convince the boys (if we're going to rely on stereotypes) that it's a story worth reading. I'm being genuine when I gush about how much I love Austen's little masterpiece, but I likely wouldn't go on quite as much if I didn't have to hard-sell the idea that it's okay to talk about emotions--feelings of love, desires for companionship and marriage, and other important themes that are tucked into the book. This isn't unique for Pride and Prejudice, mind you. Shakespeare is a hard sell. Milton is a hard sell. The length of Hugo's Les Miserables is a hard sell. Even Dante can be tricky: Though brief, he's talking about a concept of the afterlife that most students have never entertained, which takes them by surprise. Still, part of the joy of teaching is helping students come to some new understanding about the world, and since kids often dismiss emotional things as "cheesy", it means that there's a ripe opportunity to help them mature through the book. Not only that, but I use The Annotated Pride and Prejudice and holy cow, that book is amazing. Shapard uses his prodigious knowledge of the minutiae of daily life for the Regency era to give an entirely new point of view on the life and times of the characters. It's a beautiful addition to any Austen lover's library. Buy now…operators standing by. One of the things that Shapard uses that helped me this time around is to ensure that I understood the purpose of the entailment of Longbourn. The Bennet estate had been legally and lawfully bequeathed to the Bennet males, in perpetuity, provided that the primogeniture passed through the male line (as was common at the time). The idea that it was a legal arrangement--one that could have been broken only had Mr. Bennet had a son--that detailed the future of the estate was something I had always understood on a surface level. However, as I was reading it, I realized why this was such a brilliant set up for Austen's novel. Now, I haven't watched any modern adaptations of the novel, but a quick pass through iMDB about the recent "LDS-version" of the book shows that this crucial detail is lost--and I think it may be something that Austen relied upon her audience knowing and comprehending immediately, and thus had no reason to dive into it at all. However, the entail is more than an "in-passing" implication. With five daughters, Longbourn is to be inherited by the sycophantic and irritating Mr. Collins. This is more and more repugnant the longer we spend time with Mr. Collins, and since we, as an audience, would wish for better people to be around the characters we're coming to love and appreciate, we're anxious that Elizabeth find a better match. But that's missing part of the point. When Mr. Collins proposes--fully confident (as Mr. Darcy will be later in the book) of Elizabeth's acceptance--he does so not only because he's supercilious enough to think she'll say yes, but also because it's a life or death decision. While Mr. Collins, as a churchman, may be counted on not to be too abrupt with the eviction of the Bennet family upon the death of Mr. Bennet, he's under no legal obligation to take care of the six women (if one counts Mrs. Bennet, which one must). The very real prospect of financial destitution and desperate--perhaps even immoral--choices faces all five of the Bennet sisters. With no social safety net and, based upon what we learn of the capriciousness of the people of their little village, small likelihood of neighborly assistance, it's not at all impossible that the family would end up in the gutter. Jane Austen isn't wont to dwell on such things--again, her society wouldn't need her to, because they'd understand the implications fully. But for us, with over two hundred years of static to contend with, we are too likely to fall into "sacrifice for love" as the primary motivator for Elizabeth's actions. Admittedly, Elizabeth is aware of the repercussions of her refusal of Mr. Collins. She chooses to reject him anyway. But instead of it being simply an expression of her unwillingness to "settle" or in anyway aim at a mercenary marriage, it also shows how deeply she's opposed to marrying for the wrong reasons. This isn't just her future that she's walking away from when she leaves Mr. Collins' company. The entire prospect of the family rests on her choice, whether the rest knows it or not. When Mr. Darcy proposes, then, there would be, I would imagine, an expectation by the intended audience that she would absolutely accept. She'd tempted fate once by rejecting Mr. Collins; surely she wouldn't roll the dice again? But she does, and the result is that the book continues and, to be honest, a poor marriage was avoided. I say this because I don't think, had Elizabeth taken Mr. Darcy's first proposal, that she would have been very happy. She may have grown into some admiration for Fitzwilliam, but it wouldn't be the same kind of love and respect that she gains through the second half of the book. She, as a person, was in the wrong time to marry--as was, it should be said, Mr. Darcy. Thrillers are built on the idea of a close call, a near escape, an almost-lethal decision. Despite its prim and proper trappings, Pride and Prejudice has its own version of the same kind of thrillers…we just don't always see it. While video gamers still have their pet wars between which brand of video game machine (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft--both PC and Xbox--or, for a while, SEGA), the great "philosophical" arguments I had with friends about which was better have, for the most part, faded into a niche section of gaming's past. Even the idea that games are art doesn't really hold a lot of interest to the culture--now that Roger Ebert's original (and somewhat apologized for) opinion has had its drubbing. The largest third-rail for video game culture has to be diversity and inclusion, two things that matter a great deal to me and, in my view, are the greatest trial that the subculture has to adopt.
