fandomhigh | Off The Grid: Laying Low for Beginners, Tuesday, Period Two

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Off The Grid: Laying Low for Beginners, Tuesday, Period Two

"So," Kanan said, looking out over his class. "Strengths. We all have them. Whether those strengths are things that set us apart as exceptional, or if they simply give us an advantage in areas where others might rather they not, most of us are capable of something at least a little bit attention grabbing. It might not even be related to the reason you're trying to keep your head down. It is possible to be a member of a group of people that frequently falls victim to bigotry and also be an exceptional individual, after all. The fact remains that exceptional talents tend to attract attention."

A pause.

"Unless that ability is turning invisible without first having to get your hands on some kind of cloaking technology. Then, uh, good on you. And if that's a skill that can be taught, I'd love to learn the trick to it." Kanan gave the group a wry grin. "Then again, I can respect how important it is to keep a few tricks up your sleeve. That is the point of this lecture in the first place, after all."

He nodded toward the class.

"I'm not going to go asking any of you to announce what you're capable of in front of a room of people you might not necessarily know or trust," for reasons including but not limited to casual xenophobia, yes, "but I am going to ask you to think about those things and how you might go about disguising them. Hell, we can even discuss hypotheticals. Obviously you don't just go around announcing that you can do things that are easily concealed, like picking a lock or throwing a mean right hook. But if there are any tools of the trade that might give a person away, should they hide them? How about a physique that betrays exceptional physical strength? What do you do about those things that can't be hidden for whatever reason? Can they be used to try to intimidate people into giving you space? Should they? Discuss."

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Exceptionally!

Talking is only one of Kanan's many exceptional talents.

Go ahead, discuss hypotheticals, unless for some reason you really trust the other people in the room. What should and shouldn't be hidden? Are there situations where those exceptional abilities might be better to show off? And what about those things that set you apart but can't be hidden? Or whatever else you'd like to discuss on the topic. Today's all about ability, folks.

A few of his examples might have come from personal experience, or maybe they didn't. He might clarify which is which if you ask, or he might not.

Carnies probably know a thing or two about having something up their sleeves.

Another day in the animation mines, but I'll be around in the evening.

Ahsoka Tano

Ada Miller

Dante

"What if your weird gets flare-ups?" Dante asked. "Y'know, if you're a werewolf or something, and sometimes something just flips on without you wanting it to."

Asking for a friend.

...

Not that he was a werewolf. If he knew what he was, that'd make his life so much easier, really.

[[ now under the right ocd. ]]

Why would Ada know anything about having something up her sleeve? She wasn't even wearing sleeves! How could a girl hide anything while wearing a tank-top, glitter, and a smile?

She wasn't privately amused by any of this. No. Really.

"Make up another excuse for it?" Ada suggested. "You're from a universe without shrimp originally, an' it's the allergic reaction for your entire species?"

Dante snorted. "That'll work somewhere people believe in other universes," he said, "Not so much in one where you bring that up and people send you to the nut house."

"Fine. There was a thing," Ada deadpanned, gesturing expressively with her hands. "There was a scorned ex-lover's mother and a large object and your head and some chickens and you know it's really quite rude to bring up someone's epileptic fits and you'd rather not discuss it, thank you kindly."

Well, damn. There was a question that hit Kanan a little close to home. With the way the Force kept trying to assert itself back into his life whenever he got too comfortable in any one place, he knew a thing or two about weird flare-ups at inopportune times. He frowned a little, thoughtfully.

"I suppose the first thing to take into consideration in that case is whether or not there's any sort of warning sign or circumstance in particular that might trigger those flare-ups," he said, after a moment's pause. "If there's either, that might make those flare-ups easier to keep hidden, if not under control. Something you know to avoid, or some sort of signal that it's time to get some distance before you out yourself."

He supposed he should at least get that part out of the way before suggesting that somebody do something more extreme. Like go into self-imposed exile forever or something utterly ridiculous like that.

