"The View From The Cheap Seats": A Love Affair with Stories and Books and Writing

If you are a dreamer come in 

If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar 

A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer

If youre a pretender com sit by my fire

For we have some flax golden tales to spin

Come in! Come in! 

― Shel Silverstein

Once upon a time ....

I was introduced to Neil Gaiman when his "Neverwhere" was the One Book, One Chicago: Spring 2011 selection. My parents enjoyed his writing so I gave him a try. I enjoyed his story, and enjoyed seeing him live, and fell head over heals in love after seeing clips of some of his speeches. While I would give his fiction a A overall I have found that as a motivational speaker he is an A+++. He is one of my writing idols, and sits on my shoulder always encouraging me to write more and create more and dream more.

Once upon a time ....

I was excited when I found out that his collection of Nonfiction would be coming to my library and it would be coming in a timely manner. I was the first one to request it, even before they had finished ordering it. 

Once upon a time ... 

A poem

"The View From The Cheap Seats"

(Taken from a piece inside)

A Misnomer

Not Cheap Seats

Well Loved Comfy Seats 

Curled up with a cup of tea

Talking about Life, The Universe and Everything

We find old friends 

And discuss the importance of 

"Libraries, Reading, and Daydreaming"

and told to "Make Good Art

We are taught to 

"Trust Your Obsessions"

"Don't Stop Learning"

"Be you"

And that a singer 

Called Lou Reed used to say

"There's a bit of magic in everything

and some loss to even things out

We hear about favorite stories and favorite authors

We are reminded how amazing books exist

We meet a bunch of super cool members of the writing family.

And we touch on the sorrow and sadness that this world can contain

This may be a selection of nonfiction

But in reality it is a fairy tale

A magic show, An adventure

A Love Affair with stories and books and writing

Once upon a time ...

Some quotes which have to be shared

• We all have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine ..... the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imaging that things can be different 

• It's not irrelevant, those moments of connection, those places where fiction saves your life. It's the most important thing there is.   

• Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness or comfort. And that is why we write.

And

Notes on Festivals, Writing, Creativity, and Identity

The challenges of this past week means this post is a bit less polished.

It is important to support local and small scale writers. The kind of writers who have great stories to tell but who you will rarely find in a traditional comic shop or bookstore. I make an effort to try to make it to as many events which support these writers as I can. Though often all I can afford to give is my presence.  Last Weekend I was able to go to two festivals celebrating local and small press writers.

The first was CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo ). Some of these comics were alternative in subject matter and some were alternative in how they were physically made or drawn or written. But you could tell that these were works of love. And it was an opportunity to see comics I would never see elsewhere, like one about feminist thought in Finland or one which the author explained as "Transgender individuals doing boring at @#$% stuff". These were comics which shared the stories and experiences which rarely make it into mainstream comics. These were also more personal stories which were created for one particular audience and therefore did not feel that they had to be everything for everyone.

I also went to the Printer Row Lit Festival which is a yearly salute to writing in general. There were individuals authors with the one or two books they have written. There were small scale publishers (including quite a few academic publishers). There was even  Book TV. It is always cool to be surrounded by individuals from every walk of life who are all joined by a love of the written word.

I happened to go with my roommate, who would introduce me as a writer. This made me feel warm and gooey but also like I was somehow trespassing at the same time.  It made me ponder how I consider myself as someone who writes (Blog posts, Poems, Reflections, Short Stories, Novellas during Nanowrimo, etc) but calling me a writer feels a little wrong. Maybe because, despite coming from a family of writers, I somehow see real writers as these angels of the written word who are published (and sometimes even paid) and have the power to change everything we know about others, about The other, and about ourselves.

I have been thinking about what being a writer means and the meaning of Legacy as I have been processing the tragedy of Orlando through listening to and developing a obsession with the musical Hamilton. As I wrote when I finally heard the whole soundtrack this week:

I have no tidy answers or endings for this pondering so far. I will continue to write. I will continue to struggle with the question if I am a writer. I will continue to put words down one after another and hope like the great writers, those words will touch others, and change the ways they see the world or themselves. I will hope that my ramblings and muses and thoughts add up to something meaningful. And that I will be able to reach higher then I could ever imagine. 