However, back in the days where arguments of which console was better because of how many "bits" it was (as if we knew what that meant), the large contenders were Nintendo 64 versus the PlayStation. Nothing would break friendships quite as quickly as staking a side in this war that opposed your friend's. What we intuited as teenagers was that nothing about a console was inherently worthwhile if there weren't games of the best kind on that platform. The Nintendo Entertainment System was nothing without Mario (which held true with the N64 until Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, and Super Smash Bros. came out). SEGA had Sonic as a direct competitor and mascot. And the newly launched PlayStation had…Crash Bandicoot? Really? Hmm. Not a lot of cultural impact that one. Still, the PlayStation made a big splash, eventually coming into its own with genre-defining games like Metal Gear Solid and, of course, Final Fantasy VII. I haven't talked about Final Fantasy VII here before, and there's a huge amount of that game that needs exploration (haha) and unpacking, so I'm reluctant to jump into it. Nevertheless, I have some extra time today, and the big part about FFVII that matters so much--but went completely unremarked upon in my early days of fandom for the game--is something that I haven't been able to figure out until recently. So I'm gonna give it a go. Before I start, I'm putting up a SPOILER WARNING about the game. It came out 21-years ago this week, and there are multitudinous ways for anyone interested to either read it (via text dumps) or watch it via playthroughs or playing it on any number of devices. So, if you aren't familiar with the game…well, maybe this essay isn't really for you. A Puppet Without Strings Cloud Strife is a complicated guy. Growing up in the FFVII equivalent of the middle of nowhere, Cloud wanted to be important from the time he was a little kid. He eventually left Nibelheim and headed to Midgar, anxious to join the elite private military corporation of SOLDIER, employed by Shinra Electric Company. Sadly, Cloud was also a bit of a loser. He didn't get into SOLDIER in any real way, being a low-level scrub who eventually got tasked with accompanying the much more competent and friendly Zack Fair, as well as the aloof and legendary SOLDIER, Sephiroth. Heading toward Nibelheim on assignment, Cloud's dreams of being an impressive hero and SOLDIER (though he was a soldier) were about to be shown to his hometown as, essentially, empty. Maybe that's part of the reason he's so carsick on the way to Nibelheim. Or, maybe not. It certainly adds to the idea that Cloud was not a remarkable hero. Can you imagine Captain America getting carsick? But all of this is too late in the game and early in the story, which is part of what makes FFVII such a brilliant, beautiful masterpiece. It's the sort of game that needs to be a game on almost every level, if only because of the added complicity that comes about when you, the player of the would-be SOLDIER Cloud, end up fighting a dragon on the way to the Mako reactor in Nibelheim, only to be smashed to pieces in a single attack. Good thing Sephiroth is there to save you. See, by having the player control Cloud through this segment, this flashback that occurs in Kalm, immediately after escaping Midgar, the player is involved in fabricating the story that Cloud is weaving. Up until this point, everything is going along smoothly for our heroes: We know who the bad guys are, we can see that they're mortal (the President of the Shinra has been murdered by the recently returned Sephiroth), and we know that Sephiroth is on his way to something large and heinous. It's not pure vanilla, as the Shinra's role and Sephiroth's switching to his own side is not a common trope, but the story is clear enough at this juncture. So having the player move five-years-ago Cloud through his old house seems a logical thing. We've been in control of Cloud almost exclusively for the majority of the game, thus far, so it's not too unusual for us to view the world--in an almost literal way--through his eyes. But everything that the gamer does in the process of that flashback is a lie. Sometimes it's full-fledged, like the idea that Zack wasn't there at all. Sometimes it's a tweak, like the idea that he went with Tifa to the Mako reactor, but was the security guard outside, rather than the companion of Sephiroth inside. The very fabric of Cloud's reliability as a narrator, as a point of view character, begins its fraying at this moment, even if the player doesn't see it. As Cloud is talking, Tifa keeps quiet, but there are enough subtle clues (an impressive feat, considering the limitations of software and hardware the game has) from her that there's something awry. Yet, what does it matter? There's still a game to play--and the game is fun. The organization of materia, the leveling up of characters, the navigation of the world, all of it adds toward a desire to overlook incongruities, because these plot details are preventing the gamer from getting back to the game. What really strikes me about this is that Cloud is the puppet at the end of digital strings. We, as the gamers, control what he's doing, when he approaches certain problems, certain events. During the flashback to Nibelheim, you can, if you choose, have Cloud enter Tifa's home. She asks if he really did this. By insisting he did, you can make Cloud go deeper into her house, at last ending up at her dresser and rummaging through, only to find "Tifa's Orthopedic Underwear", at which point Tifa gets upset and Cloud decides to pass it off as "only a joke" and the story moves on. Did Cloud really take the underwear? Aside from the creepy undertones, Cloud is lying about it ("it's a joke"), but he's lying about it inside of a lie about his time in Nibelheim. What can we know for certain about what Cloud was doing there? Was he, as a soldier entering his childhood crush's home? Or was it he, a SOLDIER--that is, the false Cloud that we've been controlling since the opening train ride? Because games are about controlling avatars, there's always a puppet-without-strings level to the experience. Gamers are the Gepettoes of the world, making the characters on the strings dance and tell their stories. At this point of Final Fantasy VII, however, it becomes much less clear. Who is being played in this instance? The audience--the gamers--are being fed a lie. The characters on the screen--save for Tifa--are being lied to, too. Cloud is lying his face off…but he doesn't even know it. In this instance, Cloud is like the player, caught up in the story, an imaginative possibility. Crucially, Cloud is so thoroughly convinced about his imagined version of his reality, that confronting his real past becomes a literal struggle for him. See, when Cloud is lost and slips into the Lifestream with Tifa, when the gamer has to put together the true memories of Cloud's past--complete with him remembering how Zack sacrificed his life to protect him--there is a genuine feeling of cohesion and return. After Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia and accidentally releases the Weapons on the Planet, Cloud disappears from the story. As Meteor looms, Tifa and Barrett are being held prisoners by the corporate government of the Shinra Company, waiting to be executed. The threat to some of the earliest characters in the game helps transfer the player's concern and empathy for Cloud--feelings that had been harvested over however long they've been playing--and put them into the other members of the team. Additionally, the player wants Cloud to come back. He's where the focus of the game and the story has been for so long that there isn't a game without Cloud. (I do think, at