Creative Writing--So Simple Even You Can Do It! (Probably), Monday, Period 4

[doesdoctorstuff]

Lucky for all of you, your teacher was back at her desk today, looking none the worse for wear after her period of debauchery. That's because she had practice, kids, don't try this at home.

"So, if you watched last week's movie, you'll know that books with only one character are boring as Vanorva," she said, by way of greeting. "That was a town populated by virgins, by the way, so you can imagine how boring that was. No, really, when I try to have sex with someone, they turned into a ghost and was all, 'You brooooke the cuuuuurse' and I was all, 'I don't care!' and instead of that, the whole town vanished. Stupid fucking town. Anyway, that's how boring a book with one character is. Don't do that."

Because a celebrated children's classic wasn't good enough for your teacher. And, by extension, you. So there. "At minimum, you need two main characters, the good guy and the bad guy. You need a good guy, because that's who your book is about, and a bad guy because a book about everyone getting along is almost as boring as a book about one person. Even the sex--" which she just assumed you all were writing "--gets boring. Three people's a good number, because you have the good guy, the bad guy, and the sex partner, who generally ends up with the good guy." She shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, you can have the good guy and the bad guy bang, and the bad guy and the sex partner bang, and even a menage a trois. That's what the plot is for, figuring out who is banging who and when. And, all the other stuff, like who's getting murdered and who stole the jeweled eyes from the statue in the temple, and all the rest of the plotty bits, but it's the three main characters who push the action forward. Heh. Heh heh heh."

Yes, she was laughing at her own pun. This was Navaan, after all. "Now, people like it best if your bad guy is just evil for no reason, because then no one feels guilty when he or she or zhe or it or they gets killed all ugly like in the climatic--heh heh heh--final scene. Just make sure it's a kind of sexy evil, or else no one's going to believe it when your main character has sex with them for like three chapters. As for your good guy and your sex partner, that's usually easy. Go with people you know. Change some features around so no one can prove anything, make 'em hotter or smarter or whatever, or maybe mashup two people into one, but trust me, it's a lot easier doing that than it is coming up with completely new characters. You have a lot of other things you need to be thinking about, like keeping track of everyone's hands and remembering what is and is not an acceptable lube."

No, seriously, that one was important.

"There are a bunch of other characters you can shove in there, like sidekicks, monks, minions, and fake-death merchants and stuff, but they're not really important. No one cares about them. It's the big three you have to worry about. Once you have those down, everyone else just kind of falls in line."

[Link goes to the famous list of "Things Used As Lube In Fanfiction"]

Learn to have fun! Monday, 3rd period

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Today class was meeting at Portalocity. Jon waved at them. "I've been trying to keep us mostly on the island, but we've only got the one museum, and I'm sure you've already seen it." Hadn't everyone been in the local museum?

"Today, we're heading for the Natural History Museum in London. It's got dinosaur skeletons, all kinds of animal specimens, and geological finds, too. Also not nearly as many plundered cultural items as the main museum," he muttered. "Right. So, let's head through and see how much you can see in an hour. I apologise it's not nearly enough time, but this is what we've got."

Introduction to Paleobiology - Monday, 1st Period

[itsananomaly]

“Good morning,” Cutter began that week’s class, “this week we’re going to be looking at vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, I’ll be covering the vertebrate portion of the lecture and Mr. Temple will covering the invertebrate topic,’ he explained, he also had with him several samples that he would be showing the class after a quick and very handwavey check in on the mainland with Becker and to get some additional books and fossils that he and Connor needed for their classes.

“Vertebrate palaeontology is the subfield of paleontology that aims to discover through the study of fossilised remains the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct vertebrates and this includes vertebrae and their descendants. It also tries to connect by using the evolutionary timeline the animals of the past and their modern day relatives,”

“The fossil record shows aspects of the meandering evolutionary path from early aquatic vertebrae to modern fish as well as mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, the earliest known fossil vertebrate were heavily armoured fish discovered in rocks from the Ordovician period 485 to to 444 ma with jawed vertebrates emerging in the following Silurian period from 444 to 419 ma with the placoderms and acanthodians. The Devonian Period from 419 to 359 ma saw primitive primitive air-breathing fish to develop limbs allowing them to walk on land, thus becoming the first terrestrial vertebrates, the Stegocephali.”

