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Tricks, Cons and Bamboozles | Tuesday | Period 4

This time when the Tricks, Cons and Bamboozles students arrived to class, the room was set up without any desks at all. Instead, there was an area set up at the front of the room to be a sort of stage, with the rest of the chairs all facing that direction.

“Today,” Neal said, “we’re going to talk about motivation and incentive. Often, when you’re working on a heist or a project, you’ll need to work with people to get what you want. In a lot of situations, the best way to get someone on your side is to give them what they want. Incentive.”

It also happened ot be one of the things he was best at. It so happened that providing incentive was easier when it was coming from someone with, well, Neal’s face, but he was hardly going to point that out.

“Feeling out the things that motivate people takes skill,” he conceded. “It won’t always be crazy cat ladies who’ll melt for a glimpse of your PETA membership card. So today, we’re going to do a little improv exercise.”

He held up a clipboard he’d been using to write notes, waving it in the class’ direction. “When I call you up in pairs of two, I’ll give you your scenario. One of you will have an assignment – like convincing a bouncer to let you into a bar when you’re too young. It’s your job to motivate the person you’re talking to so that he or she is inclined to help. You’ll have five minutes to get what you want.”

NOT DIRTY.

Then he surveyed the clipboard and began calling out the names of pairs.

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Neal is giving the motivators their assignments individually, so that their partners don’t know what to expect right off the bat.

If you’re the motivatee, it’s your call to decide what will inspire you to help out after a reasonable amount of time. If it’s IC to refuse to help no matter what, that’s cool, though it will result in the possible embarrassment of your classmate in front of the whole class.

The RNG’d pairs and assignments are as follows:

Nathan Young & Rinoa Heartilly – Nathan wants to get into a bar where Rinoa is the bouncer.

Asuna Kagurazaka & Richie Ryan – Asuna has a crush on Richie’s best friend and wants him to put in a good word for her.

Caroline Forbes & Cassel Sharpe – Caroline has a peanut allergy and wants Cassel’s help to test a slice of cake to see if it has peanuts in it.

Kenzi & Ramona Flowers – Ramona wants to borrow Kenzi’s $400 sweater to wear to a ribs-eating contest.

James of Krondor & Shane Gooseman – James wants Shane to supply an alibi for him so that he can go rob a bank.

Elle Bishop & Lindsay Weir – Lindsay found a rabid possum in her backpack and needs Elle’s help getting rid of it.

Quinn Fabray & Surreal – Quinn needs help finding her lost car at two in the morning and Surreal has a flashlight/candle/illumination device of some kind.

Marshall Wheeler & Mr. Caffrey – Marshall is trying to pick out a gift for his girlfriend on the day of their anniversary and wants Neal to distract her and stall for time.

Yeeeah. Kenzi was looking forward to being on the 'to be persuaded' end of this, instead of the other side for once.

Yeah, Nathan had no idea who Rinoa was but he'd gotten into bars before and figured this would be a proverbial piece of fucking cake.

Getting a boy to try cake? Caroline thought this should be simple enough, and smiled as she waited to see who joined her for their little partnership in flirtatious food testing.

Hey, it was a class challenge, she intended to do it right.

He had to -- what? How was Marshall supposed to convince the ~~ridiculously hot~~ Mr. Caffrey of anything?

[Yay, it's Marshall's turn for five minutes with hot teacher! ;) ]

Neal was willing to admit that it was less than fair, since he had, you know, written the assignment. But he wasn't going to go easy on the kid or anything. What kind of education would that be?

"Go ahead," he granted, waving a hand.

[[Good old RNG, keeping it fair! :D]]

Marshall swallowed, shook out his hands, rolled out his shoulders, and stepped forward. "Excuse me, Mr. Caffrey? Do you have a moment?"

Neal stifled a grin as he faked a wince. "Mmm, I don't know," he said, keeping an eye on his desk chair. "I have a lot of things to get done..."