least subliminally, there's also a worry that Cloud is narratively dead; Aerith is brutally murdered on screen not too long ago, showing that the game is willing to take its unique, brightly colored characters, and kill them off. That's raising the stakes in credible ways, for certain.) The fracturing of the group by losing its leader shows a couple of things. One, Tifa is a capable, strong, and intelligent leader and her focus on helping her friend is part of her motivation. Two, it allows the story to grow larger than a single character. It helps open up the world in a way that all of the exploration could never do. Three, it gives the player some--not as much, but some--time with Tifa, allowing her to be a vessel of the gamer-avatar empathy, thus helping the gamer along with the narrative-drenched segment when Tifa and Cloud have to carefully reassemble Cloud's shattered mind. And that leads back to the in-the-Lifestream moment. The gamer is excited to see Cloud…until we see that he's essentially a vegetable. There's nothing that he can do--he's a puppet with his strings cut. We want to see him return to his normal self, but we don't know how. Why? Because games don't often worry about the internal experience of the avatar. The character itself is far too often a dim shadow, designed so that the gamer can project him/herself into the character instead. (This was one of Hideo Kojima's biggest mistakes with the original conception of Snake in Metal Gear Solid, in my opinion, and--thankfully--the later games in that series showed him that it is far more compelling to have a character be a character, rather than a digital token.) The Lifestream flashback is a comparatively boring moment in the game: There is a lot of reading, and the areas that we're interacting with are familiar aspects of the story. So not only is there little to do, what is there we've seen before. Yet this is the most important and fascinating parts of the game. Final Fantasy VII starts off with the basic idea of a hero, slowly builds him up, then breaks him almost completely. The restructuring of Cloud's psyche can be thought of as the proof-positive that we can only explore this story via interactivity. Acting as Tifa, the player helps to reassemble the correct memories and motivations of Cloud, restringing the puppet. Not only do we as the players have that chance, but we're doing it via a person that Cloud has long cared about--the girl he crushed on at home (a true memory, perhaps the truest one he has), the one to whom he uttered an important promise--so that the process is anything but mechanical. FFVII spends the better part of an hour letting the player into the internal workings of the character. That's what Shakespeare was doing with Hamlet, and though I'm not putting FFVII in the same stratum as Shakespeare, the effectiveness of both pieces of art comes from this deep desire we have of understanding who and what we are. Cloud is faced with the ultimate existential crisis: He is not who he thinks he is, and he has--for a long time--no way of being able to differentiate between subsumed, real memories, and traumatized, implanted memories. Despite this worry of not knowing who he is, Cloud decides that there are memories that are true, that existence in the face of the unknown is a journey and valuable in and of itself, and that the world is worth preserving. This is why Cloud's comments to Sephiroth at the end of Advent Children are so important. He's telling Sephiroth--the emblem of all that had been taken away from him--that there's nothing that doesn't matter. Cloud faces existentialism and denies it, pushing away nihilistic proposals, seeking continued existence in the Lifestream (where Aerith and Zack continue to watch over him) and a worthwhile existence with his friends. Like I said, Cloud is a complicated guy. Many years ago, I went to an LTUE symposium where Isaac Stewart taught a panel about how he makes maps. While his method may or may not have changed, I've really enjoyed taking his principles and applying them to my stories. In fact, writing a novel without an actual map has proven frustrating. Even a post hoc (or sometimes in the nonce hoc) drafting of a map makes the world doesn't fully satisfy the solidity of a good map from the outset. This right here is a rough map I made of Stann-over-Kenth, the primary location of my book Ash and Fire (which needs a new title because there's neither ash nor fire in the whole thing). The quality isn't wonderful, but if you look closely, you'll see that every single street in the entire city is named. Additionally, I chose to have roads run north to south and streets stroll from east to west. But, like any city, there are plenty of incongruities (and, in the case of "Millner Street", misspellings), including two Gate Roads that are far separated from each other. The template I used--and this goes back to Stewart's methods--is I found a map of the City of London.* Then I twisted it 90 degrees and began modifying it to suit my fancy. It follows a lot of the paths and major roads that are there in the actual map--and I have a reason for doing it that way, which doesn't pertain here--but I made some adjustments, too. You'll notice that, much like the historical City of London, I put a red line demarcating the wall that surrounds Stann-over-Kenth. I put the seat of power in the Keenhall section, along with the expansive Keenhall Grounds, outside of the City because I figured the Queen of this fictitious place probably would want some space and privacy. I also included a handful of gates (you may be able to see them as the gold stars) to help me understand how they control people coming and going from Stann-over-Kenth. In other words, I use the map to inform my writing, and my writing informs my map. I wrote a chapter in which one of the characters comes across an expansive chapel, so I had to make sure that I put that chapel on the map. However, if you look near the bottom, there's a large gray splotch that's called "Kenth Mount". The shape of that splotch inspired me to have the Chapel at Kenth Mount be that big--which means that the chapel itself is enormous, taking up city blocks worth of space, with enormous land surrounding it to give it a barrier between it and the rest of the chip (which is a modification of the word cheap, which meant market back in the day). I don't only crib maps of famous cities for my own use. I also use Stewart's method more fully, which is to find an interesting, naturally occurring shape. Sometimes it's a creative-commons licensed photo of a coffee stain or a leaf. In the case of the picture below, some scrambled eggs were stuck to my pan whilst I was doing my dishes. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of it, later transferring the image into a drawing program and tracing the outline of the food. It gives the continent a naturalistic shape, but also a unique form. With the outline in place, I can modify it as necessary, adding in the topography that best suits my story. Sometimes I wiggle some rivers, other times I use a carefully created brush in the program to make mountain ranges. The entire process is really enjoyable for me, in part because I can do it and watch a Netflix movie or listen to a book--it's just mindless enough to be boring if I do it independently, but just thoughtful enough to be engaging with some background noise. When I was making the map of Stann-over-Kenth, it was during Parent/Teacher Conferences. Few people showed up that night, so I spent the majority of the time inventing the names of the streets, spinning around the letters so that they fit in the spaces available, and waiting for parents to come talk to me. It was quite nice, now that I think on it.
