Fandom Gladiators; First Period [05/31].

[died8yearsago]

Okay, Rosa might be sort of wanting to take back what she said about being pretty down with this week's little whatever; it sort of got old real quick. But at least she had her class this morning to look forward to.

And, yes, that was an actual thing that she thought. Yes, it weirded her out significantly.

But the arena that morning was set up in a big pit and there were seven large metal ball cages just waiting for some victims students to be put inside of them, so it wasn't really that weird of a sentiment, now, was it?

"Today," she informed the class, "we do the Atlasphere, which is basically just an excuse to roll around in big metal cage balls. There are five slightly raised scoring pods on the field; your goal is to try and activate as many of them as possible in the allotted time by rolling your atlasphere onto it. You'll know you got it because it'll emit smoke into your atlasphere when done right, then move on to the next and try to prevent the others from scoring more points. You've got five minutes to gear up and get settled in your sphere, then then we're off. Lilac, since you managed to catch the dumb dog the most times last week, you get an advantage of starting with, I don't know, two points right out the gate. Any questions?"

[[ ocd is...up! Transform and roll out! ]]

Working the Long Con, Friday, Second Period

[talentforlying]

They kept coming back. John was starting to get weird-ed out by this.

Class met in the Danger Shop today, which was modified to resemble a pool hall. Because fuck going into town with all this weird shite nonsense. "Welcome to the unofficial Land of the Hustle," he proclaimed, spreading his arms wide. "Today, we're learning how to shoot pool and take the money of idiots and college kids with more money than sense."

"Pool hustlers use deception and misdirection in order to win cash from inexperienced players -- or from skilled players inexperienced with the world of hustling. Now, there's a few different options for a skilled hustler, and some things to watch out for if you don't want to end up the wrong side of the bet."

"A hustler will usually play with a low-quality "house" cue stick provided by the pool hall, or an unadorned but high-quality personal cue that looks like one, known as a "sneaky pete." Or, with the nascence of local competitive league play in recent years, may play with a flashy-looking but evidently low-end personal cue, to give the impression that the hustler is a beginning league player. They will typically play a game or two for "fun" or for low bets -- a beer or equivalent amount of cash -- in order to check out the opponent and give the impression that money can easily be won, often losing on purpose with the intent of winning a much larger wager later against a predictably overconfident opponent. This is known as "sandbagging" or "dumping.""

"They will pocket some difficult and impressive shots or make surprisingly secure safety shots, the ones crucial for winning, while missing many simple ones, thus making early victories appear to be sheer luck and may pretend to be intoxicated, unintelligent, or otherwise impaired. When betting on trick shots, they may intentionally miss the first or several times and lose a small amount, then raise the bet to an amount well beyond the loss and succeed at the well-practiced feat."

"Many of these ploys can easily be mistaken for the honest faults of a less-than-exceptional player. The engendered doubt and uncertainty is what allows hustling to succeed, with the "faults" being dropped when a significant amount of money is at stake."

"Americans are partial to Eight-ball, so we'll start with that," he said, handwavily going over the rules. "So grab a partner, and work on your game."