fandomhigh | The Day After Doomsday, Wednesday, Period 4

"Oookay." Reno was not starting with a chipper, 'hey, Rookies!' today. Reno had a lot of work to do with these ones, so the group was actually meeting in the classroom today, no fancy Danger Shop setup for them. "So last week, I threw you guys completely blind at a survival scenario, mostly to see what would happen. And then I went home and I spent the night drinking, holy shit."

Was Reno not supposed to share that? Reno was going to share that anyway.

"I'm not saying you were all gonna die. I'm just saying there was no chance in hell most of you were going to survive, at that rate. We had one person running around telling everyone what they figured was the best plan, we had all of them disagreeing with that and coming up with plans of their own. We had my fricking TA arguing with anyone he talked to. We had people sitting around resigned to die and we had people who had been upsetting people because they were sitting around resigned to die then turning around and yelling at other people who were sitting the hell around, resigned to die. There were communication misfires all over the place, nobody could agree on whether they ought to stay or go, and in the hour you guys had for class, nobody got around to actually assessing the situation. Plenty of plans to survive whatever hypothetical you thought of, but if a single one of you can tell me what was out there rattling the doors, I'll give you my friggin' ferret."

Anybody? Bueller?

"I was gonna cover surviving severe climate change this week," he added, raising an eyebrow, "but I think my efforts would be put to better use teaching you guys basic teamwork, or at least how to put together some kind of decision-making process. Human history? Is completely full of decision-making and teamwork, by the way. We're a social species, we're kind of kickass like that. So this should be easy. We've got plenty of government types to pick from, even. You've got democracy - easy to do in a group this size. You can all agree or disagree by show of hands in thirty seconds or less, and there, decision made, shit's gettin' done. You can appoint someone to make the big choices, preferably somebody who's been there or done that. Doesn't have to be one person, it can be a few, just so you have a sanity check in place if person number one is about to do something stupid. I know there are a couple of you who are in this class in order to learn how to deal with shit that's already going on back home. They might be a good place to start. You already tried the group brainstorm, and I counted no less than three people who were contemplating murdering someone else in their sleep. So, trust me, unless you all get better at that one, it's probably not for you."

Reno shrugged his shoulders, sighing and leaning back against his desk. He'd kept his voice even and calm through all of that - they were rookies, it made no sense to get mad at them for making rookie mistakes - but all of the bickering that had gone on in the room last week had him a little concerned and a little disappointed, all the same.

"If you really want to do the brainstorm thing, if you're all hell-bent on presenting your ideas to the group and being heard, try picking someone to facilitate the discussion. Someone to sit in the middle of your little discussion circle to make certain that everyone has a chance to have their voice be heard. You probably want to pick a neutral party for that one, someone who can tell everyone to shut up while you all have a chance to talk, no matter how stupid you're being. Then you can all talk about the ideas that were shared with the group like grownups. You lose 'being an antagonistic ass' privileges for this idea, by the way. The facilitator also has the right to make you go sit in the goddamned corner."

Reno might have just added that bit, but he was not above pulling out the dunce cap and a chair if it really came down to it, this week.

"I'll bunch extreme climate change and a toxic environment all into one class next week, yo. Sometimes they're tied together anyway. This week, you are all going to sit your asses down and figure out how you're going to make decisions for future classes, from here on. And then, whatever you pick, we're going to stick with for the rest of the summer, unless I say otherwise. Making big choices fast is a huge part of survival. Your ability to get shit done is gonna make or break you, yo. Choosing not to be part of the group is a legitimate decision, too, but the group can reserve the right to figure out what to do about rogue aspects if your choices start to put them in danger. This is doomsday, people. You don't get to sit cozy and make easy decisions anymore."

[Open!]

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"A secure one," Reno replied with a shrug. "But hey, that's just me. I'm no stranger to taking stupid risks just to answer questions, either. But when it comes down to comparing how much your quality of life is worth compared to the immediate safety of the other people helpin' you live, 'what kind of life' is something you might want to think about a little longer, yo."

"If I were more interested in security than in freedom, there's a tower room waiting for me back in the Circle of Mages," Anders told him, a touch more sharply than he intended to. "I'm not. I wouldn't force anyone to risk their life if they didn't want to -- but if no one volunteered as a scout I'd leave on my own and see how far I got."

He drew a deep breath and let it out. "But hey, that's just me."

Edited 2014-05-21 18:30 (UTC)

Reno took the sharp tone with a grain of salt and a shrug of his shoulders.

"Scouting isn't a stupid idea," he settled on. "Hell, it's smart, getting out there and seeing what's what before the lot of you ship out and see the world, yo. I'm talkin' about the worth of your resources, mostly. You gonna risk havin' people run out there and get ripped apart on day one? The people going out as scouts are most likely your most able-bodied, too. You might want those people, later."