"If not, then the nature of those flare-ups probably matters a bit more. If you have to worry about something that could potentially hurt other people, for example, or something that takes away your self-control, I'd guess it becomes less about hiding it, and more about controlling the aftermath."

Yeah, that first part was some excellent advice. For someone who actually knew where his flare-ups were coming from, anyway. Dante'd gotten half the life sucked out of him the first time around - not in the good way - and he'd gotten really, really angry the second. Besides the feeling of it, he wasn't sure what pulled the two together.

"Right," he said slowly. "So... if any random shit can set it off? Aftermath control, what'd that be like?"

"Gotta count on people being stupid," Dante pointed out. "So... not a bad idea."

"That," Kanan replied, "would depend on the aftermath. If somebody is, say, leaving swaths of bodies behind them that can be tracked back to the source, it might come down to moving on and never looking back. If it's something more subtle, maybe somebody caught a flare-up on camera and they're threatening to release the footage as blackmail, then you'll have to figure out how you want to deal with that."

He pursed his lips for a moment, and then added, "I suppose the first step would be deciding if the evidence that you've left behind is the sort that can come back to you. And if that evidence comes in the form of witnesses, what steps are you willing to take to make sure they don't come forward to talk? The safest witness is no witness at all, but some people can at least be bought off."

This was all getting way more complicated than Dante was sure he was comfortable with. He didn't really do this sneaky lying bribing stuff and there'd been a lot more of it this course than he really knew how to deal with.

"Or you could scare 'em," he said slowly.

"Or you could scare them," Kanan replied, though it was probably obvious there was a 'but' in there. "Just so long as you're certain that you're more frightening than whoever it is they might go running to. Some people take being threatened and roughed up as a sure indication that the only way they'll be safe from you is to go shooting off their mouth to local law enforcement, or the wrong bounty hunter or crime lord or what-have-you. And greed and fear can both make people do stupid things."

"Some people don't have the money to go pay people off," Dante said, shrugging faintly. "Or maybe the people they're talking to just don't like their face."

He couldn't think of a lot of people who weren't predisposed to turn him into the cops back home if they had a reason to think about him for more than a few moments.

"True. And true," Kanan replied, a faint smile twitching at his lips. "Paying people off is just one option on a long list of possibilities, and even then, sometimes you have to come to terms with the fact that no amount of money or fear will keep somebody from talking, just so long as they're alive to do so."

Not that Kanan was advocating for murder here, so much as it was something that was important to be aware of.

"In that case, it's going to come down to just how important your current situation is to you. Whether you need to stay put for whatever reason, if having word about your abilities stay a secret is worth whatever action you might take to protect it. Not everybody can afford to cut their losses and run, but having everybody know where and who and what you are might not be a risk worth taking, either."

Voice of experience. He wasn't even trying terribly hard at this point to hide that fact.

"That's enough buts to fill a club with," Dante said, leaning backwards. He was squinting at Kanan a little now, yeah. "And what if the people who're after you are everywhere and there's nowhere to run to?"

Again. Asking for a friend.

That was a good question, Dante. Kanan's little frown said about as much. He'd always had somewhere to run, even if it meant starting from rock bottom and clawing his way back up from there. And faking his own death could only hold people off for so long if there was the chance that he could be outed again at any possible moment.

"I suppose that depends on whether or not trusting somebody is an option," he said, carefully. "And, considering the possibilities that an entire multiverse presents, if 'everywhere' includes other worlds entirely."

Still a lot of buts, he knew. But that was kind of one of the many, many side-effects of being a wanted man.

"You know a lot about running, don't you?"

Yeah, sure. This class was about keeping your head low, blah blah. But it did seem to be a thing Jarrus here gravitated towards.

It was also something Dante wasn't great at, even if he'd had to do it all his life.