SORRY, MARSHALL. This kind of behavior had been routinely infuriating a certain FBI agent for the past year, if it helped.

"... What kind of things?" Marshall asked. "Paperwork of some kind? I might have something that could help both of us, then."

Ooh. That was impressive. If he'd been watching this like he'd watched the other partners go, this would be the part where he actually wrote a useful note on his clipboard rather than doodling keys all over the place.

"Oh?" he inquired, tilting his head just slightly. "Do tell."

Marshall flushed -- mostly from stress and nerves, but, hey, it worked for embarrassment, right? "I, uh. So it's my anniversary today, with my girlfriend Corrine? Six months? And I had chocolates for her, but my roommate ate them. So I was hoping you could distract her for a little while so I can go out and get her something else.

"She's really good at paperwork! Really organised. And I know she'd help if you asked her, because she's really looking for more extra credit and stuff, with university applications coming up."

"Hmm." Neal pretended to consider it. "Well, I'm pretty good at that sort of thing myself. And I dunno, man, do you really want to tell your girlfriend to go work for the guy who helped you get her a gift? Kind of sends a bad message."

"It would still go faster with help," Marshall pointed out, "even if it took you a little time to explain to her what you needed her to do at first. You'd more than make up any time lost teaching her. And I don't think there's anything bad about the message that gets sent if you tell her that you heard she was looking for a little something extra to do to help out a teacher."

"Interesting approach," he said thoughtfully. "Now, how's her handwriting?" He kept his face neutral, careful not to indicate whether he was close to being persuaded or not.

Re: Improv Activity!

wheeler-360.livejournal.com - 2011-07-19 21:21 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Improv Activity!

charming_thief - 2011-07-19 21:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Improv Activity!

wheeler-360.livejournal.com - 2011-07-19 21:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Improv Activity!

charming_thief - 2011-07-19 22:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Improv Activity!

wheeler-360.livejournal.com - 2011-07-19 22:10 (UTC) - Expand

This assignment would have been so much easier with a guy, Quinn thought ruefully as she looked for Surreal.

"What do you want?" Surreal asked bluntly, taking a seat. "Unless you're asking me to do your housekeeping, I doubt it's a problem."

"Nothing like that," Quinn said, though she was tempted to tell this Surreal chick people were going to walk all over her if she kept making offers like that. "Can you lend me a flashlight? My car's just down the street and I can't find it when it's dark like this."

She rolled her eyes a little as she spoke. Roleplay always seemed slightly ridiculous to her.

[OOC: I HAVE AN EDITING PROBLEM, OKAY?]

Edited 2011-07-20 00:35 (UTC)

Please. The day Surreal let anyone walk over her, it would be because she was buried. She just liked reducing stupid small talk.

"I'm afraid you've been given a problem," she said dryly, gesturing to her definitely not contemporary clothing. "Sorry if you're afraid of the dark, but I don't know how I can help you."

'Flashlight' was getting added to the list of words to look up later.

[[YOUR FACE HAS A PROBLEM *loves you*]]

Quinn sighed. Of course this wasn't that easy.

"Candle? Lantern? Torch? Hunk of wood from your fireplace? Ball of magical but not creepy at all flame?"

A little ball of witchlight popped into being, dancing merrily about Surreal's head. "I believe this is where I ask 'what's in it for me?'"

Great, of course it was the weirdest option.

"I don't get raped and murdered right in front of your house on my way to my car," Quinn shrugged. "And I'll drive you home, so you don't get raped and murdered either."

Surreal just leaned back in her chair, looked Quinn over, and then cast a dubious eye on the guys in their class.

"I could take them." Beat. "You probably could too."

Quinn put her chin on her palm. "Including hot teacher guy?" she asked dubiously. "The guys our age, no contest."

"Okay," Richie said ~~after remembering what day of the week it was, see what vacation does to my poor brain?~~. "Persuade me. Or whatever."

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