fandomhigh | Diversity and You, Class #1, Period #2, May 7th

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Diversity and You, Class #1, Period #2, May 7th

The woman standing in front of class looked mostly human. She had candy-pink skin that was too uniform to be a sunburn, and prominent horns sticking out of her forehead; the points of her ears just barely peeked out on either side of her head. Her hair was a bright fiery red, jutting upwards at implausible angles in proud streams. Other than that, she'd fit in at any corporate office, especially dressed as she was today, the white button-down shirt to the pencil skirt and the strappy black shoes. Give her a hat and a slight palette swap and no one would know the difference.

"First things first," Callie said. "Some of you may not want to be here. I don't care. I don't want to be here, but Daddy lied to me. Oh, by the way: if you're signing a contract with a demon? Get a lawyer to look over it. Maybe two. At any rate, I don't really feel like dealing with cranky teenagers this early in the morning, but apparently I can't kill any of you, so do your best to keep it to a dull roar. And unless you've got a better excuse than 'I was sent here by the Dark Lord and Ruler of Hell who is personally mocking me,' you're not getting out of class, and don't waste my time."

And a warm welcome to all of you!

"Now apparently this class is called 'Diversity and You,' a.k.a., some bleeding-heart touchy-feely garbage about how we're all different but we can try our best to hold hands and all get along anyway. Good for us. There, class is finished. I don't know how I'm supposed to stretch this out for the next several weeks, so I'd expect a lot of filler if I were you. It's not like I got to pick the subject. If I had, it would have been something interesting like 'Flaying 101: Finding the Right Tool for the Job.'"

She happened to collect weapons. She didn't judge your hobbies.

"I found out about this class on Saturday, so I haven't exactly had time to prepare anything, so let's be ridiculously cliche and do introductions. Tell everyone what species you are, although it looks like most of you are human." Except for the cat, at least ~~if Bucky was there~~. "If you're not human and you don't want to talk about it, just lie and say you are, or make up something else, and then, I don't know, tell us something interesting about yourself. And try to make it something actually interesting instead of just the fact that you play the harmonica, because nobody really cares about that. Although who knows, maybe someone else in class also plays the harmonica, even though you're human and she's secretly a flesh-eating bacteria sent here to destroy the world, and you'll end up having crazed sex in the hallway. Diversity."

If she eyerolled any harder, it might actually induce vomiting.

"So ... let's do that, and not think about how we're sitting here in class doing this and not something useful with our time, like opening the clothing store we came here to run that is just sitting there with all those crates of shoes unboxed." Someone was entirely not bitter, you guys.

"Oh, last thing, is there a See-fer ... Sigh-fer ... something like that, here?" she asked, holding up a scrap of paper she'd brought in with her. "I got this notice, something about being assigned a graduate student as a TA. And apparently I can make one of you a TA as well. Is that anything like a minion? Anyone want to be a minion? I won't take your soul. I'll even put it in writing."

She was being sincere. You had to have your parents' permission to sell your soul, if you were under eighteen. And that was probably just as frowned on as killing students, anyway.

(please wait for OCD!)

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When Sparkle pulled himself to his feet, he was also pulling a birthday sparkler from his pocket, his lighter from another pocket, and just lighting it up, not a care in the world about whether or not he was technically allowed to, right there in class.

"Yeah, so, my name is Sparkle," he announced, in a tone that was just as much a challenge as it was fact. "Really. I was named after one of these things, not some stripper or whatever, so stop thinking it. I'm human, Canadian, I'm almost sixteen, I didn't electrocute myself to make my hair stand up this way so people can shut up about it already, and..." He tilted his head a little, eyes on the sparks that were bouncing from his fingertips. "I don't play harmonica." So there. "I play the recorder. Way more awesome."

If you were in grade six.

He looked up, a little smirk on his face, and the sparkler burned out.

"I don't know if anyone's ever told you this before," Bucky commented, "but your name is stupid. And so is your face."

"Coming from someone who shits in a box and then licks his own ass, I think I'm going to take that as a compliment," Sparkle shot back, because like hell he was going to step down to a cat with attitude problems, okay?

"You're just jealous that your species isn't naturally dirt-resistant!" Bucky countered. "Your attempts at 'hygiene' are laughable! I am laughing! HA!"

"Big words for someone who can't open a can of cat food on his own," Sparkle noted, sounding about as bored as possible while somewhere deep down kind of spazzing over the fact that he was arguing about hygiene with a talking cat. "Hey, cat? Thumbs-up."

