Food Appreciation [Week 13, Period 4, Mon. 11/29]

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

The class was lucky, John had returned. Okay, maybe they weren't all that lucky since he'd only gotten into town that morning and so the students might dislike his idea of a class. "Students who I didn't actually miss! Here we are, joined again as we lead up into the hell of finals week. Not that finals are usually so bad in Fandom, but I'm planning on breaking you guys a bit if I can manage it. I have two more weeks to plan and I'm gonna use them."

John moved to the table at the front of the room. "Behold, today we have leftovers. I know, who wants to eat food they already ate earlier in the week? Well, college students around the world would take all your leftovers off your hands and then expect you to empty your wallets, too. Back in my time, we turned leftovers into alternative breakfasts and lunches until the stuff ran out or went bad. Especially anything snagged from a Thanksgiving dinner - which just happens to be what they had last week here in Fandom! So I talked to the cafeteria and grabbed us a fresh set of leftovers. We're eating a Thanksgiving sandwich today - or anything else you can make out of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce." John would welcome anything edible. He uncovered the trays and grinned at his students. "Don't look so sorry to see it again, let's start cooking-ish."

Kappa Kappa Gremlin Meeting, After Classes, Monday [ 11/29 ].

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

“Hey, guys!” Zack grinned and waved a merry hello as the boys met for their KKG meeting today. He was surrounded by... pretty much all manner of Thanksgiving leftover imaginable. Because there was no chance that anybody was sick of turkey just yet, right? “I hope your holidays went well! I got to fight monsters back home, so I’m calling that a win!”

Yep. Best weekend ever.

“I guess there was some kind of catered thing on Thursday, here? They sorta left us a lot of their leftovers.” He glanced at the covered dishes set out nearby. “Which, I think, means that they want us to do something with them. So we’re going to get creative, okay? We can make another contest out of it!”

“We...definitely feel like a contest will give a bit of spin on the fact that we usual base our activities on eating food,” Alexander offered with a crooked grin that didn’t look too apologetic about this theme. “Let’s see what you can do with leftovers, and whoever has the most creative way to make them fun and interesting gets...”

Wait for it.

Waaaaaaait for iiiiiiiiiiit.

“A pie!”

Because who could ever get sick of winning pie?

“So let’s just have some fun, maybe learn something new about utilizing leftovers to their best, and relax to get back into the swing of things after the holiday. We’ve also go a sign-up sheet for the date auction on the 14th, so make sure you get your name on that if you’d like to participate.”

[[ OCD on the way is up and eying the leftover stuffing! ]]

Library, Monday (11/29)

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

. . . oof. Not being one to ever turn down a holiday involving ample feasting, Gabrielle had indulged herself pretty thoroughly on Thursday and still felt a bit lethargic from all the leftovers.

It was, she felt, a good enough reason for being all but slouched over her coffee cup today as she sat at the desk, idly paging through a copy of The Art of War out of some half-formed intention to try and understand that point of view a little better.

If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn it had really been written by a woman. She couldn't explain why; she just had a feeling. A vague one, but it was there.

Introduction to Personal Weaponry [Monday, second period]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Today Max had one of those grins that meant that either the class he had planned would be awesome, or that it would be the worst class ever. And once everyone had arrived it was a bit late to start praying for mercy. What that expression had to do with the hundreds of candles burning along one wall of the room was anyone's guess.

"During this class so far we've looked at almost all of the standard personal weapon technologies. But, come on, these are things that people have invented, so there are tons of weird little sub-groups I didn't cover. We obviously don't have time to get to all of them, but I decided that you deserved," HA! "a chance to learn about at least one of them."

"Even the little niche weapon types tend to have a lot of variations. Whether this is because people artificially define their categories broadly enough to make sure there are multiple things in them, or because even in the odd little corners of weapon design people still recognize and build on the same few good ideas is something for people who care about that sort of thing to debate." Max, pretty clearly, did not care about that sort of thing. At all. "All that matters for us is the fact that this is a rather broad, if unusual, category of weapons."