“Now there is a gap that is known in palaeontology as Romer’s gap that doesn’t give us much in regards to these Stegocephali but thanks to the fossil record we do know that as a result vertebrae were able to adapt to life on land as a result, tetrapods first appeared in the Carboniferous and Temnospondyli were prominent in the ecosystem and became the first vegetable megafauna as a result,”

“The Permian period from 299 to 252 ma, saw two distinct groups emerge the Synaspids and the Therapsids, the Great Dying however wiped out most of the Synaspids but this is where we have our first appearance of mammals during the time of dinosaurs in the Triassic Era 252 to 201 ma and we also have the first ancestral birds appearing as well,”

“The K-Pg mass extinction wiped out many vertebrate clades and these included Pterosaurs, Plesiosauria, Mosasaurs and nearly all dinosaurs. It wasn’t until the Paleogene after the mass extinction that we began to see the dominance of birds and reptiles,” Cutter finished and gave a smile for Connor to continue on with the lecture.

Connor nodded as he put down the jump coffee and ran his hands through his hair. “Right, so Invertebrate Paleontology conducts research, research training and graduate education on the world’s fossil invertebrates – their relevance to evolutionary theory, their phylogenetic significance, as well as their paleobiogeography, paleoecology, and morphology. This includes large, diverse taxonomic groups such as mollusks (e.g., bivalves and gastropods), brachiopods (e.g., lamp shells), corals, arthropods (e.g., crabs, shrimps, and barnacles), echinoderms (e.g., sand dollars, sea urchins, and sea stars), sponges, annelids (worms), foraminifera (single-celled protists), and bryozoans (moss animals).

These are all animals that, throughout most of Earth’s geological history, lived in a multitude of habitats including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial. Fossils as we have already covered are any trace of a previously living organism, and although invertebrates do not have “true” bones, they leave behind evidence of their past in the form of shells, imprint casts, trackways, fecal pellets, tubes, and exoskeletons. Fossil invertebrates are useful in many types of scientific studies, including pure systematics, applications in stratigraphy, and studying and reconstructing prehistoric environments.”
Connor picked up one of the books they had with them and showed the class “We brought several books today for us to look through. This one is specifically about the fossil collections at the Field Museum. There is a very nice section in here that talks about their invertebrate fossil collection” Connor flipped to the right section and read a small excerpt from it: “The Field Museum’s fossil invertebrate collection started with the purchase of the Ward's Natural Science Establishment collection displayed during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The collection has fossils ranging in age from over 550 million years to the present. The collection spans all the geological periods from the Cambrian through Quaternary with a focus on Ordovician through Pennsylvanian fossils”

“The diversity and abundance of invertebrate fossils is truly amazing. Scientists have divided the invertebrates into 33 phyla of which 25 have a fossil record, and of these 25 phyla 15 are represented in the Field Museum’s collections. And of course, they have great photos of most of the collection in this section so I want us to definitely take some time to look through the examples of how fossils of animals without backbones and skeletons at all can be preserved and studied.”

Connor smiled as he nodded back to Cutter and began setting out the books and the sample fossils that they had with them. He figured Cutter could explain a little about the fossils while he set up.

“The samples that we have today are the type of fossils that you can find for the vertebrae and invertebrate,” Cutter explained as he began to show what fossils they had, “ clam shells, trilobites, coral, shark teeth, and drag mark fossil,” he finished, “for the rest of the class, you can take turns going over these fossils, taking notes if you’d like and if you have any questions feel free to ask myself or Mr. Temple,” he finished that class.

Let's Plan A Heist! [Monday, 2nd Period]

[jedigrammarians]

In addition to your teachers, today there was a third person at the front of the class, who looked simply thrilled to be there, and not at all like she'd been abducted on her way to work by a pair of ethically challenged disasters.

"To help you get into the spirit of working together as a team, we thought we'd all play a little game today," Aphra announced, grinning broadly.

"Which is why we thought we'd get a lovely volunteer to help us out," Isabela added, also grinning broadly.

Vi who was not a volunteer, or grinning broadly, shuffled some papers with a sigh. "We're going to be playing Honey Heist," she said, passing out a character sheet and a copy of the rules to everyone. "It's a one page game where you are going to undertake the greatest heist the world has ever seen. You have a complex plan that requires precise timing, and you are all bears."