First Aid for Fandom | Thursday, period 1

[sharp_man]

The Danger Shop today looked like a comfortable (albeit somewhat luxurious) living room - not a body in sight.

Yet, anyway.

"Not all first aid, particularly in Fandom, involves physical damage," Hannibal said. "This past Halloween's happenings involved little or no wounding, so far as I'm aware or radio reported. However, there are undoubtedly those who have been harmed by it. Psychological damage can be more difficult to detect and treat, but it is nonetheless there."

He leaned on the edge of a table and looked them over. "It also demands an entirely different sort of first aid. In some respects, it is the same as you've been learning so far - treat the symptoms until the individual can arrive at professional help. However, in this time and place, professional help of a psychological nature is often denigrated or even shunned, and your help may be the only assistance a person gets - if they are even willing to accept it."

He smiled wryly. "Which is not to say I expect any of you to become experts in psychology and psychological damage. But learning what you can of it would certainly be helpful. Today's exercise, then, will be to speak to each other. I want each of you to come up with one thing that has hurt you, even traumatized you, in the past. Talk about it, discuss why it hurt, and work with each other to come up with something that would have helped at the time, and perhaps something that might even help now."

He held up a hand. "If you are uncomfortable with speaking of a past trauma in front of your classmates, come up with something reasonable, perhaps something that hurt someone that you've known. Solve someone else's problem if not your own. Although you would also do well to consider on your own why it is you have such issues with a thing still. And of course," he spread his hands, "should you wish professional help, please feel free to see me after class."

The Island Hates You (Yes, You), Thursday Period 2

[magnusrushesin]

Today the Danger Shop looked like the teachers' offices. Or office, rather. NPCakin sat behind the desk, looking deeply content. Clearly this state of affairs couldn't continue.

Alas, that was not to be as another NPC arrived in what looked like a ninja costume you might get at Party City that was called 'R rated mercenary' because of licensing issues. The new NPC on the scene might have been jealous of NPCakin's hair or something because there wasn't much time before they were going in to do something about all that contentment. That something involved slapping.

Because of course it did.

As NPCakin started slapping back in a highly ineffective manner, Cara broke off her planned introduction and looked across at Magnus. "Did you program them to do that?"

"I don't even know how the programming works," Magnus admitted, tilting his head at what was going on there. "Maybe the squirrels did something?"

The NPCs had now stooped to hairpulling. Well, mask-pulling in one case. "I wouldn't put it past them."

"Should... should we break it up?" Magnus asked as they fell to the floor. It was just sad, kids. This was sad.

Incredibly sad. "I'm kind of worried the sadness is contagious," she said in an undertone. That's how sad it was.

Magnus nodded in complete agreement with her on that one. "So... today we're going to learn the valuable lesson that the adults in charge are stupid. But not us. We're cool adults."

There was a long, silent pause as Cara tried not to visibly wince or cover her face with her hand. "Competent, we're competent adults."

"...I'm pretty cool," Magus muttered under his breath.

"Of course you are," Cara said dryly. "Anyway, enjoy the show." The sad, sad show. And wonder about the non-existent staff vetting policies.

How To Get By In A Hostile World, Thursday

[suitably_heroic]

"So hey, congratulations, you've lived so far," Atton said. "Now, we've covered how to get food out in the wild before--"

If you called throwing them into the wilds and saying 'figure it out' counted.

"--but water? Also important. More important, actually. Most humanoids can go three weeks without food, but just three days without water. Now any water you find out in the wild still runs a risk of being contaminated, but dealing with it is pretty straightforward. There's gear you can take with you to help: straws that filter the water, special canteens, or even pumps you can use. The filters will take out most of the contaminants, though if you want to absolutely avoid getting a water-borne illness off of it, you'll also want to boil the water, or add chemicals like iodine, sodium chlorite, or potassium permanganate. The latter is usually sold as a water softener at hardware stores, so not hard to get."

He wrote the names of all of these chemicals up on the board. They were important. Learn them, kids.

"If you don't have any of that, that's where it gets interesting," he said. "If you leave something with water in it out in the sun, and you cover it with plastic, the sun will convert the water to steam, and when it hits the plastic, it'll condense back into water. This is vital to know if you want to get drinking water and you don't have any filters or pumps on you."

He pressed a button, and the Danger Shop rolled out behind them, providing a large plain of earth under a scorching sun.

He squatted down by a small hole in the ground. "This is called a solar still," he said. "Well, it isn't yet, but it will be one. You dig out a v- or box-shaped hole in the ground. You put a container in it, like a bowl or a mug." He produced a small bowl and set it down in the center. "Now most soil contains some moisture. You might have to dig for a while to hit the deeper ground that retains more of it, but still, it's in there. You can also get more condensation going if you toss in some leaves or other plants."

He picked up a roll of plastic he'd taken with him. "This is your plastic," he said. "Now, I think you guys already know where I'm going with this--" He stretched the plastic out over the hole, cut off the necessary part from the roll, and then started scooping up mud and putting it down to pin the plastic down. "You'll want to make sure you get a good seal," he said. "Make sure it isn't in the shade, and then just let it do its thing for a while."

He stood back up. "A still like this won't get you enough water to last you for weeks, or anything," he said, "But it'll help you survive a few days longer. Another, better alternative is if there's trees around. Same effect, easier to do. You just put a plastic bag around a branch full of leaves and let the sun do its work. When you come back, you should have about a cup of water. You'll need a couple of these to last the day."

He cleared the mud off his hands.

"All right, I want you all to grab some plastic and a bowl and get to work. There's some trees around here somewhere, too, but you'll have to look for 'em. The sim is set to speed up, so you should have something to show for your work at the end of the class. Go."