fandomhigh | Chemistry for Anarchists, Thursday, Period 4

Class met in the Danger Shop today, and arrayed on workstations in the front of the room were glass bottles of various shapes, soap flakes, rags, matches, tampons, firecrackers, sugar, rubber cement, and liter containers of gasoline, motor oil, wood alcohol and turpentine.

The back wall of the shop had been turned into a junkyard with old mattresses, beat-up cars, appliances and other ~~moddable~~ debris. A low wall separated the junk from the workstations.

"Afternoon," Tyler greeted the class once they were assembled. "Housekeeping first -- my office hours are pretty much all day Monday, and Evey Hammond is your TA. Let either of us know if you have questions. Also, there's safety gear at your stations. I know we're in the Danger Shop, but wear it anyhow. It's good practice." He paused for a second to snap on goggles, then reached for a bottle, a jug of gas, and a rag, working as he talked.

"Today, we're making Molotov cocktails. They're about the fastest and simplest bombs you can make. Rioters love these. Watch." As he spoke, he had sloshed the bottle three-fourths full with gas, soaked the rag in the stuff, and pulled it through the neck of the bottle to make a fuse, which he quickly lit on fire. He lobbed it at an avocado green refrigerator. "Ka-blam."

Grinning as the fridge came apart, Tyler pushed his hair back and hit a button on the shop control panel to put out the fire before talking again. "Not that it's always that simple. Lot of people like to add something to the gas -- a good handful of sugar, motor oil, soap flakes. All those things make the explosion stickier, like low-rent napalm. And some people swear by turpentine instead of gas. Abbie Hoffman, a radical back in the '60s, liked firecrackers or tampons as fuses. I think firecrackers are a little too much heavy ammo for one of these to carry, but that's me. But sugar's a nice, cheap addition."

"Your task today? Figure out what you think goes in a perfect Molotov cocktail and make one. Evey ~~assuming she tags in~~ and I will be around to help."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm having an awesome time," Rikku sighed happily, pausing to add a quick note and then tossing it down again. "I haven't even gotten to the turpentine yet, I'm playing with all the other variables first and then I'm gonna sub out the base fuel. Start over, compare and contrast, you know?"

The scientific method, brought to you by exploding refrigerators.

"Who's Abby Hoffman?"

Tyler approved of Rikku's interpretation of the scientific method.

"He founded the Yippies, back in the 1960s," Tyler said. "They fought the police, caused complete chaos during a political convention. He convinced half the country he was gonna get a bunch of hippies to levitate the Pentagon to protest Vietnam." He smiled. "One of my heroes."

Rikku picked up her notebook long enough to scribble down "Yippees" and hoped it didn't look rude to be taking notes while chatting. But seriously. This sounded so cool.

"Did they win?" she asked. "I mean ... whatever they were fighting against. That Vietnam-group, and the Pentagon, did they get it shut down?"

It wouldn't make them less awesome if they hadn't. She was just rooting for them now and wanted to know.

"Yes and no," Tyler said. "War ended, but Hoffman got put in jail for a couple years on drug charges. Pentagon's still there. The powers that be survived." They always did.

He glanced over Rikku's shoulder at her notes. "P-I-E-S," he spelled. "It's short for Youth International Party." And to rhyme with hippies."

"Ooooh, thanks," she said, scratching a note in the margin. "Jail here doesn't seem to be so bad. They put ink on your fingers and take your picture and lecture you a lot with really stern faces. It's kinda funny."

She considered all of that. "They ended a war," she said finally. "That's huge. I think that's worth it. I mean, I'd count it as a win."

"How long have you spent in jail?" Tyler asked. Not surprised exactly. Just.

He wouldn't call it funny.

"And yeah. It's a win. It got mixed up with other things, but on that one, chaos won for once."

Rikku had to think about that. "Few days? I mean, in Virginia, it was just a day or two, and in Fandom they kept us overnight and made us sleep off the drunken stupidity and then we could go home. And a couple days back home, then we had the fake trial and they threw us all in a sewer."

That last point got a lot of eyerolling. Could the Yevonites please have a more lame execution method? They were certainly trying.

Yeah, at a couple days the novelty might not have worn off, and gangs wouldn't have been much of a factor. "Sounds like you were lucky," he said. "In general I advise staying out of jail."

"Duly noted," she nodded, pouring gas into another bottle. Oooooh, there were so many bottles here. She could do this all day. "Deadpool was kinda disappointed in us for getting caught, anyway."

Which she was going to blame on being severely drunk. Still, bad move.

Chemistry for Anarchists, Thursday, Period 4

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]

Re: Cocktail Hour! [5/22]