Fandom Gladiators Part DEUX! - First Period, Friday, 08/09.

[died8yearsago]

With the week being fairly normal for a Fandom week this summer, Rosa wondered if she should take advantage of the lack of weirdness to do something more elaborate, but why go with something elaborate when you could just go with something easy and dumb? And who knew what next week would have in store for them, so she'd better get this one out before it was too late, because it was kind of one of the best.

The arena that morning was set up as a big, large pit, bigger than last time, because instead of just accomidating seven large metal ball cages, it needed to have plenty of room for fourteen of them to be rolling around.

This was going to be so great.

"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 ten 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. Whichever team scores the most points by the end wins. Simple as that. Any questions?"

It was seriously the most simple thing ever. Big ball, roll around, score points, run into people. Especially run into people...

[[ ocd incoming is up! hooray! ]]

Recreational Misuse and Alternative Uses of Gadgets, Friday

[stickitupmyjinx]

There were a selection of panini presses at the front of the class. Because they may have remembered the premise of the class.

Maybe.

"It's sandwich time!" Wade sing-songed.

"Or whatever else you can figure out how to make in one of these bad boys," Vanessa said, smacking one of them like it was the hood of a used car, then muttering, "Ow," because it turned out panini presses were pretty solid.

Wade promptly shoved it onto the floor to cause it to dent on impact. "I got your back, babe."

Yeeeeaaah.

"So, yeah, get to it," Vanessa said. "Press something! And then eat it. So maybe don't press, like, your shoe." Oh, wait, they should probably explain for the non-Earthlings. "The plates inside the panini press get hot to make your sandwich all melty and toasty. So don't press your hand, either." There, that was enough education for one day, right? "I wonder if we could make s'mores in this?"

"We'll never know until we royally fuck one up with burned sugar," Wade replied.

"Get to work, kids! Tell us all about your creations!" Your teachers would just be up here, ruining a perfectly good panini press.

Gods & Monsters: Divine Trickery, Friday, Second Period.

[talentforlying]

"Most people, if you say 'Odysseus,' don't know who the fuck you're going on about," John began as the class settled, pacing the room. "Some will connect him with the Odyssey, or the Trojan Horse, but not many, because the classics aren't taught as much anymore."

"What most people don't realize is that he was the grandson of famous thief Autolycus, and the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes. Both tricksters in their own rights, though Odysseus took it to extremes. Hell, thin-blooded as he was, he might still be running around, pulling his nonsense. You never know with godspawn."

"Odysseus first really starts popping up in the great narrative of Greek history when he manages to keep everyone from killing each other when Helen -- yes, that Helen -- gets married. There was such a fight over her sister, that he contrives a peace that all must support whomever she marries, to put an end to stabbing and bride-stealing and wars. So, when Helen is abducted -- or runs away, depending on who you talk to -- Menelaus calls upon the other suitors to honour their oaths and help him to retrieve her, an attempt that leads to the Trojan War. Because men are shite if they care about nonsense like honour. Don't date blokes like that."

"Odysseus, despite being the one who came up with the bloody idea, tries to avoid it by feigning lunacy, as an oracle had prophesied a long-delayed return home for him if he went. He hooks a donkey and an ox to his plow starts sowing his fields with salt. Palamedes, at the behest of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, seeks to disprove Odysseus' madness and places Telemachus, Odysseus' infant son, in front of the plow. Odysseus veers the plow away from his son, thus exposing his fakery. Odysseus holds a grudge against Palamedes during the entire war for dragging him away from his home, and can't say I blame him."

"Now that he's recuited, Odysseus and other envoys of Agamemnon travel to Scyros to recruit Achilles because of a prophecy that Troy could not be taken without him. We're not going to talk about that one, because it's a bunch of gender-binary fucking nonsense, but basically Odysseus tricks Achilles into revealing himself, because fuck this, if he has to go, so does everyone else."

"Bloke just wanted to stay home with his wife and kid, and he was going to do everything he could to end this war and get back as soon as possible. But when you're the great-grand of a god, that ain't gonna happen. Once the Story has hold of you, you're stuck, you mad bastard, and few tricks can get you free."