fandomhigh | Still want to be a Hero?, Thursday, 3rd Period

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heroism

Still want to be a Hero?, Thursday, 3rd Period

Cara had her students meet her in front of the preserve, mostly because she could, where she waited for them, striking a properly intimidating pose...if not for the fact there was a small, brown, spotted cat romping through the grass at her feet.

"This is Still Want To Be a Hero?, where I try to knock some sense into your heads," Cara said, because verbal filters were for other people. "I recognise most of you, but we're still going to do introductions for the new kids. So names, and tell me why you think being a hero is in any way a good decision."

"Then, once we've gotten that out of the way, I want you to share with the class a tale of some great hero from your homelands. Feel free to ask each other questions about your stories, but only after they've finished it." Only she was allowed to be rude.

Cara gestured towards the kitten, who was now stalking insects through the grass. "Finally, those of you who were here last session remember my lovely and adorable assistant, Surreal," she said, as Surreal pounced at a butterfly and missed. "I'd advise anyone who feels an urge for teasing to wait until she doesn't have multiple weapons attached."

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Heroically! (Or fuzzily!)

Anders

Scott McCall

Evan Sabahnur

Kaylin Neya

Kathy Li

Kira Yukimura

Andros

Four

As a tiny kitty tries to kill her boots.

Names, and why on earth you believe heroism is a valid life choice.

"I'm Anders," Anders said, smirking just a bit at Cara's introduction. He'd gotten the impression from the last class that she was as much a hero as anyone -- she just hid it well. "And I still think heroism is a good idea because some things are more important than our personal safety and happiness."

At which he felt the slightest twinge of conscience. He wasn't much help to other mages if he was a world away going to high school classes, was he?

She hid it so well, she didn't believe she was in the slightest.

"Back for more I see," Cara said, only to be interrupted by imperious mewing. She bent down to pick Surreal up before continuing. "Things like power and glory?"

"I was thinking more like freedom and justice," Anders answered, eyes fixed on Surreal. "And your girlfriend makes an adorable cat, if that's really her."

Now that Cara had helpfully lifted her up, Surreal was in prime position to bat at her hair with outstretched paws. "She is," Cara confirmed. "Though the squirrels didn't seem to think so."

Possibly because you let her pounce on them, Cara?

Anders waved that off. "You can't ask a squirrel about a cat," he said. "It's like asking a mage about a templar. There's a certain bias."

Cara smirked. "Their bias seemed to revolve around her being too 'pointy'."

Anders squinted at the cat. "Maybe, but it looks to me like it'd be easy enough to stay free of the pointy bits."

Unless, of course, you were a squirrel.

Surreal paused in her efforts to kill Cara's hair to proudly show off her sharp kitten claws to Anders. She had them on both paws, and tiny sharp teeth as well. "That what I told them," Cara said.

"I'm Evan, and..." He frowned a little, trying to come up with a good answer. "I've seen a lot of people do bad things, and I'm tired of seeing it. I want to be the person who helps other people, not the one who causes that hurt, and where I'm from, there's not much room for middle ground for someone like me."

Most people had already stuck him pretty firmly in the 'supervillain' box. Evan was going to have none of that.

"Why can't you just pick a middle ground?" Cara asked. "Assuming you even wanted to."

"Because there's been a... a precedent set," Evan ventured. "It kind of affects me specifically, and it means that if I don't want to be seen as the absolute worst, I need to consistently be one of the best, or else I'm still too much of a liability."

Cara could understand where he was coming from, although in her case it was usually at least halfway justified.

"Well, that sucks." Here, Evan, have a kitty bounding over to bat at your foot because her girlfriend utterly failed at effectively conveying sympathy when it didn't involve offering to beat people up.

"It does suck, a bit," Evan agreed, giving his foot a wiggle so that Surreal would have something to play with. It was a welcome distraction from the twisting feeling in his chest that always came around when he talked about this sort of thing, at least. "But that's why I'm here. So that I can get better at it in a place where it doesn't matter as much."

Edited 2014-07-04 05:49 (UTC)

Aha! Evil foot! Surreal would defeat it for you, Evan!

