fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Monday

Ender had always preferred to teach his classes outside whenever possible. When it became obvious the morning would be a little chilly but not rainy, he posted a note on his designated classroom's door pointing all the students towards the dorm lawn.

He sat down on the grass out there, legs folded. By his side was a bag full of sandwiches, just in case any student had missed breakfast. And there he waited, quiet and patient, until everyone had arrived.

"You'll notice I didn't bring any books," he said, once they had. "Because despite what the title of this class might imply, I'm not actually here to tell you about Hegel or Kant and what they were thinking. They might come up, but if they do, it's because they have had interesting ideas that might be useful to us."

He stretched his legs out. "My name is Andrew Wiggin, though some people call me Ender," he said, "And I don't bring books here because I don't think they have all that many answers. I don't spite them for that, because I don't exactly have a lot of answers of my own. What I have are questions, which are far more useful in the long run. You can keep asking questions as the situation changes - answers tend to be the same thing no matter when you check up on them."

He smiled wryly.

"This class is about questions," he said. "And it's about opening a dialogue with those questions. Everyone here has sat through something in their life that they have questions about - though whether they want to admit that is another thing entirely. We're here to talk about those questions as they come up. No more, no less."

He tilted his chin up - maybe at Cade, maybe at nothing in particular. "Of course, that means I expect all of you to participate," he said. "You don't have to share about yourself if you absolutely don't want to, though I'll have you know that it helps. But I expect you to talk along. If you don't, I'm not going to apologize for the kinds of questions I'll ask. While we're at it, I also won't tolerate shaming anyone in this class for any reason."

Having said that, though, Ender's mouth quirked up. "Enough with the threats," he said. "I don't believe in classic introductions - I think I know what most of your names are, and I'll learn the ones that I don't, and what year you're in is of absolutely no concern to me."

"Let's open a dialogue instead," he finished. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"

"We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. I'm open to talking about anything, as long as you think it's worth questioning. Because you can assume from here on in that I really don't know a thing; but maybe by educating me, you can find something worth educating yourself about."

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"It's going, I guess?" Bay said, trying to figure out how to sum everything up. "We had, um, a change in my family situation almost two years ago and since then ... there's kind of a lot of drama at home. Stuff just keeps on coming. It's maybe a little sad that here is calmer when it's not, y'know, trying to kill me."

"It's not sad," Ender replied, shaking his head. "I don't think there's much in this universe that can muck with us the way our families do."

"Yeah, and the stuff that happened means I have a bunch more people in my family now," Bay said. "I love them, I do, but it's lots of extra opportunities for -- mind-mucking."

See? She didn't swear either.

"Next to that having a random kid show up for a weekend is not too much to deal with."

"It doesn't hit as close to home," Ender agreed. Unless it did, but he wasn't about to get his own AU kids weekend issues into a student's. "So would you say Fandom is a safe space for you?"

Bay wrinkled her nose. "That might be going too far. The place did just throw us into a dungeon. But -- safe enough, I guess?"

"More stable," Ender offered up instead. "Fandom only ever reshuffles your world temporarily."

"And then everything snaps back," Bay nodded. "Yeah, exactly. In the rest of the world, when stuff changes, it stays changed."

Which wasn't bad, Bay thought. Not always. But it was very different from Fandom.

"A place as static as this can be a good one to figure out how to respond to changes like that," Ender said. "Of course, you can also get stuck in repeating patterns." He tilted his head. "Have you been figuring things out?"

"I'm not sure," Bay admitted, chewing on her lower lip. "I ... guess so? I haven't gotten told I was just being dramatic about anything in, like, weeks, so I must be doing okay."

"I have a brother who's very dramatic," Ender said wryly. "So far, you seem to be doing fine in comparison."

Yeul didn't know Bay or any of the girl's situation. "I'm glad," she offered, "that there is a place here that you can handle with some kind of equanimity."

Bay smiled, grateful for the support. "Thanks," she said. "And I'm glad you found a place to make friends."

"It seems that we both found something good here," Yeul said, smiling a little. "That's rather nice."

"Yeah, it is," Bay agreed. "Makes it easier to accept the not-nice stuff."

"It can," she said, because though Yeul took the not-nice stuff in stride she knew that was not the same for a lot of people. "I think being here also gives a necessary distance for some people, for the not-nice stuff at home."

Though it did absolutely nothing for the not-nice stuff here...

"I know how you feel, and yeah, it makes you wonder how is this going to work out once school is over. At least I wonder that," Emily said.

Bay shrugged, as if she cared less than she did. "Back into the craziness, I guess," she said. "Unless I run away with somebody to a different dimension, but that seems kind of extreme."

"Maybe more like moving out, and not running away? Just an idea," Emily offered. "It does sound tempting though, going somewhere else."

"Believe me, I tried to just take off, and it did not work out," Bay said firmly. "Ended up having to call my dad to pick me up in the middle of nowhere. And also my so-called friend took off with my money. But moving out -- yeah, someday I might do that."

Emily's eyebrows went up; and Bay looked relatively calm so far..."Kind of unrelated, but it's nice to have a dad to call for help, so I would suggest not losing that over less crazy times. Also what a friend, huh."

"Uh, thanks," Bay said, mildly annoyed by the comment about her being lucky to have a dad. "Not that I need to justify it to you, but we were fighting a lot and my friend had some plan about hanging out with street artists in Mexico that sounded really good at the time."

Edited 2013-05-13 16:09 (UTC)

"You're right, sorry about that; it's not my place to talk to you like that." It really wasn't, considering that running away had been something she had done herself ~~or at least the limited canon leads to think that~~. "I'm sorry it came out like that," Emily added as she mentally crossed yet another topic she was going to need to remind herself not to touch.

"Apology accepted," Bay responded. "You aren't wrong, anyhow. It wasn't the right way to solve my problems."

Emily nodded. "There's a difference between being right and being a jerk about it, though" Emily said. "At any rate, I hope you did manage to solve your problems."

Bay gestured vaguely in a way meant to convey the impossibility of ever solving all one's problems. "Things are better now," she said. "But I did transfer to boarding school, which is like running away but your parents buy the plane ticket. So ... I'll get back to you on that."

Re: Talk.

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