Leadership For Social Change - Class 1 - Period 7

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

The lights were dimmed in the Danger Shop when the students entered. A row of footlights shone out from the front of the classroom, illuminating the desks clearly but making it impossible to see anything further than the front row of desks.

Once the students were seated and somewhat settled, the footlights cut off abruptly. Music started playing, a dramatic, suspense-building tune; a bit of Spanish guitar in a minor key mixed with a techno background. As it crescendoed, the lights flash as though lightning had struck. Backlights clicked on, illuminating the silhouette of a man standing on a raised platform at the front of the room. A deep maniacal laugh filled the room. "I am," the man says, "DOCTOR HORRIBLE!" He paused dramatically and pressed a button on a small remote in his hand.

A spotlight flipped on and now the students could see the man. He wore an old-fashioned lab coat in blood red, thick black rubber gloves and black goggles. "Welcome!" he exclaimed, "to Leadership for Social Change!" The music rose dramatically and cut off abruptly.

“Heroes,” the Doctor said, “are over with. True leadership requires making hard choices. You must be prepared to be seen as the bad guy. When you have the world in your hands, you can’t grip too loosely or it will slip through your fingers and smash all over the floor, like an existential jar of jam and you will never get all that world jam cleaned out from under the fridge.

“Discussion time! Let’s talk tough. Say there’s a company - we’ll call them “British Metrolium” - and you know they’re going to do very bad things. They stand on the brink of disaster!" He clicked his remote again and showed the adorable images of baby otters and a tiny, tiny turtle. "But you have no proof. They own the media. They control the government. You have only yourself. And maybe a few allies with deep pockets who would prefer to remain unnamed. And minions. You can have minions.

"What do you, your minions and your mysterious resources do, class? Don't think like a hero. Think like... a leader."

[OCD up. Images are worksafe and all that good stuff.]

Comments

Sign In!

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

With your most HORRIBLE icon!

Re: Sign In!

[glacial_queen]

Karla

Re: Sign In!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah Lance

Discussion!

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

Tell us what you think! But first, look at the otters again (http://i48.tinypic.com/95zrsg.jpg)!

Re: Discussion!

[ashockingbitch]

Doctor Horrible? Minions? Maniacal laughter? Wait. Wait. Was this--Jenny looked around, like there might be people with video cameras about to tell her she'd been punk'd. Was she seriously in supervillain class? Oh, well, it didn't actually change her answer.

She leaned forward on her elbows, all casual nonchalance, and explained, "Overthrow the leadership of the company and make sure whoever's put in charge next plays nice," she said. "Then overthrow the government, since clearly they're idiots, too. Ideally you don't actually kill people, just express to them that they're too stupid to be allowed to continue in this job. Drop 'em in the desert in their underwear, maybe, except that's been done." And damn, was she sorry she'd missed it. "Not a lot you can do about the press; killing reporters until you've culled out the stupid makes for...well, for bad press. But if they're scared enough of you it tips over into respect."

Jenny was a big picture girl. And yes, she counted as a superhero back home. Somehow.

Re: Discussion!

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

"You're thinking big picture. I like that," Dr. Horrible said. "I don't know if you have enough minions for a double takeover. Any recruiting plans?"

Re: Discussion!

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

Zounds. This was certainly not what Alexander had entirely expected. All the progress made with yesterday's class in cutting down his nervousness about having to walk lightly around mad people had just been thrown right out the window like the contents of a bedpan. It didn't really help that the whole thing had started out with a spectacular show that could be chalked up only to magic, thus leading Alexander to conclude that Dr. Horrible was obviously a mad magician (just look at the name!) and this was a very not good thing.

Think like a leader. Right. Well, leader in this case clearly meant psychotic bloody tyrant, as it did so often when it came to mad magicians, which also meant forget what you think; say exactly what you think they want you think think, but, at the same time, he realized that what he came up with when he came to a conclusion wasn't too dissimilar to how he'd handled a situation or two in the past.

"Turn them into otters themselves," he offered. He felt the reasons were not only fairly self-explanitory, but also appropriately devious in a vengeful sort of way.

Re: Discussion!

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

"Excellent!" Dr. Horrible exclaimed. "Can you do that?"

Re: Discussion!

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

Quinn was smiling by the end of the lecture. She definitely understood why this class had been suggested to her -- and if calling yourself "Dr. Horrible' was a bit much from her point of view, the message itself aligned pretty well with her personal morals.

Plus, d'awww, otters.