As far as the map goes, I have the added bonus of knowing that, if I do it well, I will have added a great deal of detail to my world, as well as a concreteness. It's a visual sort of story bible**, and because of its quasi-canonized state, I can rely on it, even if I come back to the story much, much later. For example, whilst editing Ash and Fire recently, I printed out a page-sized copy of my map. Then, every time I had a character walking from one place to another, and I mention street names in the manuscript, I can flip to the map and look to see if I'm accurate. Just the other day I was doing this, and I found that I couldn't follow my own directions. The streets that I named didn't seem close enough to fit into the action, so I knew that I hadn't described things well enough. My goal, at least for that book, is that the writing and map work so well together that, were a person so inclined, she could trace the movements of each character of the story throughout the entire book.*** Not to belabor the point too much, but the value I find in this is immense. And, strangely enough, I don't always prioritize making my maps the way that I ought to. This is a failing on my part in a huge way, though it comes about because of my eagerness to get to writing as soon as I possibly can. Nathless, I think it's a great way of building a world. While Adobe Photoshop is the best program for this sort of thing, GIMP and MediBang Pro are free and can do a serviceable job, if you're as cash strapped as I am. Good luck! --- * There's a difference between London and the City of London. Watch the video that I linked to learn more. Learning is fun! ** The phrase "story bible" is something I've heard of from the Writing Excuses crew, and it basically means the backstory, geography, history, magic/technology systems, and all the "behind the scenes" stuff that's needed for a story. The reason a story bible matters is because, without it, continuity suffers. It creates a skeleton off of which the muscles of the story hang, so without it, the chances of really messing up the world you're trying to write is large. *** And, like…that would be incredible. Not just that someone could do that, but that someone would do that. Like, that I would have fans who would obsess over my worlds as much as I do someone else's? That would blow my mind. Great Conversations
It's not unusual for me to find the post-school hours of a Friday afternoon as being mostly fluff. Since my school gets out early (12:30 instead of 3:30), I have ample time to plan for the upcoming week, tidy up some grading, or otherwise use my time wisely. Instead, I watch YouTube videos and flitter through Twitter. Today, however, I decided to be proactive and leave once I had my week set up (something that, for me, isn't particularly strenuous, as I've been through this curriculum enough times that it's fairly polished). I figured I'd drop off some library books, then browse through the stacks to see if there was anything I wanted to check out and not read before returning it three weeks later--in other words, a normal afternoon in the library. As I was about to leave, I mentioned to my roommate* an idea in passing. She asked a question, so I stalled and sat down. We chatted for a few minutes and, as I was approaching a departure point, one of my oldest friends at the school strolled in. I think he may have had a specific reason to come talk to one of us, but we quickly distracted him with a question or two, and then we were off. The conversation did what all the best conversations do: Meander through the topic, tugging at each person's area of expertise to try to shed light on something deeper. We ranged over ideas of what it means for a piece of literature to be a classic, how it could apply to cinema and video games, what poetry is now compared to what poetry was to the ancients, pedagogy and what makes for a worthwhile Socratic Seminar teacher, where our department is weak and in what areas, how relationships with students is the most important part of our job (but must be tempered by a genuine pursuit of the curriculum), and quite a bit more. While I wish I could copy down all that was discussed, I can't. Not only because my feeble brain can't recall that much detail, but because it defeats the purpose of that conversation. I don't often disagree with Socrates, but I do find his rejection of the new-fangled technology of writing as being ironic and misplaced. However, he was correct in saying that people won't talk as much if they're busy writing. That loss is overpowered by the gain of preservation, but it's true that a real, profound conversation is one that is unrepeatable and irreplaceable. Part of what I try to do with my students is find topics that the kids can sink their teeth into, something that makes them think harder and walk away feeling as though they've improved in some way. This is a rare occurrence, in part because classes are large, and finding something that everyone can attach to is almost impossible. I get to spend a lot of time with the students--nearly two hours a day--and that increases my chances of finding something worthwhile for everyone eventually, but in terms of single moments of lucidity or value, they're sparse. Maybe that's why I was so unimpressed with myself in the Shakespeare class of last semester. It was a casual lecture most of the time, never a worthwhile conversation. We didn't discuss things so much as the students allowed me to talk at them about whatever was on my mind. Yet that's the class where I could more easily hear from the students, since there are fewer than a dozen of us there. And, pushing that idea farther, perhaps the reason that my conversation with a couple of intelligent, well-read friends who could discuss something in a way that was both informed and insightful came because of those specific criteria. When it comes to Shakespeare, students defer to me (even though we have at least three other well-versed Bardolators at the school). That deference leads them to fear (?) speaking up throughout an analysis of Shakespeare. Or maybe they simply want to hear what I have to say on the topic, trusting my insights and gaining their own as we go. There isn't a textual or (less humbly) intellectual parity among the group, which shifts its balance toward me. So, as I've been thinking of this and the richness of today's conversation, it strikes me that it could be valuable for a demonstration of discussion that the students could attend. In a lot of ways, it would be more of a panel--we'd be on display, essentially, for the benefit of the audience--but the purpose would be to model how we as adults and as scholars and as friends navigate a conversation. We would have to be more disciplined than what we did today in a casual hour together, but, if students came with the expectation to both learn something new (via the points of view of the panelists) as well as the understanding that they could learn to be better interlocutors themselves, it could still be worth our time. Then again, who would come? Who would want to spend time listening to three old folks gas on about some random topic? To do this, it would have to be after school--probably on a Friday. Who would want to spend time doing that when there are so many other options for how one starts a weekend? Of all the unusual things a person could do, that's gotta be high on the list, right? Still…I think it would be kinda cool. --- * Because my school is fairly small, almost all teachers have to share their classrooms with someone for some of the day. The two of us teach the same grade, and we equally share the space in terms of the quantity of classes we teach, but we also use it as a way to brainstorm, discuss problems we're having, or trying to figure out better ways to teach the curriculum. She also generously lets me monopolize the back of the room with my massive assortment of random posters. And, if you haven't seen my classroom, I'm underselling just how overstimulating my section of the room is. Second semester always sneaks up on me. The craziness that is Winterim--regardless of what I teach--eats up all of the bandwidth and anticipation of the next semester, so I'm never really ready for it to start. It also means that I see some of my students for the first time in five weeks (two weeks for Winter Break, three weeks for Winterim). I look over the pictures of each class to make sure I remember everyone's names, it's that long.
