fandomhigh | Heroing [period 2, class #8]

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heroing

Heroing [period 2, class #8]

"Hello, class!" Hammer boomed, striding out before the class once everyone was all assembled. "I hope you all had a nice time on vacation. I, meanwhile, stayed behind to protect the island from any evildoers who might attack in its vulnerable state."

He paused, beaming. "You're welcome."

"Today, class," he continued, "we're going to talk about the media. The paparazzi. Your future best friends, as a hero."

"As heroes," he went on, "we must embrace the media, for they will trail around after us, hanging on our every word, once we've saved them all from mortal peril even just once. They will hound us. They will take our pictures. They will want autographs. There will be merchandise with your face on it if you're lucky." Hammer plucked up and waved a shirt with his face, and a coffee mug with his hammer symbol emblazoned on the side. "But the biggest obstacle, my tiny, young, less bright friends, is the interview."

He began to pace. "Newspapers and TV news crews are always trying to corner you for an interview, and while, yes, they are adoring, they always want to know things like which is your favoritie pair of socks, and how old you were when you lost your virginity. If you have." He eyed the class, because he doubted most of these sad kids had gotten lucky yet. "The important thing is knowing how to give answers quickly on your feet. One wrong answer means you'll have to save them all at least three more times to regain favor."

"So!" He clapped his hands together. "Today, class, we're doing an exercise to prepare you. I want you to pair up and one of you gets to be a reporter, and the other gets to be the hero. The reporter asks questions -- and make sure you're adoring, kids, because reporters always are -- and they need to be as personal as you can stand! Hero, answer them as well as you can without humiliating yourself. After five questions, switch! Hop to!"

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Warren sat at his desk, anxiously tapping the eraser of his pencil against his notebook while he waited for a partner.

He was pretty good at answering questions without humiliating himself. he hoped.

Ben knew something had to be wrong with Captain Hammer's lecture--there always was--but the interviews he'd seen his father conduct sounded a lot like what he'd described.

...huh.

He sat down, smiled obsequiously at the guy across from him and asked, "What makes you a hero?"

Warren glanced up, an eyebrow raised, at the guy who'd sat down in front of him.

"Classes taught by crazy people in high school, apparently."

For Warren, this was a perfectly valid answer, really.

Ben snickered. "He's certainly something, huh?" he muttered.

"I'd say I had my doubts that he's ever done anything heroic, except he's a lot like the teachers in my last school," Warren agreed, eyeing Captain Hammer warily from the corner of his eye. "You want honest, I'm not here to learn how to be a hero. It'd be helpful if I could learn a few heroic things, though. In-case."

"The people I know who are heroes don't exactly go around telling people about how astral they are," Ben said. "And they hate the holos and action figures and stuff."

Warren nodded his grumpy agreement.

"It's all gone commercial. I don't care what the media thinks. I'd rather not be noticed by them at all. I'd sooner Save the Citizen and then dodge the press entirely."

And anyhow, most action figures nowadays didn't look remotely like the heroes they were supposed to represent. They'd recycled the mold for the Tiger Man action figure to make the Commander Stronghold one that Warren enjoyed lighting on fire so often. It still had whiskers.

"So superheroing isn't regulated in your world? They don't report to the government?" Ben asked.

"Some do. The guy who put away the worst," the guy who put away Warren's dad, "has a phone line direct to the President. He'll do as he's told, sure, but he won't turn down a good photo op, either."

Sounded a bit like Jacen. Ben frowned.

"So what's your preferred side for getting your photo taken?" he asked, shifting the subject back to the stupid sort of things he assumed Captain Hammer would prefer.

"Whichever has the most fire on it at the time," Warren replied easily. "Messes up the exposure better, that way."

Warren wasn't planning on becoming much of a hero, no.

"Big fan of publicity, then," Ben commented, eyes shining.

"Huge," Warren agreed, smirking a little. "Really, I write for the paper just to get my name out there."

No, really he wrote for the paper just so that he could kvetch about everything, ever, and make people read about it.

"Oh, you're the columnist!" Ben said with a grin. "I like your stuff."

"You mean someone actually reads that stuff?" Yes, Warren was a little surprised at that notion. "It's mostly just complaining about whatever occurs to me at the time, man."

Just in case that wasn't already apparent or something.

"I'm impressed you can come up with something new every week," Ben told him.

"The week I run out of things to complain about," Warren shared, "is the week that the sky opens up and it rains bubbles and cotton candy down upon the world at large, while bunnies and lions skip through the flowers singing Kumbaya."

...

"And that'd be weird, so I'd probably complain about that, too."

"...cotton candy?" Ben repeated.

"It's fluffy and sweet," Warren explained.

"And made of cotton? Ew."

"Made of thin strands of sugar, actually." Warren shrugged. "It's pink and sticky and annoying little kids scream for it at carnivals. If you like eating sugar, you'd probably like it."

"Sounds kind of horrifying, really," Ben said, making a face.

"Then see, something else to complain about," Warren replied, giving Ben a pointed look. "It's the easiest column to write. I'll never run out of material."

"I'm not really good at complaining," Ben admitted.

"It's therapeutic." Warren tapped his eraser against his notebook a couple more times, and then smirked faintly. "You just pick something you're not happy about, and then you figure out all the little things about that something that tick you off. And then you don't hold back when you make sure the whole damn world knows about it."

A pause.

"You have to be careful, though. There's a fine line between complaining and whining. Nobody likes a whiner."

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Re: Pair up and question one another! [03/04/09]