fandomhigh | Pointy End AWAY From You. Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

Pointy End AWAY From You. Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

"Hello and welcome to Pointy End AWAY From You," Anakin began, dressed in slightly more casual clothing today, which meant he'd ditched the robe and was only in the rest of the Jedi uniform ("how to drop your robe like an absolute drama queen, OBI-WAN" was a class for later). "If you were under the misimpression this was a workshop on not running with scissors, you're out of luck."

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was wearing the full ensemble. (And EXCUSE YOU, Anakin, you had perfected the drama queen robe-drop.) "Rather, we are here to examine some of the fundamental types of weaponry you may come into contact with," he said, "and how to use them responsibly, so that no one accidentally loses a limb."

Deliberately, on the other hand...

Just stand there and gloat with all your original limbs, Obi-Wan. No biggie. Anakin crossed his arms over his chest (replacement ones that Obi-Wan HADN'T cut off) and nodded. "In the grand tradition of the first week of classes, we want to get an idea of your experience. If you've never stabbed a guy before--" his face said "amateur" even if his mouth didn't, "--or if you've been doing hand-to-hand combat since you could walk...it'll change how we teach you."

"And please let us know your name and the regularity of violence in your home universe, as well," Obi-Wan said.

Yes, with all of his original limbs. Which had never gotten chopped off. Not even once. (Thus proving that in the field of limb removal, Anakin was an outlier and should not be counted.)

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Pointy end away from you!

Kathy Li

Garik Loran

Raven Darkholme

Kaylin Neya

Yeah, they're still sniping...

A granola bar wasn't as good as popcorn would be to watch them interact, but it was probably better than having buttery hands. Kathy nibbled on her granola, highly amused by their...sure. 'Banter.' She'd go with that.

The only reason Face didn't have popcorn as he watched the show was that he'd needed to run to class from the radio station.

Oh, this was fascinating. Not the subject matter, just the two teachers snarling at each other like chuhuahuas. Raven couldn't quite decide if they were brothers or married.

Who are you and how many people have you killed? Maimed? Glared at in a bar?

"I'm Kathy Li, a rising senior, and I've never stabbed anybody," Kathy said, with her original limbs intact and everything. "When I fight, I try for non-lethal methods. I'm from modern day America, so violence is distressingly common, especially in my neighborhood in LA. A major gang moved into Koreatown a little over a decade ago and so it's not unusual to hear gunshots and police sirens as you're going to sleep or walking past drug deals and stuff on your way to school."

"Hello again, Kathy," Obi-Wan said, with a polite inclination of his head. "I'm sorry to hear that about your neighborhood. What is done, if anything, to try and prevent it?"

"By the people in charge?" Kathy asked with a slight curl of her lip. "Not much. Koreatown is a primarily immigrant neighborhood. The commercial area is pretty decently patrolled, but the rest of it, especially the poorer neighborhoods..." She shrugged. "LAPD tries, I guess, but the Seventeens have a hold there, too."

It wouldn't be the first time cops and politicians were paid to look the other way. Or even worse.

"What we have instead are a few costumed vigilantes who patrol the area. Nobody is really committed to it--" yet "--but I know there are a few who are more than happy to tangle with anyone wearing a green bandanna."

Obi-Wan frowned thoughtfully.

"And these vigilantes," he said, "What weapons do they use?"

Hopefully not the excessively lethal kind...

"Depends on their powers," Kathy said. "One guy can stop people with a look, knocking them unconscious and leaving them tied up for the police. The Mighty Dragon can fly and breathe fire and is invulnerable, so he just heads into the fray and starts swinging. I, uhh, make due with repurposed gymnastics equipment which, ahh, is more effective than it sounds, I swear."

"Repurposed gymnastics equipment?" Obi-Wan echoed. "What should I picture, here?"

He should probably stop raising his eyebrow, but no.

Kathy tried not to sigh; it wasn't anyone's fault but her own that everything about her screamed 'innocuous.' Nobody had made her dress in rainbows and use the stuff she'd learned in gymnastics to fight crime. "This," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a modified gymnastics ribbon and handed it over to him to inspect.

The want had been hollowed out then filled with metal. She couldn't tell you what kind of metal it was, since she'd done all the melting, drilling, and filling in the high school's metal shop, but it was heavy and that was all she worried about. The handle was then wrapped with duct tape, and the ribbons were reinforced by thin strips of wire she'd painstakingly sewed into the fabric following the warp of the fabric.

In short, they looked pretty ridiculous. Kathy was neither a seamstress nor a metal-worker and the end result was fairly crude.

"I know it doesn't look like much," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes. She knew how silly it looked, she didn't need to see his judgey eyebrow. "The duct tape keeps the plastic from cracking and gives me a better grip. And it took me a couple of attempts to find a way to strengthen the ribbons while keeping them flexible."

Edited 2015-05-07 00:43 (UTC)

Obi-Wan took the ribbon. It did look rather impractical as a weapon: the ribbon itself would balance unpredictably to the wand itself. And it would likely go skittering everywhere unless placed in the hands of a wielder with experience.

