fandomhigh | How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, March 11, 2014]

Anakin, who'd gotten a visual reminder of the time his son and Gavin Darklighter had thought they'd been Siegfried and Roy, not the most dignified island moment ever, might have let that influence the mood he was in when he'd programmed the Danger Shop.

"Welcome to Geonosis," he said with a wicked smile as each student found themselves handcuffed to a huge stone pillar in the middle of an arena. "Sometimes negotiations go poorly. In this case, they've gone straight to poodoo. You have thirty seconds before your captors will release an acklay--an image of a giant bug helpfully sprang to holographic life before them--"a nexu, and a reek."

More photos helpfully showed what was going to try to eat them.

"Working together, get out of the arena." Anakin smiled. "And girls, you have a hairpin inside your sleeves because when I was in this very same situation--" which said something about the poor choices Anakin had made in his life, "--my first wife was smart enough to have one in her sleeve and used it to pick the lock on her cuffs. I was too busy bickering with my teacher at the time to do something just as useful."

He smiled again. "Welcome to aggressive negotiations."

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"I think there's a lot wrong with this entire situation," Elsa shot back, sounding just the tiniest bit perturbed.

Okay, no, she was practically seething.

"This is not okay!"

As though there was any doubt.

"This is so far from okay that we can't even see 'okay' from here!" Joker agreed. "At least it's not real?"

"If it was real, most of us would be dead." Elsa wasn't even going to mince words, where that was concerned. It was the truth. "As it stands, is there any guarantee that people aren't going to end up hurt? This is... it's grossly irresponsible."

This was probably the most harsh her language was going to get until she worked her way up to a good rant.

"There are safeguards!" Joker told her. "You'll be fine. Probably." As for him? That really depended on the margin of error in the safeguards.

"It's not me I'm worried about," Elsa replied firmly, expression pulled into a frown. "People make stupid, dangerous mistakes when they're thrown into the middle of chaos unprepared."

Or when they were handcuffed to large pillars and couldn't talk people into just leaving them there to be devoured rather than setting them free, say.

"I... think the safeguards protect against that, too?" Joker offered.

"Stupid, dangerous mistakes that might hurt each other?"

Could the safeguards keep her from freezing somebody to death?

"I... think so?" Joker answered. "I mean, I know that logically that doesn't make any sense, but when has this place worked on logic? As I understand it, the rule is that you just can't get hurt in the Danger Shop." He looked a little nervous. "I'm just hoping that it knows how fragile I am, 'cause I doubt I'm getting out of this uneaten."

"You can't do that," Elsa replied. "You can't reassure me that nobody's going to get hurt, and then go on to say that you hope you don't get hurt."

It made her want to get eaten quickly, just so it wouldn't be a concern.

"I can try to put myself between you and the monsters, if you're worried. I want to see you get injured about as much as you do."

"Look, no, all I'm saying is that the monsters aren't going to hurt you, and other students aren't going to hurt you, but I can be broken by falling down, which might not be accounted for. That's all. You run, okay? It's not going to HURT, but I can't imagine getting eaten will be all that pleasant."

"More or less unpleasant than actually leaving here with an injury?" Elsa's tone was firm, now. She'd hit her 'taking crap from anybody' upper limit, and now she was hitting stubborn mode.

It ran in the family.

"Besides, of course I'm not going to aim to get myself eaten. But I want to think I can make a fair distraction, myself."

"Yes, yes you can," Joker told her. "And then once you're done being a distraction, you will be eaten. And you're too pretty to be eaten. And then I will be eaten, and then that will suck for both of us. You can run -- so run. Running will injure me. Look, I ~~don't want to Joss the other threads~~ can handle myself, 'kay?"

Elsa was giving Joker a bit of a sour look, now. She wanted to argue, but at the end of the day, it was his choice to make.

"Fine," she replied, "I'll run ~~because oops, no Jossing!~~, but if you actually get hurt, Joker, so help me, I'll..."

... Likely she would just be that much more angry at Professor Skywalker. But she wasn't going to finish that threat, so it wasn't like he'd know she wasn't going to do more than hover in concern for a while or something.

How to Make Friends and Influence People [Tuesday, March 11, 2014]

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!

Re: Get out of your handcuffs!