Hi-Story, Tuesday, 3rd Period

[jedigrammarians]

"So we've talked about trying, we've talked about not trying at all, we've talked about weird deep sea diving fetishes, now let's talk about marketing!" Someone was in a cheerful mood. "Because people are big enough suckers that sometimes claiming your completely completely made up story is actually real footage works! Well enough that sometimes you have to wonder at people watching the resulting holo."

So You Want to Be a Pirate!, Wednesday, period two

[betterthanaplan]

So a funny thing happened on the way to the Danger Shop today. Duke, under the questionable influence of what he'd foolishly thought was just a normal snow shower, had decided that he could heroically rescue the little shivering green thing he saw scuttle into a bush.

Which would be how he ended up in front of his class today, wearing a dish towel tied around his head as a bandana and leaning on a crooked stick as a crutch, which a very confused porg perched on his shoulder.

"Hello, my little cabin boys and girls!" he greeted boisterously, with a much more subtle yet still distinct pirate-y accent. "'Tis I, Long John Silver. I seem to have been summoned here to this fine ship to assist in teaching you all the ways of the sea! In particular. . . ." He dug around in his pockets, then looked at the porg. "Polly?"

The porg spat out a crumbled up piece of note paper.

"Thank you, Polly. You're a delightful lobster." He shook the excess porg spit from the paper and examined it. "Yes, in particular, according to this note, 'sea shanties finally dammit'." He handed the note back to the porg, who promptly ate it again. "Now, I don't know about this 'finally' business, but I do know a good jaunty tune or two. So we'll be singing one of those today. Aren't you all lucky! Let's begin."

Ethics, Wednesday, December 11, 2019

[sith_happened]

"We've spent a lot of time this semester talking about lying and various ways of shading the truth," Anakin began, "and why such things might be necessary. Whether it's smoothing family dinners when your grandfather in law is being a bigoted Republican blowhard and you just pretend not to hear him or when you fake being a vegan to avoid having to eat something that had swum past you a minute earlier, lying, misstating, and obfuscating happens a lot, and at least in the cultures I'm familiar with that seems to be mostly acceptable."

He leaned back against his desk. "That's not the same for stealing or assault, though. You can't just take something, even if you need it more than the other person, or hit someone who is really asking for it."

He shrugged. "I don't have an answer for it, but why do you think words seem to matter less than possessions?"

Read the Room: Practical Self-Defense (Thursday, 12/12, First Period)

[brat_inslayage]

Today's Danger Shop setup: a summer camp-style archery range, complete with wood rail fences, brightly colored paper targets pinned to a wall of stacked hay bales, and ... well, no archery equipment, actually. There was a table in the back next to the equipment shed that was covered with an array of throwing knives, wooden stakes, Frisbees, tennis balls, short lengths of pipe, even some coffee mugs, cupcakes so old and stale that they were rock hard, and what looked like cans of dog food. Basically, if it could fit in your hand and you could feasibly throw it, it was likely to be on that table somewhere.

Kennedy was up front, pacing back and forth along the shooting line.

"First off, range rules," she said, more serious than usual -- not quite her old drill-sergeant tone, but close. Something more tempered and mature, assertive in the students' best interests instead of for the sake of the power trip. She held up a bright yellow whistle. "Two blasts: go ahead and step up to the shooting line here. One blast: you can start shooting, or, in this case, throwing. Three blasts: the range is clear, and you can go pull your arrows or whatever you've been throwing, pick them up off the ground, all that. Four blasts: you stop immediately. I'm going to be a hardass on this one, and if I see anyone make a move to throw anything while people are still out on the range, or so much as make a move to cross the shooting line before I signal that it's clear? You are out of class for the rest of the day, so, so fast. And that said ..."

Her expression turned a lot more cheerful and relaxed.

"In case you couldn't tell, we're doing ranged weapons today. Ranged improvised weapons, because as much as some of us enjoy it? Being up close and personal with your baddie of the day isn't always a good thing. Maybe hand-to-hand isn't your strength, or maybe you're fighting something that's covered in really acidic mucus, or -- you get the idea. Lucky for you, improvising a throwing weapon is pretty easy. Here's the big old conditional of it, though: not everything you can throw is going to fly the same way. You probably already knew that, but I'm not gonna assume."

She indicated the tables. "So. You all get to test out different things today, just so you can get a feel of what to expect, and how to compensate, if for instance you're trying to knock a bucket of kerosene over onto a vampire who's already a little bit on fire, and the only thing on hand is a Funko Pop."

That was ... so oddly specific, Kennedy.

"-- just as an example. You know," she added, looking like she wouldn't be sorry at all if people spent the rest of the day wondering about what the hell that had been about. "Anyway, pick out three objects from the table for this first round, and let's see how this goes, yeah?"