"Sounds like they're the ones who actually need to get better at something." Though she doubted that would happen.

"Maybe," Evan agreed, and he couldn't help but smile a little as his foot was set upon by the ferocious kitten, "but I can't exactly bank on them ever doing that. They've done too much lying and hiding the truth for me to think for even a second that they believe I can choose to do the right thing. It doesn't matter how unfair or hypocritical or what they are. It's on me to prove them wrong."

Aww, Evan, if only Cara was able to introduce you to Richard. He'd believe in you! He'd believe in you, so hard.

"There's little more satisfying in this world than proving some bastard wrong." That wasn't an especially heroic line of thought, Cara.

Every tiny supervillain clone needed a Richard. It was practically science.

"Satisfying or not, I'd settle for just being allowed to get on with my life," Evan admitted. "But if proving that I'm not horrible involves doing some good along the way, I can live with that, too."

"I'm Kaylin Neya." And what the hell was she doing in this class? "I'm not sure being a hero is so great. Or at least not trying to be one. You do what you do and if people think it's cool later, well, okay."

What was she doing here, given she sounded like she wasn't suicidally idealistic. "It's a far more sensible outlook than some I've heard."

"This seems like a very strange class."

Kaylin and tact were not exactly buddies.

"I'm Kathy Li," she said when introductions got around to her. "And I think heroism's important because there are always going to be people who want to hurt others or take advantage of them and not everyone has the capability to stand up and say that that kind of behavior is wrong. So, on behalf of everyone who can't, heroes are the ones who can and will."

"Does it matter if they actually succeed in changing anything or not?"

Share a tale of heroism ~~or an outline of one~~ with the class.

Ask questions, and comment on other peoples.

"One of my favorite stories is about two Grey Wardens, Corin and Neriah," Anders said. "They were lovers, and they fought together in the second Blight. Neriah threw herself in front of an arrow to save Corin, and because of her sacrifice he was able to go on to slay the archdemon Zazikel and end the blight."

Evan was quiet for a long while, frowning as he thought about the heroes from home. There was certainly no shortage to choose from, but what he'd seen of more than a few of them had put so many far too solidly into the realm of 'hypocrite' and 'liar' for him to really call any one of them great.

"There was a man who was on a team of people who called themselves heroes. They set out one day to save the world, like that sort of hero does, by searching for a man who would bring about the apocalypse, who would destroy or enslave all humans on Earth. Only... when they found him, he was only a little boy. They argued about what to do with him, some insisting they kill the boy on the spot, others deciding to take the boy and raise him properly, to teach him to be a good man. It didn't matter, in the end. One man made the decision for the rest of the group, and he killed the boy."

... That was very much not the story of heroism that Evan was leading in to. But it was important setup.

"What the rest of the group didn't know was that the man who killed him took some of the child's blood and made a new child from that, and raised that boy to be a good man. One day, some horrible people found the boy, and took him away, and tried to make him do their will, tried to break him so that he'd be the destroyer that the one who came before him had been, lifetime after lifetime. The team of heroes went in to find him. One of them - the one who had made the boy - was killed in an effort to break the child. The rest were left to decide what to do with the boy, again. He was clearly too much of a risk."

Evan was not going to look up again for love or money, now.

"One of them, the one the rest discounted as a madman, a lunatic, actually made it all the way in. He was the one who ended up being in the position to make that choice. He was the one who would take money for jobs, to put people down, to get his hands dirty. And he took one look at the boy, and he said he was going to do the thing that the rest of the group should have done all along."

Evan shrugged.

"He saved him."

And that was the only story of heroism that mattered to Evan, anymore.

"Uh..." Stories of heros and heroism had not been big in Kaylin's life. "Um... the Dragon Emperor killed and ate a whole bunch of people to bring peace to Elantra?"

History was also not one of her strong suits.

Beware attempts to pounce on your ankles.

Surreal!kitty modded with permission. Natch.

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Still want to be a Hero?, Thursday, 3rd Period

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Talk to Cara or...KITTY! - SwtbaH [01]

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