"I get my minions and backers to start a whisper campaign implying everyone in power at British Metrolium is a turtle-beating otter molester who's about to run the company into bankruptcy," she offered coolly. "By the time we got through with it, they'd be willing to step down just to save what was left of their reputations. Then we'd take control."

Re: Discussion!

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

"Subtle," Dr. Horrible said, nodding with approval. "But this could take some time. Time these otters may not have."

Re: Discussion!

[mania-endless.livejournal.com]

The urge to eat those tiny otters with salad was on the rise.

What? It was perfectly normal. And maybe turtle soup once she was done...

But hey, minions! Del wasn't sure if her people counted as minions, but they would do the craziest things...

"I would throw a party! With chocolate! And Korean Rock Singing Sewing Machines." Someone had been listening a lot of music lately.

Re: Discussion!

[icecoldfrost]

"A company that big is often publicly traded," Emma sighed, rolling her eyes at the obviousness of it all. "And when it's not, that's even easier to manipulate."

"Which gives you a variety of options: you can execute a coup by taking control of a majority share and force them to submit, or manipulate market forces to cause their worth to fall dramatically. If you're organized, you can invest in a rival at the same time."

"While sowing doubt among the masses would no doubt cause a lot of sound and fury," she nodded slightly to the other blonde, "aim for their shareholders. A few insinuations at a brunch can spread like wildfire, and make your job that much easier."

"Money talks." And it was a language that Emma was very, very good at.

Re: Discussion!

[glacial_queen]

"How horrible are we talking," Karla asked. "There are many, many ways to make them back down, but some of them are only suitable is we're talking global calamity." Mind you, she was thinking something along the lines of what happened to Gaia.

She paused to think and added, "Also, when you say they own the government and the media, what do you mean? Can they get any story they want quashed? Or will that ownership collapse in the face of enough evidence?"

Re: Discussion!

[notmyownage]

". . . Are the otters minions, too? Because they could be potentially trained for stealth missions."

Yeah, that was all Claudia had so far. But give her time.

Re: Discussion!

[wwiii]

Oh, wow. Those otters were cheating, and this was totally not the class that Warren had expected in the least, and... those otters? They were still cheating, which had him maybe a little ruffled (quite literally) as he worked out his answer.

"Like Emma said, money talks," Warren noted. "You said they control the media, but if I have deep pockets of my own, who's to say I can't control a portion of the media, too? Buy a radio station, or a television station. Never mind the power of the internet on a more global scale."

For the otters.

Re: Discussion!

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

"Are they going to do the bad things deliberately? Because if so, I'd say put a hidden webcam in the boardroom and then broadcast their plans all over the internet."

She had some other vague ideas too but that's the first one that came to mind. Which was funny considering they didn't have the internet back home.

Re: Discussion!

[tasenburn.livejournal.com]

This? Was kind of not Elle's thing at all. But that was why she was here, right? To learn?

Plus, honestly, apparently she was the bad guy already, according to Claire. (Someone hadn't quite gotten over that...)

"I'm thinking torture," Elle said after a moment. "The people at British Metrolium are as vulnerable as anybody else to torture. Get to the key people somehow -- I don't know how, that's what the minions are supposed to figure out -- and threaten them. They don't stop what they're doing and start playing right, well, I know how to make them hurt."

It wasn't bragging, either. Electricity hurt like a bitch.

Talk to the Minion

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

Minion, TA, whatever.

Re: Talk to the Minion

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

That would be Dinah. Wearing her most confused face. Because she'd thought she was TA'ing for Sophie Devereaux.

Also, and maybe she was jumping to conclusions here, but this guy would fit in awfully well in New Gotham.

Talk to the Doctor

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

Otters. (http://i48.tinypic.com/95zrsg.jpg)

Re: Talk to the Doctor

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Doctor... uh." Right. "Hi. I think there's been a huge mistake, somewhere." Dinah was trying not to stare at the rubber gloves too hard. "I thought I was going to be TA'ing for Sophie Deveraux. I think there's been a paperwork error." And how.

OOC

[evilblogofevil.livejournal.com]

No otters were harmed in this post.

Re: OOC

[glacial_queen]

This is what you get for asking for horrible icons, you know.

Re: OOC

[mania-endless.livejournal.com]

I take your otters, and raise (http://cheezdailysquee.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/129191864437010183.jpg) by two. (http://cheezdailysquee.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/129198771062062975.jpg)

Re: OOC

[tasenburn.livejournal.com]

Otters, d'awww!

Also, I'm thinking Dr. Horrible might be Elle's new favorite professor ever.