Another big change that comes at the semester is that two of my sections reset. I teach two year-long classes and two semester-long, so the resetting is weird. Disclosure documents, introductions, the whole thing. Because we've been schooling for so long, it's strange to shift into that late-August mode at the end of January. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives me a chance to meet new kids, to put myself back into the joy of having variety in the curriculum, and--most importantly--it gives me my novel writing class. I teach Creative Writing I during the first semester, which ends at the Winter Break midway through December. Most of the kids who take that class are interested in writing, like me as a teacher, or have to fulfill an elective credit and mine fits their schedule. That's fine. I don't expect the class to be a life-changer for most of them. I try to entertain them, give them a class that doesn't demand as much of them, and gives them some positive memories of class activities or writing. Creative Writing II is also my Novel Writing class, and it's a creature of a different breed. First of all, my CWI class is all about instruction, with one day of writing a week. CWII is reversed, one day of instruction, then every other day of the week is writing. This means that second semester is also the time when I get to write my own stories more, upwards of nearly three hours of writing a week. During the summer, I often get three hours a day, but during the school year, I'm lucky to get more than a couple. (That's part of the reason that I like NaNoWriMo so much, because it forces me to carve out more writing time.) But, as I said at the beginning, second semester sneaks up on me. One of the areas that I have to prepare before I'm ready to teach that class is my own outlining. In other words, my class prep is figuring out what book I'm going to write. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that prepping a new book is one of the hardest things for me to prepare. I haven't really written any fiction since NaNoWriMo 2017 ended. December was a hiatus, January was too video game-centric. Now I'm almost to February and I don't know what my new book is going to be about. This is problematic not only because I don't want to squander my rare writing time, but also because I have a goal to write three books this year. (So, okay, that isn't really a huge stretch of a goal: I want to write a book in Novel Writing class, one during the summer, and one during NaNoWriMo 2018. But, also, that's a huge amount of writing. So it balances out.) If I don't get my butt in gear, I don't know what I'll have at the end of the school year, but it certainly won't be a new book. Today was the first day of the class trying to write together. It was rough, as the kids were chatty and there were teacher issues I had to deal with. But you know what? I wrote over 600 words of fiction today. They're from the horror story that I was working on earlier in the school year but haven't touched since October. I had to reread my notes, skim over previous chapters, and try to get my head on straight again, but the important thing is, I did it. I'm moving forward on this goal. Now…if I could convince myself that I love to edit, then I'd really be getting somewhere with my writing. One of my favorite lessons is to give students a hypothetical situation in which they have to make a hard choice, then continually tweak the situation to force them to more fully approach and consider their own morality. Part of why I like it is because students have a hard time letting go of their assumptions that every choice they make is the right one, and also they end up making a lot of agonized and shocked sounds, which is hilarious.
Real life moral choices are much less dramatic than the Trolley Problem I explore with my students. They're less visible, less defined, and less satisfying. Maybe it's because I've sort of landed on a mental hiccup in which I think anything that I genuinely want to do and enjoy doing is inherently the wrong thing, but I feel like I've made the idea of suffering as my barometer for the rightness of a choice. If I really don't want to do the thing, then that's how I assume it's the best option. I can't admit that I'm happy with that belief. It basically pushes against hedonism in so many ways that it becomes its own perverse pleasure, and I'm fairly certain that's not a healthy thing. (It also means that I've become expert at feeling guilty--and even shame--at my decisions, even if they are 'good' choices, if I enjoy or am happy to do whatever it may be.) And in no area of my life is this difficulty more apparent than with my calling in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. See, I'm a Webelos leader, spending an hour each Wednesday night with a bunch of rambunctious 10 year olds who would rather be most anywhere else and try to get them to 1) stop being a**holes to each other for five seconds, and 2) advance them through the program so that there's progress on their behalf for the monthly Pack Meeting. I really don't like it. When they first asked me, nearly a year and a half back, if I would be willing to help out, I told them that I have philosophical problems with the BSA and I didn't think I would be a good fit. They insisted. I really, really didn't want to say yes. So, of course, I did. (If I don't want to do it, that means doing it is the right thing, you see?) I was a part of the program long enough that I was somewhat versed in the responsibilities by the time my oldest, Puck, showed up. As I mentioned in the footnote of the link, he hates going to Scouts. While he's trying to put on a brave face and reduce his amount of complaining, it's abundantly clear that he is unhappy being there. Part of it is the other kids: They don't understand his sense of humor, they don't go to school with him (my boys go to a school closer to my work than my home), and they have interests that rarely intersect with his own. Part of it is Puck: He refuses to control his flatulence, and that never makes you friends; he is loud when he's bored, meaning he'll shout out weird ideas and things, thinking it's funny but really it's not; or he sits and pouts, hoping that they'll take pity on him and include him or be nice to him. The whole thing is the proof of the idea that "kids can be cruel", and I subject him to it every week. Because I'm in Webelos, and so is Puck, we get to spend the evening together. That is the nicest part. But the evening usually involves me barking at most of the kids to stop whatever it is they're doing (often it's bumping up against the "that'll likely lead to property damage" red line). Puck uses my distraction to wander away or do something else instead of the activity. He doesn't want