The Art of Battle Tactics; Monday, First Period [10/04].

[sake_shinigami]

"Good morning, ducklings ♥." Everything, it seemed, was back to normal, and Shunsui a lazy, self-indulgant captain rather than a hardened special ops soldier lurking around stealthily in a box all day because memes. The classroom had its ring of cushions, its offering of tea, its instructor who looked like he was on the brink of slipping into a blissful nap at any moment...

And boxes.

A lot of large, empty boxes, stacked against one wall with some of the desks.

One nice thing about owning a store like Turtle & Canary was that there was never any shortage of boxes when one needed them!

"I hope you're all feeling quite yourselves again today ♥," he continued. "I myself just so happened to have been stuck in a box all weekend, quite by choice, apparently, and not even the first time this has happened to me! This time, however, it did get me thinking, and that is on defenses. Now, as someone who makes the attempt to approach battle from a pascifist's perspective, defense is a very key componant, and there are many aspects of it that we will explore, but today, we are focusing specifically on walls. Barriers. Fortresses and the like. A box," he gestured a hand toward the wall of them to one side, "is sort of fortress. I can't imagine it actually being effective in any sort of real combat situation," though it was just the sort of thing he might actual try!, "however, they do work well for a sort of...illustrative metaphor, wouldn't you say ♥? A box is like the walls we can put up around ourselves, be they physical, spiritual, emotional, or whatever else have you ♥.

"Let us, then, discuss walls ♥. Do you think they are an effective defense? The ancient Chinese seemed to think so, when they build their Great Wall against the Mongol hordes, and their efforts still stand today, although less as an actual defense and more now as a reminder. And in that vein, what of the use of walls in a modern world, where technology can be used to send an attack with soldiers armed by computer rahter than guns? And what about our personal walls? When we build them up around ourselves in an effort to protect ourselves, our emotions, who we are....what makes a wall effective? What are the best ways to get past a wall? What do we do, once our walls have finally crumbled?"

He took a long sip of his tea, and then smiled around the circle.

"Who would like to share their thoughts ♥? And once we've discussed, I have a little bit of an activity, were we may perhaps put some of these thoughts into actions ♥."

Badass Bitch Survival Guide; Monday, Second Period [10/04].

[died8yearsago]

As it turned out, Rosa had actually had a completely normal weekend, was mostly unaware that anything had been abnormal (since a normal weekend for her involved not having to deal with anyone except for a select chosen few), and so now it was time to have a completely normal class.

No, not the math one. The one that encouraged break-ins and petty theft. Completely normal.

And when the students arrived, they'd find a sign on the door to redirect them to today's clas:

Gym.

When they arrived at their secondary location, they'd find the gym all decked out for an obstacle course, with some very specific focuses, and Rosa waiting for them, ready to begin.

"Stealth," she said. "Because there's a point in every badass bitch's life where they're going to need to sneak into or out of something without being noticed."

Especially when they were taking this class and it was now October, but she'll get to that when they were a little closer to Halloween.

"And unless you're some kind of magical ninja from who even knows where," or maybe you had a conveniently topical box on hand!, "and I don't care anyway, this sort of thing takes time, practice, and patience. So take a few minutes to stretch out, get limber, and then we're going to see just how well you can do getting through the courses without making a sound.

"First step: laser course. Only instead of real lasers, we've got ropes, and each rope has bells on it, so if you hit it, we know, I blow the whistle, and you start over. If you manage to make it through that, then we've got some moddable obstacles made of nice creaky wood, so they're noisy, and if you're too noisy, back to the start. And then there's the window." Yes, the good old freestanding wall with a nice, easily-jammed-when-opened window in it was back, baby! "Get this thing open and slip out without too much noise. Out of all this crap, this one's probably the most useful. Be careful, though, because there's some bells on the other side. Wouldn't want to set one off and have to start over again. And finally, if you think you're real badass, we have this rope climb. A rope. With a bell on it. If you can manage to get to the top without ringing the bell, what are you even doing in this class? There's probably nothing I can teach you. But if anyone wants to try, I'm all for it. Even minimal ringing on that one's good work.

"A few tips: don't be afraid to take your time. Focus on your breathing and the balls of your feet and keeping low to the ground. Don't let something like clothing or hair trip you up: a buckle scraped at the wrong moment could give you up like that. I know there's some of you who can probably do this without much trouble because of powers or abilities or whatever, which is great, get the extra practice in, but this is more for the people who actually don't have those same advantages. And to give you all an idea and prove that I'm not just full of shit, as someone without," presumably, anyway, cough, "any special abilities...I'll show you what I mean."

She shrugged off her jacket, tossed it aside, rolled her neck a little, and approached the first course. One deep breath, a pause, and then she swept through the tangle of cross-crossing ropes in a fluid motion that she hadn't spent all morning practicing to make sure it was perfect or anything, shut up, but, yeah, flawless, and thank god, because that would have sucked to biff it like that right in front of the class, but she'd been copy-pasting performing this example for years now, she could pretty much do it in her sleep now.

"Any questions?" she asked. "Take five, warm up, then we'll get started. You," she quirked her chin at literally anyone, there was no way you could tell if she had a particular person in mind, "you'll go first. And keep in mind, this might actually be useful to you later this month. For...reasons."

Anyone who'd spent more than a year here could probably guess, but let's not ruin the surprise for those who hadn't, yeah?

Cupcake Skirmishes- Monday

[throughaphase]

"I'm going to let you guys get a little creative today."

This announcement courtesy of a girl who had changed her costume every two weeks for a while there and once included roller skates.

"You've making vanilla cupcakes," she went on, "but you have to use food coloring in here somewhere. Whether you just want to do the cake part or the frosting, too, I just want to look at them and see you had fun." And then she added, "Also make them taste good."

Vanilla Cupcakes

Advanced Cultural Studies, Monday, Fourth Period

[jedigrammarians]

"Hi, kids!" Aphra had the cheerfulness of someone who'd had a normal weekend. "Today we're going to be watching what I'm told is a classic multiverse story, 'Help, My Evil Double is Hot and Kind Of Into Me!'."

Far, far too cheerful.