fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, February 3, 1st period]

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ethics

Ethics [Thursday, February 3, 1st period]

"Everyone look under your chairs, please," Anakin said as his class arrived. A third of the students ~~going by how they sign into class~~ would find a bag with a full-sized chocolate bar waiting for them. A third would find a bag with a fun-sized chocolate bar. A third would find nothing at all.

"Anyone feeling a little ripped off right now?" he asked rhetorically. "Two minutes ago no one had any candy and everyone was fine. Now I haven't taken anything away from anyone, no one's any worse off than they were when they walked in the door, and some of you are thinking very nasty things about me. Some of you have more than you did when you came into the classroom and still feel like you've been given an unfair deal. Isn't envy fun? Under its grip we never concentrate on the gifts we have been given.We focus instead on what others have that we want," Anakin said. "It's entirely a question of attitude. Today's question: how would someone capitalize on that very human failing if they were seeking to manipulate others?"

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Like you might get candy!

Dolf Wega

Quinn Fabray

Lion-o

Lindsay Weir

Rinoa Heartilly

Momoko Akatsutsumi

Blackagar Boltagon

Peter Bishop

Anduin Wrynn

Jack McCallister

Eat your candy, gaze enviously at your classmates who got better candy, declare your complete indifference to all things chocolate, whatever!

Quinn ran her fingers over the wrapper of her fun-size candy bar while Professor Skywalker spoke. As far as she was concerned, it was a win -- she got chocolate, but not a whole bar she'd have to burn off later. She had no complaints.

Lindsay broke off a piece of her full sized candy bar, planning to save the rest for later. In her opinion, chocolate was never a bad thing.

Rinoa had no candy under her chair.

She knew it was entirely the point of class, how silly it was to feel cheated for something that you had no anticipation of getting.

She was still a little grouchy about not getting any of that chocolate, dammit.

Lindsay peered over at Rinoa, noticing she didn't have any chocolate. Quietly, she said, "I'll share the rest of mine later if you want."

She thought maybe that might be defeating the purpose of this particular class exercise, but roommate solidarity and all...

Rinoa couldn't help laughing.

"That's sweet," she said. "Thank you."

It shouldn't matter, it was just chocolate, and yet? That made her feel so much better.

Her roommate was awesome.

"What good are roommates if they can't provide chocolate?" Lindsay chuckled. "And no problem."

"I'll have to remember that," Rinoa laughed. "Roommate duties include sharing chocolate. I should get a stash for the room."

"We could get a stash and hide it all over the room," Lindsay suggested. "So we could find it sometime while studying or something."

Okay, Momoko didn't like this class. She didn't feel envious- she had a bag of gumdrops in her pocket, after all, but she did feel disappointed. Very disappointed.

And sulky. She was totally going to be over here sulking.

Peter looked over at Momoko and raised an eyebrow.

And then said "How good are your reflexes?" in her general direction.

He was talking to her, right? Momoko tilted her head in confusion. "Awesome; why?"

"This," Peter said, tossing his fun-size bar in her direction. His aim was pretty good, it would probably be easy to catch. And he did it with a smirk.

Something flying towards her? Momoko snatched it out of the air before she even realized what it was. Opening her hand to find the candy had her beaming happily back up at him. "Your candy bar! Really? I can have this?"

"I'm sure there's some object lesson going on," Peter said. "But honestly, I'm not in the chocolate mood."

"Are you sure?" She felt a bit bad at how happy she was at getting it. "It's wrapped, so you could always save it until later!"

"It's fun size," Peter said. "If I really want chocolate later, I'll buy a real one."

"It's chocolate; size is totally nothing. Thank you!" She squeezed the candy bar and grinned happily at him.

She had candy!

"How would someone capitalize on the very human failing of envy if they were seeking to manipulate others?"

"You need to make whatever you have that you want them to envy look good," Quinn answered. "It doesn't matter how you feel -- as far as anybody else can tell, your life is stone-cold perfect. Then people will do anything to be like you."

"It sounds lonely," Rinoa said, giving the other girl a quick glance.

She wasn't knocking it, as a technique. Just offering a touch of sympathy.

"Not if you're always surrounded by people."

It was so, so lonely.

"Anyhow, the point isn't how you feel. It's about making people envy you."

"I guess that would help," Rinoa said, unconvinced. Sometimes it felt lonelier in the middle of the crowd. "Having people around. Both with the lonely, and with the envy. If everyone thinks that you have fawning admirers on all sides ..."

"Then it doesn't matter if half of them are waiting for you to turn around so they can stab you in the back," Quinn finished. "Image counts."

Rinoa considered it. "They might be scared off from it, anyway," she added. "The back-stabbers. If they think everyone else really is sold on your mystique, that makes it scarier to go up against you."

Rinoa was rewarded with a smile. "And now you understand how to stay popular at a normal school."

"Talk about what everyone else has," Rinoa decided. "Convince whoever you're talking to that they deserve that stuff, too, and should resent not having it."

"Give them what they see everyone else has? And then the person would be thankful to the one who they think liked them." Loyalty, mmmmm.

Hello, TA!

Blackagar would prefer oddly colored drinks to candy. But that was just because someone had never been warned about alcohol.

Shhhh.

Hello, Anakin!

Done, and now in the right place!

... This is me, just discovering that I missed the "going by how they sign in" entirely. I was just making up a "um, no candy for mine!" out of nowhere, and why? Because I am dim, that is why.

Point and mock at your leisure, peeps.

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Ethics [Thursday, February 3, 1st period]

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OOC

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