to be there much worse than I, and that's what leads to my conundrum: Should I stop sending him to Scouts? The crux of the difficulty is that I can't shake my anti-hedonistic philosophy for determining the moral rightness of an action. Deep down, I feel like that weekly suffering must be the right thing, and I want my son to do the right thing. For that to be consistent and not hypocritical, I have to do the right thing. As it stands, Puck isn't willing to progress into the next phase of Cub Scouting when he turns eleven later this spring. He doesn't want to attend any meetings if I'm not the leader. If I weren't the leader now, he wouldn't go, I don't think. So, what do I do? Let him have his way in the much-maligned "entitlement" throes that gives late Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers so much heartburn? Realize that this is a real problem and forcing him will likely exacerbate his enmity with the program and, possibly, his parents (who insisted he go), or the Church (which expected him to attend)? Let go of my anti-hedonistic philosophy and rethink the process of choosing what's right? Support my Church calling or support my son? That last one is the real doozy. I don't think there's a morally right thing about attending Scouts per se. Instead, it's the idea that I've been asked to do a particular thing, I've agreed to do it, so now it's incumbent on me to fulfill my end of the agreement. But part of my calling is to help Webelos Scouts to progress, including Puck. Not only that, but the expectation in the Church is that, when asked to help or participate, one helps or participates. Puck has been asked to participate, so he should. But compelling him to do so is completely counter to the fundamental teachings of the Church*. I remember that my mom, when confronted with my antipathy toward the program, encouraged me to find the fun parts that I did enjoy and appreciate, but know that I would have to do the less enjoyable aspects at some point. It probably won't come as much of a surprise to learn that I didn't ever do those less enjoyable parts. I couldn't be bothered, and by the time I "needed" to take care of the less savory merit badges, it was clear that I was completely uninterested in earning higher ranks (maybe because I hadn't learned the work ethic needed to do something hard?) and an Eagle Scout rank was never in the cards. I'm trying a similar tact on Puck, asking him to select an adventure that he might be interested in trying out, something to make him--if only marginally--more keen on Wednesday nights. So far, he hasn't bothered to look for anything. And maybe it's the wrong thing to do. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it'll work well for him and he'll have some positive memories of the whole thing. I don't know. That's the whole problem with this situation: It's a conundrum. --- * As a doctrinal Cliff Notes, one of the things that Mormons believe really firmly is that God doesn't force people to do things. While there could be plenty of room to dive into that, the basic premise is that God's plan is to show people the right way to live and then let them decide; Satan's plan is to force people to do what Satan wants them to do. In other words, there's a strong anti-compulsion sentiment in a church that is filled with expectations that are so strong they almost feel compulsory. Putting modesty aside for a moment, it's fair to say that I have reputation at my school for being intimidating to the 7-9th graders and being a bit of a favorite amongst the upper grades. I don't say this to brag (or humble brag) but to instead give context to something that I really struggle with: How to deal with sycophants and others whom I don't have a natural affinity for.
Okay, so I'm a fixture at my school. I've been a part of it since its second year. I've taught dynasties of families (like Slughorn, I sometimes try to "collect" kids from the same set of siblings), I've seen a lot of changes, and I have a reputation. That reputation includes have a bark that's much worse than my bite, but also a fairly strong resistance to crap that kids might try to pull. Specifically, I'm a loud enforcer of the uniform policy, shouting at students--even those I don't know--to take off unapproved jackets or hats. This reputation is carefully cultivated, particularly as we have middle school students who live for three years beneath a dread of taking my classes. I imagine there's a bit of a disconnect, though, as many students who pass through my 10th grade class really enjoy it and have positive feelings towards me, so younger kids see me as an ogre in the hallways while the older kids think back to my class fondly. (This is a generalization, obviously; plenty of kids don't like me, my style of teaching, or the lessons I taught them.) Such a reputation doesn't bother me--as I say, I cultivate this--but what gets to me is when it doesn't work. That is, when the middle schoolers aren't afraid of me, or when 9th graders see me and don't get a worried look in their eyes. It's like when your remote control doesn't work on the first press. Then you stare at it (as if that's going to help anything) before trying again, maybe more deliberately and with greater emphasis. It's an expectation of a particular reaction that doesn't come, and that leaves me off balance. In the case of students, I get a bit of a sycophantic vibe from kids like that, as if they're trying to ingratiate themselves by being different than their peers. I applaud that effort, but, again, it makes me confused. "Why aren't you scared of me?" This has led to a question that I ask my students every year when we're talking about Pride and Prejudice: How do you deal with someone that you aren't really happy to be dealing with? As far as a lesson goes, it's useful for all of us to think more on how we interact with people, how we demonstrate respect and kindness (even if one is used to being an ogre in the hallways). This is inspired by the way that Mr. Collins interacts with others within the story of Pride and Prejudice. As a quick reminder, Mr. Collins is the, well, sycophantic cousin of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet. He's full of himself because he basks in the reflected glory of his patroness, the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. He's quick to ingratiate himself into the presence of others, and thinks that his proximity to power and gentles means that he's given leeway that, societally, he doesn't really have. Take, for example, his comments to Elizabeth when she rightly points out that he hasn't the social standing to introduce himself to Mr. Darcy (the latter being a higher rank and, therefore, ought to be the one to initiate an introduction, were he to be so