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When the students came in this week, they found Karolina standing at the front of the classroom. Along with one of those old-fashioned TV set-ups. You know, the ones on wheels? Complete with a VCR.

"Hi!" Karolina said with a little wave once all the students had come in. All... three of them ~~presumably~~. "As you can tell, I'm not Miss Li, who's unfortunately not available right now. And unfortunately, the moose notified me kinda at the last minute, so today you're getting a movie class."

She glanced a little sheepishly at the TV.

"I don't know where all our more modern equipment is hiding," she admitted. "I also had a different movie picked, buuuut there was a tape already jammed in the VCR and I couldn't get it out, so... Guess we're watching I Was A Teenage Teenager." A beat. "And 'cause there's so few of us here, please feel free to comment on stuff during the movie. Especially if you notice something that actually relates to this class!"

Because she hadn't had time to research and hadn't actually picked this movie, so.

She pressed play.

spin_kick_snap

There were twelve steps to the Heroic Journey. There were 6 more weeks in the first summer term. The smart thing to do would be to have spread this out over two terms, but guess who hadn't been thinking of things like 'calendars' when she'd pitched this class.

Okay then. Looked like it was going to have to be more talky.

There were two new items written on the chalkboard when the students came in, 1) The Ordinary World, and 2) The Call of Adventure.

"Hello class!" Kathy said, with slightly less nervous energy this week. "So now we're diving right into the beginnings of the Masculine Heroic Journey - often just called 'the Heroic Journey' because the world we live in likes to assume that masculine is the default and the universal experience when it most emphatically is not. That being said, this does not mean that the person on that journey is male or overtly masculine; that specifically refers to the type of the journey, not who is taking it."

Heaven help anyone in both Summer's and Kathy's class this year. ALL FEMINISM ALL THE TIME.

"When this type of journey begins, we generally find ourselves first introduced to our hero in their ordinary life. Even if we start in medias res, or 'in the middle of the narrative,' we will almost certainly have a flashblack that will properly introduce us to the characters, so that we're hit with the full emotional weight of the scene when we get to that part in the narrative. This introduction to 'The Ordinary World' serves a couple of purposes. It introduces us to the hero, so we can see them in their natural state. Are they happy and healthy in this place? Are they angry or resentful? Arrogant and self-assured? With just a few lines of dialogue and some establishing shots, we get an idea of who the hero is, and, most importantly, what they consider the status quo. We need to know what's normal for them so we can see how out of their depth they are during the journey and we need to see what they're like at the beginning to contrast with who whey will be at the end."

You couldn't grow as a person if you were comfortable.

"Step two of the journey is The Call To Adventure," Kathy continued. "This sets up the idea of the hero leaving the ordinary world and gives us an idea of what form that adventure will take. Now this can happen in a bunch of different ways." She went over on the board and started writing again.

*Decide to go forth of their own volition
*Be sent abroad by a benign or malignant agent
*Stumble upon the adventure as a result of a blunder or an accident
*Get lured by a new discovery, something that is not part of the ordinary world

"These can appear in many different ways," she explained. "Going forth of their own volition could be agreeing to go off to war like in the legend of Hua Mulan, or deciding to run away like Dorothy at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. Being sent abroad by another agent is like what happens at the beginning of The Halfling, when the wizard invites all the dwarves to dinner, or when Odysseus is cursed not to return home for ten years after the Trojan War. Stumbling upon the adventure by accident - picture Arachnid-Boy getting bitten by the radioactive arachnid that gives him powers, and getting lured in by a new discovery is pretty much every portal fantasy, where the hero discovers that there's something magical in their mundane town."

spin_kick_snap

To say that Kathy was nervous today would be an understatement. By this point, Dante could probably recite her lecture for her and more than once, Ronin'd had to nose her hands apart so she didn't accidentally hurt herself wringing them together.

She made her way to her classroom early to make sure that she had plenty of time to prepare. Like writing (and rewriting) her notes on the board to make sure they were perfectly legible. And her handwriting was even. And nothing was misspelled.

( Honestly, it was almost a blessing when the students did start trickling in. )

"So, unless things have changed a lot, this weeks is for introductions. I'd like your name, where and when you're from," since it was almost never 'this Earth, current year,' "and for you to pick one of the bullet points on the board and tell me what you think it means." She smiled at them. "Don't worry if you're not sure or don't know the answer. This is class one, after all."

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