Prayer for Orlando

I would have written

Different words

On a Different Topic

But today 

Tragedy came

And not to speak of it

Would be another form of tragedy

We morn for Orlando

We morn for all those who were killed

We morn all those who were injured

In a time a place

When we have become numb

To the Tragedies all around us

This hits home

In an hard to explain way

That brings tears

To my eyes at random moments ever since 

We morn for Orlando

We morn for all those who were killed

We morn all those who were injured

Where being bold and big and beautiful

Leads others to hate

Where the sanctuary and safety of clubs and dancing

Is destroyed in a moment

When today's tragedy echos back through time

Reverberations of Stonewall

Reverberations of The UpStairs Lounge Fire

Reverberations of Today's all too frequent killing of  Queer Trans Women of Color

We morn for Orlando

We morn for all those who were killed

We morn all those who were injured

We will morn

For what has been

For what still is

And we will face our fears

Knowing our safety

Knowing our community

Are ever fragile things.

We morn for Orlando
We morn for all those who were killed
We morn all those who were injured

We will grab the hands of history
And stand hand in hand
With each other
With all those struggling
To let their amazingness shine through
We shall not be moved
We Shall Not Be Moved

We morn for Orlando

We morn for all those who were killed

We morn all those who were injured

Someday we will truly be free

Someday the arch of justice will finally reach the ground

Someday this will become History

Not History repeated

Today was a great Tragedy

But tonight I light a candle and stand in hope

In the wise words of Lin-Manuel Miranda

Love is Love is Love is Love is Love is Love is Love

Faith As Fandom

Note: This post contains my personal non-traditional views about religion and faith. 

I would like to say THANK YOU 

@tim_hutchings, @catchclaw, and @FanStudies For the idea for this weeks blog.

This weeks blog came out of a question posted on twitter. I have used the term fandom to describe faith communities but as I worked on this post I realized just how many comparisons I could draw between the two. 

Below are my experiences, these in no way minimize other persons experiences, other faith communities or other faith traditions.  

A little backstory:

• I was involved with fandom long before I was involved with religion which may be part of the reason I see religion through a fandom lens. 

• I have been encouraged and supported by my various pastors when I combine other fandoms with my church fandom. As my pastor emailed me recently: "Know that you, the fandom, and all characters in need of encouragement, will continue to be in my prayers." All my Pastors have been very accepting when I have submitted prayer requests for fictional characters or fictional plot lines etc. And many others have referenced fandoms in their sermons.

Characters:

My faith fandom is filled with characters. I ponder their motivations and what they might tell us about ourselves.

There is something about my congregation which can be hard to articulate. It would be "Serenity" in firefly, "Baby" in SPN, or the TARDIS in Doctor Who. I have taken these feelings a step further and have personified my church. 

She and I have gone on many adventures together. She reminds me to dance and sing and be myself, when I forget. I have also included her in many adventures with characters from other fandoms in grand crossover daydreams and fanfiction.

While I don't think many others have personified their congregation/church building to the degree I have, others do regularly reference the characters within our text (The bible). And like any mediums which have gone on for many seasons (Books of the Bible) and had uncountable reboots (Translations) there is often debate about the characters, the plot and plot holes, which seasons are better then others, etc.

I have also thought about the people of the bible as characters. For example I have often said "I don't know what to do with Jesus as a Character". Or when I have tried to describe God herself and my relationship to her I find I see her as the Idris to my Doctor:

Idris: Then you stole me. And I stole you.
The Doctor: [pauses] I borrowed you.
Idris: Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that it was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back?

And

Idris: I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough.

I have been invited by my faith fandom to see the universe and go on a wild and fun adventure and I feel I am doing just that.

Side Note: 

An interesting fan based expression of faith is "Bible Fanfiction" and "Bible Slash Fanfiction". Some are very interesting explorations of relationships such as the one between David and Johnathan or between Jesus and Judas. Though it is important to read all story warnings since some make "Song of Solomon" look G rated in comparison.

Cosplay:

Faith Communities and Faith Traditions each have their own forms of Cosplay or ways that others can easily recognize which faith fandom a person might be a part of.

The vestments worn by Clergy: In the Christian faith community most clergy wear stoles or collars of some type.

Historical Outfits: Pastors would dress up as John Wesley for Methodist Heritage Week at my undergrad.

Other outfit based symbols:

• For Christianity in general a cross, for my particular congregation something incorporating a rainbow to represent we are reconciling. 
• Examples from other faith traditions: The Jewish Yamaka or The Isamic Hijab

One personal experience: 

I was once stopped by a stranger and asked if they knew me. It turned out it was a former pastor of my congregation who had noticed the church shirt I was wearing. Later I learned he had contacted my pastor at the time and said "Great job evangelizing". Once we matched up the two parts of the story me and my pastor discussed how this did not seem like evangelizing to us. I can see that some of my confusion maybe was because I was seeing my faith community as a fandom. Wearing a my church's "Love All People" shirt is like wearing a Doctor Who or Supernatural Shirt. A way to celebrate my love of something but not a way to evangelize. A way of saying these are things I love, if you do too great, if not no big deal. 