He kind of enjoyed this sort of discussion. He wasn't thinking Anders was wrong, per se, but he was definitely trying to encourage stepping back and looking at cost versus gain.

Anders was enjoying the conversation too; it was interesting to debate things like this when you were both safe and free.

"That's fair, but aren't people able-bodied in different ways?" he asked. "Scouts need to be fast and smart, but we don't need to risk our strongest. It's like how you wouldn't send me to pick a lock, and you wouldn't expect a rogue to be able to heal a broken bone."

He added, as a concession, "I'll admit it might have been a good idea to look at our resources more before we decided to head out. I just don't like feeling trapped."

"Trapped sucks," Reno agreed, giving a sober sort of nod. "I know trapped, yo. Spent too many years of my life never seeing the sun, and then jumped at the chance to get out of there, didn't care what that meant I'd have to do in return."

And the full extent of that, he wasn't sharing with the class.

"What were you hopin' to find out there, man? Another safe building to hole up and be trapped in? If it's a matter of escaping into the sewers or Special Collections or a freezer in some sandwich joint, the end result isn't much different." A beat. "Though it would be an end result that's more on your own damn terms. I can respect that, yo."

"It'd be on our terms," Anders agreed firmly. "But more than that -- this is an island, isn't it? The whole world's beyond it. We have Blights at home, horrible things where demons swarm the world. But there are always some cities that aren't as affected. Get off the island, and we could go to find one of those. I agree leaving here to hide in a freezer is just trading one cage for another."

Edited 2014-05-22 13:47 (UTC)

Reno gave a faint smile at that, nodded a little. Okay, the kid was making good points.

"There's usually somewhere out there that's not as bad off as the rest," Reno agreed. "The fact that this is an island helps. The fact that it's a multidimensional whateverthefuck helps, too. Means you have more places to run to. But even that's not always an option. It's not something I want people banking on all the time. More than once, this place has thrown up walls to keep help out and people in, yo."

Because the island was cruel and unusual from time to time.

"The island can keep us in?" Anders repeated, surprised. "That's awful. And it does change things a bit."

"Little bit, yeah," Reno sighed. "Sometimes people just get as far as the end of the Causeway, and then they find themselves heading back the way they came without ever turning around, yo. I read up on a few of the things I missed since I last left. There was one point where there wasn't anything left beyond the island, literally."

He shrugged.

"Of course I'm gonna encourage just getting the hell out of harm's way whenever you can, that's just common sense. But I'm tryin' to focus on what you do here if you can't escape for whatever reason, too. That's when you're gonna need any of what I teach in this class the most, and it happens more often than it really should, around here."

"And we ran right over your point," Anders said ruefully. "All right. If you give us another simulation like that, I'll pretend the rest of the world has turned to ash for purposes of discussion."

In real life, he'd still try to run given half the chance. But he figured Reno had probably surmised as much by now.

Reno had kind of figured that out, yeah. Hell, it was good to know. He wanted his students to run, if running was an option.

"I'll be clearer about that," Reno conceded, shrugging. "Anyway, most of today's lecture was about the arguing going on between half the class anyway. You were pretty good about it yourself, but a couple of others..."

He wrinkled his nose a little. There had been a lot of unnecessary sniping at one another in last week's class, and that wasn't conducive to getting anything done, really, at all.

"Shit, I thought I was hard to get along with, yo."

"Some people took it more personally than they had to," Anders agreed, stopping just shy of naming names. "I try not to fight when there's really nothing at stake. We all knew we'd get out of here in an hour no matter what, and no one started out being rude on purpose."

Anders was largely a temper-free zone as long as no one brought up mages' rights.

"Yeah," Reno replied, "they didn't."

Except maybe Barry, who threw around fuckwords like he was paid to do it.

"Whatever started it, this is still a classroom environment. There's a time and place for pissing contests, and here ain't it." A beat. "And now I'm bein' the no-fun police. Shit."

He wasn't supposed to be responsible, damn it!

"You are, but I won't tell anyone," Anders said, a mischievous smile dancing around his eyes. "I think stopping misbehavior is your sworn duty as a teacher, anyhow."

"See, if I knew I was going to feel compelled to behave myself, I never would have signed up for this gig," Reno sighed, though he wasn't even trying to hide his smirk. "There's no way I'm supposed to be the positive influence here, yo."

"I could go get drunk in your honor tonight," Anders offered.

Reno snorted a little at that.

"Trust me, Rookie," oh no, uppercase R, "I plan on getting plenty drunk in my own honor tonight."

"Rookie?" Anders repeated, cocking his head as he decided he liked the sound of it. "Well, there are worse things you could call me. Have fun tonight."

The Day After Doomsday, Wednesday, Period 4

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