"What can I say? I like to be well-versed in my subject matter." Kanan tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at Dante. "It's possible to stay put in a lot of cases, but there are some hypothetical situations that don't lend themselves very well to it. Not unless you're willing to take more extreme measures to protect a secret that wants to make itself known, and I don't think I'm technically supposed to be encouraging students to kill people."

That would make him a bad teacher and a bad Jedi.

Dante shrugged. "What about self-defense?" he said.

Casually.

He didn't know it, but he was warrior-bred, which... probably explained a lot of his problems in this class overall, really.

"Sure," Kanan replied. "If you can defend yourself without drawing more attention to yourself. But I suppose there are tricks to that, too."

He smirked faintly.

"Picking fights doesn't count, you know."

He wasn't going to let go of that bar brawl any time soon, no.

Dante shrugged one shoulder casually, flashing Kanan a smirk. "Got me out of there, didn't it?"

"Still missed the point," Kanan snorted, though at least he was faintly amused. "At the end of the day, I suppose it all comes down to risk assessment. You can fight back, you can shake people down to scare them, but at least be aware that actions have consequences, and consider whether those consequences are worth dealing with."

"And when you do stuff you weren't planning on doing, but--" Apparently waving your hand was now the international sign for flare-ups, "You blurt out a couple of curses and deal with people. Got it."

Yeah, that was sure to work for those times this hypothetical person went white-and-red-and-full-of-demon-rage on the world around him. Them.

Merrill

Yeah, it didn't tend to work terribly well when you were blithely breaking the laws of physics in order to not get crushed by falling objects, either.

"Gauge the damage, go from there," Kanan replied, again speaking with that weight of experience, though skirting around specifics. He suspected the conversation would head in some interesting directions if they weren't dealing in hypotheticals, here. He wasn't going to put Dante on the spot like that. At least not with an audience. "There are always options, just so long as you aren't dead yet. The trick is figuring out which one is the best for which situation."

Or just keep running. It seemed to be working for Kanan thus far.

Experience over the past year had taught Dante that no matter where he ran, the demons would eventually find him.

Experience over the past month had taught him he had trouble staying away from home, too. Limbo City had a way of crawling into your head.

"Right, thanks," Dante said, settling back. "Thank fuck that's not my problem. I just gotta make sure I don't punch holes in anybody's anything." He grinned.

See? That thing was totally about another thing.

Oh yeah, absolutely somebody else's other thing. Kanan wasn't calling you on this one, Dante, but don't think he was fooled for even a second, here.

"Well, yeah, try not to do that, too," Kanan snorted. "But if you ever have any other hypothetical situations to throw around, you know where to find me."

Dante pressed two fingers to his temple. "I will definitely think about doing that," he said, and threw Kanan a sloppy, sarcastic salute.

Hey now, Dante. Sloppy sarcastic salutes were Kanan's thing.

"Just not very hard?"

He knew how this game was played, Dante. He was something of an irreverent shit, himself.

Sloppy sarcastic salutes weren't patented, Kanan. And if he knew you wanted them to be trademarked or whatever, he'd probably throw them around even more.

"I got a lot of other things to think very hard about," Dante agreed. "Some of them are even in this room."

Quit it, horny teenager.

Seriously, Dante. Kanan would start bringing a spray bottle of water and a rolled-up newspaper to class just for you.

"Well, then by all means, don't let me interrupt," he replied, shaking his head. "Just keep your flirting outside of the classroom, please."

He liked to think he didn't ask much, really. Not that he was invested enough in teaching this class to do anything about it, either.

Well, that was fair, and--

"Define classroom."

More like define little shit, DANTE.

Kanan just sighed and waved a dismissive hand at him.

"Never mind," he muttered. "If I figure you're interrupting anything important, I'll just throw pens at you until you stop."

Seemed fair to him, anyway.

No more rainbows for Kanan! *sob*

PARDON ME I NEED TO BE SAD FOREVER, NOW

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Off The Grid: Laying Low for Beginners, Tuesday, Period Two

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