Community

People are drawn to a faith community or a fandom for a variety of reasons: Some love the Characters, Some Love the Plot, Some are trivia masters, Some come simply to hang out with friends, Some love studying other fans, Some have been watching the "show" since they were young, Some are new to the "show"....

I have found that I come to my own faith community in many different, and ever shifting roles. Everything from being a fan to being cast and crew. In addition I have been asked to write both Tie-In pieces (poems and prayers for use during worship) and analysis (such as my Portico Collective pieces).

Like any fandom most faith communities provide a connection between fans. They also provide a way to support the issues and causes close to the hearts of others in the fandom. As a church we march in the pride parade, march for affordable housing, discuss mental health and mental illness, raise money to provide clean drinking water etc. We stand by other fans in our fandom who are suffering.

Issues of Inclusion

Like most fandoms my wider faith fandom (The United Methodist Church) has struggled and is still struggling with representation and creating safe spaces. While acknowledging the problematic aspects of our faith fandom we continue to explore how to create safe spaces.

My congregation Holy Covenant UMC, like many other congregations, has the equivalent of a convention's anti discrimination / anti harassment policy.

Holy Covenant is a Reconciling Congregation –whatever your race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic situation, background or belief, age or ability, whether single or partnered, you are God’s beloved and are welcome here.

And has been part of hashtag campaigns calling for greater representation such as the current #ItsTime.

Like the best fandoms my congregation has worked hard creating safe spaces for all people.

• Providing support and space for the "Safe Breakfast Program for Kids" in solidarity with the Black Panther Party (60's)
• Demanding a woman pastor in the 70's and refusing to pay when the Bishops sent a man. 
• Performing civil unions in the 90's
• Continuing to provide a place for individuals to discuss and act on the issues that affect them: LGBTQIA, mental health, education policy, the budget crisis, affordable housing, hunger, etc

Like any other fandom, it is amazing to see what fans can do when they set their minds to something. We can identify the problematic parts of our fandoms and still use our fandoms to create a community of support to inspire others.

Brief Conclusion:

I personally have found connections between how I respond to my church and how I respond to other fandoms. I hope these ideas inspire others to continue to study these connections. I would love to read what you discover.

Feeling Empathy With "Bad Guys": How Choices in the Use of "Villain" Affects Characters

(Character and Relationship based Spoilers for Supernatural Season 11 and Lucifer Season 1)

From the start I will admit that I tend to take the emotions and experiences of characters very personally. Since watching the final of SPN I bristle every time someone calls Amara the Villain and this has led me to think more about who we consider "Villains" and "Bad Guys" in the first place.

For those who do not know Supernatural here is a brief summary of Amara's story:

Everything started with Chuck (God) and his sister Amara (The Darkness). (For the purposes of this post I am ignoring the theology of all this). Chuck then created creation (or creation demanded to be made), Amara felt abandoned, and upset that God's pride led him to create something beyond them. She then destroyed one or two versions of creation. God locked her up and threw away the key. Present Day Amara gets released and is grumpy with her brother and with creation. Amara vents and threatens creation. Chuck goes I have no idea how to handle this situation and stays away for most of the season. Amara finally talks with Chuck. Chuck does not really apologize like he should but there is a resolution. 

I feel Amara's  theme song while Chuck was creating the universe would have been something like Carrie Underwood's Before He Cheats;
.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSy8yy-mr8 

It took me a while to figure out why I felt such empathy for Amara. I think it is because I can see her as the product of systematic injustice. While destroying a creation or two is not the best way to handle anger (or any other emotion), being locked up, for what was planed to be forever, is not a proper response either. It is not how someone who is struggling with their emotions and the impact of those emotions on others should be treated. And it should not be surprising that after eons in jail she is angry. 

Or using a different context: Little Women. While I have not read or seen Little Women in forever I remember a part when one of the sisters threw another sisters journal into the fire but most people would say that it would have been very unreasonable if that sister had been imprisoned for the rest of her life for doing so.  