It was not a rude gesture by any means. Sparks could totally get away with giving two of them in the middle of class.

"So, what, you're Sickle Eggbert now, with the thumbs? I'll have you know my famous biopic got THREE thumbs up!!!"

"That's the one on YouTube of the kitten riding the Roomba, right?"

Not. Backing. Down.

"Seriously?!" Bucky asked. "There's one on the thing about that?! How many views did it get?!"

"It's a cat video on YouTube, man." Sparkle pointed out. "The only thing that's probably got more views than those things is Lady Gaga."

Because... shut up. Humanity kind of was dumb.

Bucky stroked his chin in an 'evil mastermind' sort of gesture. "So... you're saying that videos of cats -- on YouTube -- are instantly popular. And yet, mine aren't. There must be some... Jenny say 'kwah'... that I'm missing. All I need to do is figure out what, and the Internet is mine for the taking..."

"Cuteness," Sparkle supplied helpfully. "People watch them because they're oh soooooooooo cute."

So, a strike against you there, Bucky.

"'Cute', huh?" Bucky mused. "People like that sort of thing? This will require more study..."

"Yeah, I'll just leave you to that, then." Sparkle gave his head a little shake. Seriously, cat? Seriously? "Best of luck, pal."

Keyboard cat, he was not.

"Impressive use of pyrotechnics," Callie said. No, really, she was a demon, she enjoyed a good burn. "But recorders will always suck. Hang on, shouldn't your name be 'Sparkler' instead of 'Sparkle'?"

Edited 2012-05-07 20:25 (UTC)

"Yeah, should be," Sparkle replied, shrugging a little as he tossed the spent sparkler stick into the trash. "But I never said my parents were too smart, did I?"

Sparkle could say things about his parents. None of those things would be terribly kind.

... And odds were they wouldn't be the truth anyhow.

"Not really," Callie said. "I guess it could be worse. Twayne had a brother called Twatson."

Really, did no one in the Boneraper family think these things out?

"You could always drop it and go by your middle name. Or make something up. Although you'd lose the visual effect if you did that."

"Lewis back in Toronto calls me Sparks," Sparkle offered, after taking a moment of quiet in order to keep from laughing. It involved biting the inside of his cheek, hard.

Twatson.

"I'd answer to that, too. And I get to keep the sparkler that way."

"Plus it sounds like you're about to burst into flames, which I am all in favor of."

Either part, the name or randomly bursting into flames. She doubted Sparkle knew how to pull that particular trick, but she did. So there.

Edited 2012-05-07 22:48 (UTC)

Yeah, Sparkle liked a good open flame as much as the next guy, but he tended to prefer when he wasn't the one doing the burning.

"So, Sparks, then," he replied. He preferred his full name, but that was mostly because it was his name, and fuck anybody who didn't like it. But so far as nicknames went, it didn't suck, either. "If the extra syllable is too distracting or whatever."

"Oh, I don't care," Callie said. "Call yourself whatever you lie. Introduce yourself as Princess Sparkle Mugachu Imperial Ruler. I'm just making conversation to cover the fact that I haven't written class today."

And that was about the point that Sparkle decided he actually kind of liked the psycho killer demon teacher, right there.

"Well. Sparkle, then," and a brief look directed at Bucky, there. "I'm not going to protest if anyone like wants to throw Imperial Ruler on there or anything, though. Can people really go shopping in Hell?"

Priorities!

"I'd never joke about shopping," Callie said solemnly. "Most of Hell's been preserved, as Old Hell, but the newer areas are a tourist trap. A Japanese shopping mall corporation bought some controlling shares of Hell and had the idea. Lots of outlet stores that have been demonified -- Barnes and Evil, Hell Rock Cafe, Doomingdale's ..."

Edited 2012-05-08 02:37 (UTC)

Was it bad that Sparkle wanted to go to Hell? It was probably bad that Sparkle wanted to go to Hell. And yet...

"... Only Japan would come up with something like that."

He actually sounded sort of impressed.

He was really talking to the wrong person about moral dilemmas.

"Really turned the business around," Callie said proudly. "You can't imagine how many mortals want to visit Hell on a daily basis."

None of them wanted to stay, but everyone loved the taste for danger.

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Diversity and You, Class #1, Period #2, May 7th

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01

Re: Introductions. This is super original. - DIV01