He gave it an absent twirl just to establish how that balance fell out-- he might have been called the Negotiator once, but you hardly got to his level without having a knack for weaponry-- and then passed it back.

"Interesting," he said. "Provided you don't hit yourself in the face with the ribbon-- which I assume is a problem you've already addressed."

"I was a rhythm gymnast for over a decade," Kathy said, nodding. "I learned how to use ribbons like that for my routine. Once I readjusted to the weight, it's basically the same thing I used to practice with." Less fluttery, of course, but she wasn't as inclined to make pretty patterns in the air if there weren't a panel of judges watching her do it. "Most of the time, though, I'm using it backwards, instead. Make a slipknot with the ribbon, put it over my hand, then send the wand flying into somebody's temple. Or sternum. Or wherever else. The ribbon's fourteen feet long, so it makes for a decent distance weapon that I can hold on to and pull back. The only time I throw the ribbon end at someone, I'm using it as a lasso--the wire reinforcement keeps people from being able to just rip the material."

It wasn't perfect, no, but it usually kept them busy long enough for her to catch up with them and handle things a little more up close and personally.

Face also had all his original limbs, just not all his original skin.

"I'm Face, and I haven't killed anyone." Directly. Yet. "Though I took Atton's class last semester."

Anakin smirked a bit at that. "Did he undo any holo-stunt related bad habits?"

"You mean like waiting for heroic stormtroopers to rescue me?"

Anakin's face went through a number of emotions before settling on a smirk. "Any of them run into the doors doing so?"

Quality control got a little iffy post-clones.

"I'm Raven Darkholme," Raven said, looking rather a bit uncomfortable with the introduction subject matter. Could they get back to the part where the teachers were sniping at each other? "And, uh. Ioncebludgeonedsomeonetodeathwithapipe. But they were totally trying to kill me first. And it was in this underwater hellhole and they were trying to kill me first and I probably put them out of their misery." She was slightly defensive, yes. "Things back home aren't really that violent right now? But I used to get chased by angry mobs with pitchforks pretty regularly, when I was a kid."

"I am hardly about to judge anyone acting in self-defense," Obi-Wan said, because if he was, he'd be even more of a hypocrite than he already was in general. "Though... pitchforks?"

It seemed both excessive and rather needlessly clumsy.

"It wasn't always pitchforks," Raven allowed. Or, you know, even more than once. "But the angry mob thing happened all the time."

"I am sorry," Obi-Wan said, and meant it. "That is nothing a child should bear. How did you make it through?"

"I got a lot better at hiding," Raven said. "And then I met my brother and he wasn't afraid of me, so he took me in. I'm a shapeshifter," she explained. "That tends to freak people out, back home."

"Shapeshifting is a somewhat unusual talent," Obi-Wan said, "But not unheard of, where we are from, and hardly deserving of persecution."

He cleared his throat as he tried to wind it back to the topic at hand. "I suppose that makes you capable of manifesting some amount of weaponry yourself?"

"A little. I haven't tried it that much, but I've made my hands into ice picks before. Mostly I just turn into someone big or with sharp teeth or something."

"I'm Soren Bearstar, I just graduated, and despite being a berserker- which, yes, that's what the tattoo means," he said, reaching up to touch the spear on his left cheek, "I've never been part of a war band. I've fought in holmgang- that's trial by combat- a couple of times, and battled mountain trolls, but I've never killed."

"How big is a mountain troll?" Anakin asked, looking interested.

"Big," Soren said, gesturing a couple feet above his own head. Which, well. He was not exactly short to start with. "Iron-wights and cat-wights are much smaller, but cat-wights especially can still be plenty of trouble, sort of like the gremlins here, but meaner."

Anakin made a face. "I hate gremlins."

Why did Soren get the feeling there was a story there?

"I'm careful to leave them regular offerings of food, and so far it's meant that they've not caused me any trouble."

"Lucky," Anakin muttered. "Apparently they find my entire family delicious."

"I'm Kaylin Neya and..." she hesitated. "I'm in training to be a Hawk, so I've done lots of weapons training and hand-to-hand training. And yes, I've stabbed - killed - people."

She wasn't proud of it, but she wanted to be honest. She was definitey NOT going to talk about the people she'd killed with magic."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Obi-Wan said. "Killing is never easy."

... And if it was, you had a Problem.

"What weapons have you trained with?"

She tried to shrug a little, as if it didn't matter even though it clearly did. "I did what I had to."

And paid for it dearly when she didn't.

"I'm good with daggers and okay with a sword. And hand to hand stuff, of course."

Three dudes, no waiting!

Obi-Wan seemed perfectly at peace about this class.

But that's how he usually looked, so that didn't really say much.

Soren was here, of course, looking bemused by the instructors' banter.

Tada!

Edited 2015-05-06 12:42 (UTC)

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Pointy End AWAY From You. Wednesday, May 6th, 2015

Sign in 5/6

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Listen to the talk

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Answer their questions!

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Talk to Anakin, Obi-Wan or Soren

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OOC