In doing a little research on who are considered Villains I came across a interesting blog post which broke down the spectrum into 5 segments: Hero, Dark Hero, Anti-Hero, Sympathetic Villain, Villain https://modernminutia.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/the-modern-anti-hero-what-the-is-an-anti-hero/ 

Here Sympathetic Villain's are defined as:

The Sympathetic Villain most often starts out as a good or at least neutral character who, when something bad happens, becomes villainous. Often, a personal traumatic event or a history of emotional trauma is present before the Sympathetic Villain slips over the edge into villainous territory. The character is still a villain, still commits villainous acts, and is still viewed as the ‘bad guy’, but often the audience feels bad for the character even as they wish for their defeat.

Why are "Sympathetic Villains" still considered Villains and not "Characters who have lost their way" or "Characters who need a Hug"? Why is it different if the hero is equally poor at expressing their emotions in a healthy way. For heroes this type of issue is considered a flaw, for villains it becomes sum total of their identity. 

I think my struggle with the treatment of many sympathetic villains is that these individuals are often vilified because of poor choices, poor ability to manage emotions, or because someone else says that they are the bad guys and it becomes a type of self fulfilling prophesy not because they are inherently bad.  

This season of "Lucifer" has looked at the impact of being Lucifer would have on an individual. Lucifer has been processing his relationships, his role as the devil, and how the wider world sees him. In this clip Lucifer articulates the complexities of being labeled a villain and impact of this for a person or character. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WedoqpVrd3A

Again putting Theology aside you can substitute the creators, the writers, the fans ..... in for the word God.

Linda: God cast you out because He needed you to do the most difficult of jobs. It was a gift.

Lucifer: Gift? He shunned me. He vilified me. He made me a torturer! Can you even begin to fathom what it was like? Eons spent providing a place for dead mortals to punish themselves? I mean, why do they blame me for all their little failings? As if I’d spent my days sitting on their shoulder, forcing them to commit acts they’d otherwise find repulsive. “Oh, the Devil made me do it!” I have never made any one of them do anything. Never.

Linda: What happened to you in unfair.

Lucifer: Unfair? This is unjust! For all eternity, my name will be invoked to represent all their depravity. That is the gift that my Father gave me!

Now I would say it is false to say that their are no villains. Some characters have no redeeming qualities. Some have no backstory which would explains their motivations. For some it is not the result of abandonment or perceived abandonment or simply acting out. But I think calling all characters with problematic action sympathetic villains is a disservice to these characters. These characters often need compassion and hugs instead.  Before vilifying a character think about the impact on that character of labeling them in such a way.

Musings on Babylon 5 and Questions of Living

Heavy References to Babylon 5 

I don't think you can call them spoilers for a show that ended 18 years ago

Babylon 5 has been on my mind this week because I finished a random B5 novel I picked up at a local used bookstore a while ago. If you don't know, Babylon 5, in a nut shell, was a space station which more or less was a city sized UN, but instead of countries you had planets represented. Below is the intro for season 1. (And which I was able to reference in one of my upcoming pieces for Portico Collective on the Psalms which makes me giggle):

I have been having many thoughts and feelings about life and faith and community and family and purpose. ( a) because the lead up to the season 11 SPN final b) thinking about how I want to structure my summer). But in being re-immersed in the B5 universe I have been reminded that B5 was one of my first substantive introductions to faith and spirituality.

I shall always remember the wise words of Delenn:

"Then I will tell you a great secret Captain, perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside, that is born in the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective."
- Delenn

But like Jeffrey Sinclair was told "there is a hole in your mind", the "me" bit of the universe has a few holes of its own. And sometimes I am content with that, content knowing that I might just yet be the next Valen a Minbari not born of Minbari. And sometimes the holes are just holes blinding me to the life that is just outside the walls I create around myself. When I feel the emotions floating around me and start to drown. Where I have trouble imagining the next weeks story arch, let alone the next 5 year story arch of my life.

As I started walking down my memory lane of B5 (as such journeys aided by google and YouTube are prone to do) I found little jems like being reminded of the Ranger's pledge. Which I realized in its own way was an past echo of "Always Keep Fighting", "You Are Never Alone, and "Love Yourself first".

We are Rangers.
We walk in the dark places no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass.
We engage in battle, we do not retreat.
We live for the One, we die for the One.

In this moment the "me" bit of the universe is struggling to figure itself out. I am trying to figure out what change in perspective is needed and how to make it so. I hope to use this summer to walk in the dark places and stand on the bridge and engage in the battle and see what amazing hybrid is formed in the end.