As always, Max had a stack of demonstration weapons.

"Today you're going to learn about articulation," he explained, holding up a set of nunchaku. "Articulated weapons have a hinge, chain, rope, or some similar point around which it can flex freely. They tend to be highly specialized weapons, but they tend to share two features: they provide higher impact force than a similar weapon of their size and weight, and they tend to be harder to control. Articulated weapons are very difficult to use defensively because it's extremely difficult to parry a blow with them. You can block one outright, assuming your point of articulation isn't a rope or something, but it's not exactly a subtle option."

"I mentioned that an articulated weapon delivers more force at a given size than a more traditional one, but that's not actually why I picked them for today." Max grinned. "Today we're looking at articulated weapons because some of them are really fun." He put down the nunchaku and held up a bullwhip. "The reason they're fun is that some designs are almost entirely articulation. Rather than simply bending in one place, the entire weapon is flexible, which lets you do some really cool stuff." Max coiled the whip, then cracked it loudly. Just in case anyone was sleeping. Then he turned slightly. "Check this out." After coiling the whip again, Max snapped it out catching the wick of one of the candles he'd set up with the tip of the whip, causing it to go out with a snap.

"Pretty cool, huh?" He put the whip down and came up with one last weapon. "This is a kusarigama," he explained, holding the short, sharp blade attached to a long weighted chain out for inspection. "Like all articulated weapons you have to be careful with it because the articulation can make it hard to control, and that means it's much, much easier to hit yourself with it. So be careful."

That said... Max swung the weapon over his head a couple of times to build up momentum, then launched the blade at the candles, cutting half a dozen of them in half. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he pulled the weapon back and caught it with his free hand.

He turned his attention back to his students. "Enough talking. You know how this works by now. Two things, though. First, make sure you're extra careful. We have safety protocols here in the danger shop, but I hope by now I've driven it home that that's no excuse for being careless. Second, pairing up is going to be more helpful than usual this week. When trying to learn weapons this odd it's especially nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of."

Now get to it.

Macro-Tactics, Monday

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"So far, we've been talking about the nitty gritty of macro tactics. Resource management, picking your battlefield, deciding where and when to build your bases," Kerrigan said, stalking gracefully from one end of the classroom to the other. "Today, we'll take it up a level. After all, the most important resources you have are your friends-- and your enemies."

She smiled. It didn't look too nice. "Nobody goes to war in a vacuum," she said. "Depending on your level of influence, you'll have any number of people looking on. Neighbours, far-away friends, rival powers. If you don't manage them right, it can break your campaign. Obviously, I don't have the time or the interest to be teaching you all diplomacy, but I can tell you about the basics of warcraft." She glanced around the room.

"If you stray too closely to what some might term 'war crimes', you'll have all hell on your heels. If you stray too closely to the wrong border, you might get shot in the ass. If your opponent has treaties with some of your neighbours, then attacking them might be a really bad choice if you don't want half the world marching into your backyard. Of course, if you have a big enough army, nobody's going to have the balls to cross you, but most of the time, that's not going to be the case."

"Take stock of your neighbours. What interests do they have? What treaties? Can you make allies of them? You know what they say about the enemy of my enemy. Having someone to back you from the rear can be very useful. Talk to them before you take any steps. Show your flanks favourably. Make promises. You don't have to keep all of them - just make sure you can keep the few that matter, or you have the manpower necessary to overpower them when the war is done."

She may have gone on on that topic for a little while before she stopped, in front of the large map of Europe she'd been using to underscore her point. "I want you all to pick an enemy," she said. "It doesn't have to be anyone you know well. It doesn't have to be anyone in this class. Just make sure it's someone significant to you. Now partner up with someone - preferably someone you don't know well - and try to convince them to help you out, or at least do nothing when you tackle your enemy." A beat. "It's just a hypothetical, so don't get your panties in a bunch."

A pause. "We all know high school's just practice for the real world, anyway."