fandomhigh | Defying Expectations, Tuesday, Per 3

"Sometimes you fail."

Karla looked over her class, assembled in the Danger Shop, and slowly shook her head. "That was one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn. Sometimes you fail, and sometimes when you succeed, the cost is so high that it wasn't worth paying in the first place. For a lot of you, this is going to be a tough lesson to learn--especially here at Fandom. No matter how bad things get here, somehow it always works out in the end. When I was a student, all of reality collapsed. I lost friends, respected teachers, my home. My boyfriend snatched me up and threw me so that I'd escape the great onrushing Nothingness. I survived, but he was taken. I had to say goodbye to some of my best friends as they watched reality unravel before their eyes and then I had to go and add their name to the list of the fallen outside of the school gates." Her voice quavered for a moment; even years later, remembering the last days of the Nothingness hurt. "In the end, it was just a handful of us living in Special Collections--and yet, from that, we managed to jumpstart reality and bring everyone back. Fandom has been invaded, attacked, and changed countless times. Those of you who have been here for awhile likely know what I mean. Those of you who are new will find out. But in the end, we always come out on top."

She smiled wistfully for a moment. "But that's not what happens in the real world. In its own way, Fandom is a happy fantasy where there are very few long-lasting consequences for even the most horrifying events. Things aren't permanent here. On the one hand, that's a kindness. We all deserve a few years where the worst things will fade away, leaving little more then scars and nightmares. On the other hand, it makes going out into the real world so much harder. You go back to places where actions have lasting consequences and the dead don't come back to us on Monday morning with a relieved smile. When you leave Fandom, you will find yourself in positions where you will lose and those losses will haunt you. Even if you can make up for them, there's no going back to the way things were, the way you can here."

Looking at them, Karla tried to meet the eyes of every individual student. "Some of you will be able to escape whatever destinies you've been given. Some of you won't be so lucky. And some of you will try to fight every step of the way and still end up exactly where you said you didn't want to be. But losing doesn't have to be the end of things. It's how you lose and what you do afterwards that matter."

She paused for a chance for people to share their feelings, if anyone was so inclined, and then murmured a command. The classroom image dissolved and the students found themselves in a large building, filled with some kind of indoor tent city. It was filthy in here and it stank; too many people in one space and not enough facilities. People were dirty and dispirited, their faces pinched with hunger and tight with fear. Here and there voices were raised in anger, loud disputes over a bottle of water, a claim to space, the virtue of someone's mother. The floors and walls were made of dirty concrete and the windows were boarded up. Over the echoing din of people, moans could be heard from the outside. "You'll all be alone when the simulation starts," she said. "It's individualized to each one of you. If you make it to the end of the class period without becoming a leader, you win. Ready? Let's begin." And with that, she vanished, as did every other student, leaving each student seemingly alone in a warehouse full of people.

[Incredibly ridiculous amounts of OCD up! Apologies, I didn't expect it to take as long as it did!]

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Once the last student leaves their simulation, Karla faces them. "So, to win today, you had to refuse to lead no matter what. Anyone manage to do that? I have some JGoB cupcakes if you did."

"So?" she continued. "What did you think? What happened in there for each of you? What made you choose whatever you did?"

"That sucked. Like, a lot," Kira said, frowning. "I wish there'd been a way to try to help the people without being in charge. Like, make someone else in charge but still help? But then we probably would have died too, and I guess that might have been part of the point but... it wasn't fun."

"Getting people to help themselves is a hell of a lot harder than you'd think," Karla said, giving Kira a sympathetic smile. "Especially once they've convinced themselves that you're the only one who can save them. It's called 'learned helplessness' and it's a very common reaction, especially in times of extreme stress or fear."

She sat on the edge of a desk and looked at Kira. "You were almost at the very end. You could have won a cupcake. Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to watch anyone else die. It just kind of got to be too much," Kira said, adding with a small smile, "Plus, fighting zombies seemed kind of cool. But mostly the first part."

"Fair enough," Karla said. "So, why did I do it, you think? Made you go through all of this? What's the point?"

After a moment of thinking about it, Kira said, "To show that we can't always win? Most of us have probably won a lot in life, or we wouldn't be here but it's not always going to be the case? Or maybe, sometimes all we can do is walk away to protect ourselves? But that still seems kind of mean."

"To be honest, I'm teaching whatever it is that you take away from this," Karla admitted, "even if that lesson is just 'people in authority kinda suck.'"

Trust her. She was an authority figure. She knew how much she sucked sometimes.

"Which way did you feel better? Winning and ignoring the people? Or losing and kicking zombie ass?"

[Sorry for delay! Died of flu shot!]

Even after winning the simulation and watching all of those people die, in various horrible ways, her expression remained unaltered from the same calm, soft serenity that she'd held at the beginning of the class.

"I did not lead," she said quietly. "Only watched."

"I saw," Karla said, handing over a cupcake. "Why?" She sounded more curious than anything else.

Yeul tilted her head slightly, as if the question puzzled her.

"If the simulation had been real, I would have done the same," Yeul said, after a moment. "The only difference would be, perhaps, I would have walked away rather than watch."

She considered that.

"Or I would have died through inaction."

But that didn't particularly sound like it bothered her either.

"But why?" Karla asked again. "I know your views on your own death differ, but why so for the deaths of others?"

Yeul hesitated.

Then, ultimately, decided to tell the truth:

"Not everyone can be saved," she said finally. "And I had to learn to not care for their deaths long ago, for my sake. No one can bear the weight of everyone's lives on them for life upon life. I learned to stop. It hurt too much." Yeul picked at the cupcake liner, thinking over her words. "It is easier to walk away. Everyone dies anyway."

"Is there no middle ground?" Karla asked. "Not everyone can be saved, you're correct. There will be times when you need to be able to let people go, either because you can't save them or to be able to save anyone at all. But where do you draw the line? Is there one for you?"

"I... I think that there used to be one," Yeul admitted, the faintest of frowns furrowing her brows for a moment before her expression cleared. "But time and futility push lines until they do not exist."

"Would you say you're really living, anymore?" Karla asked. "Or are you just enduring, from one life to the next?"

She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. "I'm not judging; I haven't experienced what you have so I don't even have the least place trying to be somehow morally superior. All I can do is ask."

And wonder if maybe Yeul would benefit talking to Saetan sometime. She didn't know how long the girl had lived, but Uncle Saetan was over fifty-thousand years old. That had to count for something.

[Sorry for the return ping delay! Flu shot killed me but good]

Defying Expectations, Tuesday, Per 3

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