Connecting with Writers: Robbie Thompson

This Post Contains Non Plot Spoilers for Supernatural

An poem I wrote on a different topic but applies to this weeks blog

A little over a week ago we learned as a fandom that Robbie Thompson will be moving on from his role as writer and co-executive producer of Supernatural. There has been a deep outpouring from fans, cast, and crew alike. As I processed his leaving, and read the stories of others, I stared to ponder why we feel connected to particular writers.

For me the connection with Robbie Thompson started last year at the DePaul Fan Studies Conference on Supernatural. I had watched 7 1/2 out of 10 seasons in the 2 months leading up to the conference. (In part this was because I had gotten Paul Booth, who runs the conference, to promise me a high five if I got through season 5. For future reference Paul Booth gives great high fives :) ).

The Guest of Honor happened to be Robbie Thompson. Honestly going in I did not really know him who he was. other then a co-executive producer for SPN. Then Robbie Thompson's keynote started and ran straight into his writing workshop/discussion. He spoke for what turned out to be over 3 hours and in the process he became one of my writing idols. He truly treated us all like brothers and sisters. He was insightful and vulnerable and honest. He spoke about SPN, writing in general, and about himself. And then the moment I will remember for a long long time: Telling him I was new to the show and was not yet caught up and having him tell me "Welcome to the Family". 

Robbie Thompson had never met me before that autograph but I felt he had seen me, understood a bit about me, and truly made me feel like he valued my experience and valued me as a person.

While it can be hard to pin down why we connect with certain creators over others, in the case of Robbie Thompson I think it is because he makes us feel loved, seen and appreciated. His writing advice was to "Write what you feel" and he is a master at "feeling" what others experience and going out of his way to validate those experiences. 

For example he wrote the 200th episode "Fan Fiction" which validated the importance of fans and which welcomed and celebrated all fans who creatively make the SPN Text and SPN Cannon our own. He highlighted that fans are amazing and powerful individuals, whose oddness and goofiness is what makes us fantastic and what makes us a family. 

Robbie Thompson is moving on to continue to work on 3 different series in the Spider Man Comic Multiverse. (Correction only 2 are in the Spider Man Multiverse. The 3 titles are: Venom: Space Knight, Spidey, and Silk) I do not know all the details, since it will take a while until they become trade paperbacks and available at my public library, but I know they are going to be pretty amazing. 

For example in a Panels Interview called Silk Goes To Therapy: An Interview With Robbie Thompson I learned that he is having one of the characters "Silk" regularly go to therapy to deal with the trauma which made her a superhero. The below is from part of that interview which captures how deeply he understands his characters and the fans of those characters. 

CPH: When Reed Richards first suggests she talks to Dr. Sinclair, Cindy is pretty reluctant. But then she gets a number of subtle suggestions that maybe it’s okay to reach out for help, and eventually Cindy calls to set up an appointment. Why was it important to show that initial reluctance and denial?

RT:Showing Cindy’s reluctance and then showing her actually going to therapy felt integral to making sure that decision felt authentic. It’s a moment that I think a lot of people initially have when it comes to therapy. I mean, when I needed help, I was in denial about it, thinking—therapy, shmerapy. And I’m the son of a therapist! I’m so grateful I went, but it took a while to get me there. So, we wanted to show the reality of that decision, and, while we’re not trying to be preachy, it was important to show therapy as a normal process, that shouldn’t have any shame or stigma associated with it. It’s normal to go to therapy, and it’s normal to resist going. But in the end: if you’re willing to do the work and you have a great therapist, it can help. I’ve benefited enormously from therapy over the years—it’s changed my life.

So returning to the poem I began this blog with I will Trust in Robbie Thompson and see what new adventure await. I will trust that we will meet once again if only in my daydreams. I will trust that Robbie Thompson will continue to inspire us.

To Our Dear Robbie Thompson
On your retirement from being a Hunter
In the SPN Universe

I met you at DePaul last year
And you amazed me
With kind words
“Welcome to the family”
And the writing advice you gave
“Write what you feel”

As we send you off to new adventures
On golden angel wings
Or maybe I should say on golden spider threads
I just want to remind you
You will always be a part of this family

You may be retiring from hunting
But we will always be your sisters and brothers
And remember as you go out and dream up big and bold and beautiful new things
You are Amazing
You are Fantastic
You are Wonderful

We will always remember when you danced with us
Across the skies of stories
Channeling characters like Charlie and Eileen
Giving expression to our passions and loves
Through a show called SPN

Go forth and do great thing
And know that we will ALWAYS Have Your Back
<<<<<Love>>>>>

by A Dreaming Ace