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cultural understanding

Cultural Understanding, Monday

"Hello everyone, and welcome back to class." Alistair was actually in a stellar mood today - saying goodbye to Duncan hadn't been fun, but he'd turned up at all, that was the thing. "I hope you had a really great weekend!"

"If you did not have a great weekend, or if you ran into a dragon-hearted woman pretending to be a human-mother, then you have my sympathies," Morrigan stated. "Family is family, I suppose."

"Don't mind Morrigan," Alistair said brightly. He turned towards her, and pretended to study her. "You know..."

"Do not start, Warden, or I shall invite her back to have tea with you," she replied plesantly. "I think she fancies you."

Alistair ignored it. "It's definitely most obvious around the ears," he said. "The similarity, I mean. You have very similar ears-- oh, the whole general area, really."

"I am not listening to you, we are teaching," Morrigan said, facing the class and ignoring Alistair. "I am interesed in what family units are like where you are from. Or, if you have an atypical family, what you feel a 'normal' one would be, or just share a story from over the weekend."

"What Grumpypants, Witch of the Sulks here means is that sometimes, you can find family in unexpected places. Or perhaps the culture you're from treats family in a different way," Alistair said, not about to be thwarted. And still grinning. "How do you bond with people you love? Who looked after you and gave you that first spark of hope in the world? You know - that sort of thing."

"If I turn you into a toad right now, I doubt anyone will complain," Morrigan pointed out. "If you wish to run back to your rooms quickly to find something that is representative of your family to you, please feel free to do so."

"You and your mother really bonded this weekend, didn't you?" Alistair asked. He clapped his hands. "The floor is, as they say, open. Though not literally. You're not going to fall through, or anything."

Considering the effort Morrigan was putting into not grinding her teeth visibly, ALISTAIR was the only one in danger of falling through the floor.

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With family!

Mercy Thompson

Raven

Princess Rosella of Daventry

Ben Skywalker

Petra West

Simon Bellamy

Warren Worthington III

Billy Kaplan

Elphaba Thropp

Shira

Karla

Bickering, bickering...

Oh, how Rosella loved this class! Better entertainment she had rarely experienced, really. And it was a true test of her royal, regal upbringing to be able to sit through her instructor's repartee without giggling. Really, she kept a remarkably straight face through the lecture.

Most of it, anyway.

Do you have anything that represents 'family' to you?

Mercy didn't. She really, really wished she did.

"It's a great pity my brother has left," Rosella said with a laugh when it was her turn for show and tell. "I'd have him show you all the birthmark on his bottom that identified him as my brother when he escaped from his slavery! Although, really, without that birthmark, even though I hadn't seen him in years, I know for certain I'd have known him as my brother the moment I saw him. Either way, I'd say the only object I have that really reminds me of family would be this."

She lifted up her long slender hand, revealing the ring worn on one of her fingers, a simple ring, but a beautiful one, gold and adorned with a lovely letter D.

"The royal ring of Daventry. We all have one and it signifies who we are, as well as where our heart lies."

Ben bet they weren't talking about the scars Jacen had left on his arms, legs, and back, so he kept quiet.

Petra ran back to her room and came back with the framed photo of her and her parents that sat on her bedside table. "This is me and my mom and my dad. This was taken before my mom got sick--she's better now--so I'm about thirteen, I know I look pretty awkward. So yeah, that's us. I miss them a lot. I mean, we talk on the phone and stuff, but. I like having the picture to look at."

Warren was going to keep his own mouth shut today. After all, all he really had to show were the wings that everybody saw every day, and an explanation that his relationship with his father over the past decade had mostly been centered around how to get rid of them.

What does 'family' mean in your culture? What is yours like? If you don't have a 'normal' family, then what do you think one is? What would you prefer?

"Family is a group of people who are sort of bound together, either by blood or choice," Mercy said. "Sometimes they get along and sometimes they don't, but ideally it's a place you belong and where the other members should care about you and have your back."

She wished she had one of those.

"We," she gestured to Blind Seer and herself. "Growed up in a pack of Royal Wolves in the Iron Mountains. For a long time, these was the only family I knowed of. I may have been a strange, two-legged wolf, but they teached me of the forest and the things I would need to know to live and be strong," she paused, "then, some humans come and I decide I should go with them, to see what they are like. One of them claim me as family because he think he can use me to make a claim to be a human One," she grinned, "this did not work, and our friend Sapphire is princess now. But even though his plan fail, Earl Kestrel keeped me in his house, and has been very kind to Blind Seer and me."

It was an uncharacteristically long speech for the wolf-girl, and when she finished, she sat down abruptly. Talking wasn't one of her favorite things, no.

"My family is what I have made here in Fandom," Raven said, keeping her emotions tightly controlled. "I wish nothing to do with my father, since his intentions for me are evil, and if my brothers intend to follow in his footsteps, then they are not my family. My mother...that is complicated, but she is gone as of this moment. That leaves me with the friends I have made here, my family of choice. They are much more important to me than any tie of blood."

"Family is held very sacred in my world," Rosella offered with a wistful sort of smile. "This is especially true for my own family with the return of my brother after so many long years after assuming he was likely dead. And I imagine it won't be long before my brother has started a family of his own, now that he's married! I am in no rush for something of that of my own, but I am pleased to have a loving mother, a doting father, and an honorable father. I realize that not so many are blessed with such a unit...I remember once, when I traveled to the land of Tamir to search for a magical fruit to cure my father when he had been struck by a sudden and terrible illness, it fell into my hands to defeat the evil witch Lolotte, who had so desperately craved a family that she had kidnapped a babe from his very mother and raised him as if he were her very own son, even going so far as to transform him into an ugly green hunchback! Can you imagine? And, though Edgar was raised to believe Lolotte was his mother, he always knew deep down that this was not who he was and aided me to defeat her and her evil reign. Last I knew, he was still living in Tamir, though it has been a while since I've heard anything of him..."

Here, Rosella seemed to trail off, her expression going a little distant and remorseful. But she shook her head, found a smile, and concluded, "So family is very important in my culture, and especially to me. Kingdoms are usually passed down through sons and daughters; my father became the king of Daventry because the previous king had no heirs, and my father had proven himself worthy. While my brother was presumed dead, I was intended to be the next ruler of the kingdom, and now that my brother has taken the kingship of another country, I am back to being the heir. And, one day, when I am ready to have a family of my own, Daventry will be ready for the hands of my own children."

"My family is my dad and me right now, and my aunt, uncle and two cousins," Ben said. "And my other cousin from a different dimension. And my aunt, who's my age but shouldn't be. And my grandfather who's here, but dead at home."

He frowned. "I'm pretty sure most families aren't quite that complicated."

"Family is like...I mean, it can be the people that are related to you by blood or legal stuff, but it can also be, like, the people who love you and take care of you and look out for you," Petra said. "I have some friends who are close to family, but my family is really just me and my parents. I mean, I have a couple of uncles and things but we're not really close to most of them. But we're...I mean, we've been through a lot, but I think it's just made us stronger and more tight knit. Actually that applies to my friends, too. Anyway. I think family is what you make it, and I know I'm so, so lucky to have a great one, even if it is little."

One's in a good mood. One isn't.

Yeah, no one was wiping that grin off of Alistair's face any time soon.

Toad. The moment he opened his mouth that they weren't teaching? TOAD.

Mwahahahha.

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Cultural Understanding, Monday

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