inclined): "permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom—provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained." (Chapter 18) Nothing he says here is correct. Admittedly, the societal hierarchies are fundamentally arbitrary, but the culture agreed upon them to the point of efficacy: Those are the rules and everyone plays by them. Mr. Collins takes his position as the rector at Rosings so grandly that he presumes more authority than he truly has. For me, I think there is a social hierarchy within a school. And, like the one of Regency era England, it's fundamentally arbitrary but one upon which we've all agreed. This isn't to say that a 7th grader shouldn't talk to me…but I'll always find that weird. It's not a personal thing, inasmuch as I see it as something that Seventh Graders™ do, rather than a specific person who happens to be in 7th grade. In many ways, this is a confession: I recognize my prejudice and my own pride in teaching the "right" age (which is only right for me, based upon plenty of experiences that lead me to this conclusion) whenever this sort of thing crops up. I'm being haughty and disdainful because of…well, a lot of reasons, some of them of greater validity than others, none of which pertains to what I'm looking at here. No, the issue is a lot bigger, and an area of very slow progress as I seek to change. No one likes a lickspittle--except, I guess, people whose spittle is being licked off--and so the feeling that students are trying to ingratiate themselves to me makes me uncomfortable. (And while this happens with students of 10th grade, too, I see it more in the younger grades; no one is immune.) So this is an area where I'm trying to improve. And if, through some random coincidence, a middle schooler happens upon this essay, keep in mind that I'm not hating on you for being you--you'll grow out of the sycophantic age and into something even worse: An apathetic teenager. Ah, high school is such a blessed time, isn't it? Note: This essay stems from the backstory that my wife and I invented together for the costume she's making for Fan X and Halloween 2018. We've been interested in steampunk for a number of years, which precipitated my NaNoWriMo 2016 project. For this costume, she wanted to make a Steampunk Batgirl. I'm not much at making costumes, but I do like telling stories, and one of the important aspects of steampunk character creation (and of cosplay in general) is to ensure that there's a strong backstory for why the character is the way she is. This, then, is a quick outline of a non-canonical, unofficial alternate world in which my wife's Steampunk Batgirl lives.
In a Victorian-era inspired Gotham, a man named William Tockman grows weary of his living impoverished whilst the upper crust aristocracy--the Cobblepots and the Waynes--flaunt their wealth with endless parties and frivolous ornamentation. Despite their seemingly endless funds (and the balls to show it off), Gotham is in dire need of redemption. Crime is rampant. Poverty grips the majority of citizens. They can't even get their trains to run on time. Incensed by the injustice, Tockman pulls together his Minute Hands, a group dedicated to stripping away the decadence and giving Gotham over to Tockman. His promises include a reversion of wealth (for his most loyal followers), a rejection of degenerate and overly ornate art, and--of course--trains that will run on time. As he slowly conquers the city, he proves capable of fulfilling his promises. Not all are content with his ploy of power and seeing the once beautiful and architecturally inspiring Gotham reduced to straight lines and rigid schedules, all of which are enforced by his elite group of soldiers, the Minute Hands, and their subordinates, the Second Hands. On the surface, many people are happy--more, at least, than under the old form. But there's sickness and sadness. Those who don't conform to the new regime are taken to the Clock Tower where, the rumor goes, horrible things happen to them. One of the primary technicians of the Clock Tower is a woman named Barbara Gordon. Her father, James Gordon, had been one of those who sought for a better Gotham. However, he had died in a steam-run airship accident when Barbara was young, leaving her to grow and learn on her own. Taken in by Tockman and his promises of a better Gotham, Barbara helped Tockman--the self-proclaimed Clock King--to run the city. Using her eidetic memory and penchant for utilizing steam-tech to solve the engineering problems, she became one of the most respected and useful of the Minute Hands. Because of her obsessive personality, Barbara put so much time into her inventions that she never stopped to see what they were being used for. One day, on her way home, Barbara's train was unexpectedly stopped. Terrorists, the conductor explained, had ruined the tracks. The trains would not be running on time today. Upset at the inconvenience--and a tiny nugget of doubt forming in her mind that perhaps the Clock King wasn't as all powerful as she'd been led to believe--she decided to walk home. It was on that night that Barbara was confronted by those who were being exploited by the Clock King--lower class people who were forced to labor in the tunnels beneath Gotham to extract the dregs which power the steam-tech she'd been working on. Her suspicions about Tockman increased; her lack of faith became more and more apparent. Eventually, she decided to confront Tockman about the injustices he was meting out on the people of Gotham. "They're merely pips, my dear," he'd said, gesturing out the window of his Clock Tower, the tallest building in the city and the place from which he oversaw the entire reconstruction of Gotham. "Disposable. Replaceable. Insignificant." The callousness of his comments so rankled Barbara that she refused to follow orders. Incensed, the Clock King decreed that any Minute Hand that would not keep time would not be kept, and ordered some of Barbara's erstwhile friends to "see her out." "She's broken," the Clock King said as Barbara, defeated after trying to fight off the other Minute Hands about her. "I'm not broken yet," snarled Barbara. At that, Tockman gestured for the Minute Hands to stop. "No," he said, walking closely, his black eyes hidden behind the clock-motif glasses he always wore. "But you will be." Before anyone could do anything, an alarm blared. Through some of the steam-tech communicators that Barbara herself had invented, news of an attack on the Clock Tower arrived. It was the terrorist group who had ruined the trains a few weeks before: The Sons of the Bat. Furious that his stronghold was under siege, Tockman told his Minute Hands to "break her and stop the Bat," then hurried away to his awaiting airship. Barbara watched in dismay and terror as Tockman escaped, leaving her to the eager-to-please brutality of the Minute Hands. Without ceremony, the members of the Minute Hands dragged Barbara Gordon to the stair well and, with a chorus of laughter, hurled her over the side. Their efforts, however, weren't perfectly coordinated, and Barbara spun, rather than plunging straight down. She crashed against a bannister, smashing through and--in a single, painful instant, felt her legs go numb. Consciousness returned in waves of pain, but the one thing that came to her mind was vengeance. She couldn't let the Clock King get away. But when she tried to stand, she found that everything below the waist was a fire of agony without response. The fall had broken her back. Despite that, Barbara struggled to climb up the stairs. Tears and sweat and blood from who knows where accompanied her as she tried to clamber after the Clock King. It was an exercise in futility, but it was all she knew how to do. Tenacity would keep her moving, even through the torture of her broken body. The sound of metal clinking against the stone steps drew her attention. Looking over her shoulder, Barbara's eyes widened when a bat the size of a human came hurtling up the center of the stairwell. She watched in horror and intrigue as the legendary resistance fighter, the Batman, soared past her. At first, Barbara thought she had slipped into a dream that heralded her death. But her perfect memory, running again and again as she tried to get herself back to the Clock King's office, showed her the details that she'd missed at that first glance. The speckles of blood and a broken lip on the lower part of Batman's face. The tears in his steam-tech armor, the areas of poor engineering that allowed for steam leakage, all of which were attached to a harness at the rebel's waist. The tears in the cape that showed up as ragged and threadbare, not animalistic or leathery. The Batman was a man. But who was he? By this point, she could hear the sounds of scuffling, shouting, and fighting. One of the Minute Hands who had thrown her down came plummeting past her. Barbara savored the look of horror on the man's face, but was startled to see a cable attach itself to the man's torso. It was painful, but the cable arrested the man's fall, though he slammed into the stairs once the cable went taut. Barbara looked up and saw the second Minute Hand lunge toward the Batman, only to find himself flipped about, thrown to the floor, and his arm expertly broken. The man's screams cut short when the Batman bent over and dealt a sharp, savage jab to the man's face. Barbara saw justice. And she wanted a part of it. Calling out, her voice ragged from the pain, Barbara drew Batman's attention. Once he had secured the Minute Hand, he dropped to where Barbara lay. "What happened to you?" he asked, his voice gravely but not unkind. She noticed a weariness to his posture and, unless she was mistaken, blood seeping from his side. "They broke me," she said, her words hiccupping. "We need to get you some help." She shook her head. "No, you need my help." The Batman paused. "Why?" Barbara tapped her head with a finger. "I know things. About the Clock King and how his steam-tech works." "Tell me." "Get me out of here," Barbara said. "And I'll help you." It didn't take much time for the Batman to come around to Barbara's point of view, and he carefully extracted her from the Clock Tower. The assault had been a success--they had claimed the space--but the Clock King had escaped. The Sons of the Bat--which turned out to be a small collection of highly trained street-fighters--dispersed as the Second Hands came in. Their overwhelming numbers prevented the resistance from maintaining their victory. And though it had been difficult, the Clock King had been shown that he could bleed. *** Barbara was taken to an underground lair, where she lay on a table for too long, recuperating from the injuries. Her ill-advised attempt to climb up the stairs whilst paralyzed impressed the Batman--who carefully kept his identity a secret from her--but had also done some additional damage. Nevertheless, Barbara didn't remain idle during the recovery. Every waking moment was filled with documenting all that she knew about the steam-tech she'd worked on. Her eidetic mind allowed her to recall the schematics with perfect precision, which the Batman could then use to improve his own gear and help the resistance. As time passed, Barbara began to feel stronger again. Against the original wishes of the Batman, she began a fierce regiment of upper-body work, improving her strength and dexterity even while her legs languished. At last, she managed to develop a steam-powered device that allowed her to walk--albeit painfully. The tech allowed her to jump higher, run faster, and fall from greater heights than a normal person, but it was dangerous and ran the risk of damage, which would leave her stranded. Batman opposed the usage. "You're not going out to the front lines," he said, his voice harsh and one that brooked no disagreement. "You're like an oracle. You show us how to use the tech in ways that Tockman never could imagine. I can't lose you." Nevertheless, she persisted, saying, "It isn't up to you, Bruce." The Batman stepped back. "How did you--" "I'm not stupid," she said. "And I've helped you. It's time that you helped me." She revealed a stack of concept drawings for the steam-tech costume that she would need him to build. A tech-powered grapple gun, similar to the Batman's, but faster, stronger, and more reliable. Gauntlets with the inimitable shape of bat wings. A headpiece that doubled as a radio transmitter. Her "legs". A cape that could work as a mini-parachute, should she need it to. A belt covered in the shuriken-like batarangs that Batman preferred. "Why is it so…ornate?" asked Batman, frowning appreciatively at her work. "It's modeled after the architecture that we've lost, that Tockman took from us. It's reclaiming the old heart of Gotham." He pointed at the clock that she had designed for her back, one covered in gears and symbols of the Sons of the Bat. "And this?" "I'm taking that which he most loves and corrupting it. Where he sees symmetry and order, I see disarray and chaos. Where he wants a clock to always be in front of him, guiding him, I put it behind me, letting time reside forever in the past. Where he wishes to see the workings and the gears hidden behind smooth facades and shiny coverings, I want the reality there for everyone to see. When he sees me again, I want him to know that he isn't simply beaten by a superior opponent: He's been beaten by everything he tried to destroy." The Batman regarded her coolly for a moment, then said. "When do you want to begin?" Barbara smiled. "No time like the present." |
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