fandomhigh | How to Win Friends and Influence People

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how to make friends and influence people

How to Win Friends and Influence People | Friday, period 1

Kanan had a techinicolor dalmatian with him today. He seemed less perturbed about that fact than even he felt like he should be, but he couldn't quite shake the thing, and he hadn't managed to nerve himself to dragging it back off the island and leaving it with its own kind again before the island had moved on.

That, and it cried whenever he left it behind in the apartment.

"How to win people to your way of thinking," he began, and then set the book down on the desk. "This chapter is full of things like 'avoiding arguments' and 'let the other person talk a lot.' Oh, and my personal favorite, 'let them think that your idea was their idea.'" Or something like that, anyway. Kanan was paraphrasing. He shook his head a bit. "And yeah, I guess people do love listening to themselves talk, but the amount of seeding you'd have to do in a conversation to make a person have the exact same idea as you while they're doing all the talking seems less like work and more like some kind of top spy espionage or something."

"Things like that tend to work best in arguments," Bob said. "Get them really annoyed, and they'll agree to things before they know what they're doing. Emotions are your tools." He grinned.

Kanan shook his head.

"A little pleasantness can go a long way. And actually taking into consideration the person you're talking to. You want to win someone over, engage them in a situation where they're comfortable and not on their guard. Ask 'em out for caf. Coffee." He gave Bob a side-eye, and then sighed. "Or you could bribe them."

That seemed to be an answer that came up a lot this semester already, okay?

It was a time-honored tradition! It worked!

"Trickery's a great way, too," Bob offered. "If they're not the sort to be won over by pure logic - if they are, well, there you go, just find a logical argument - get them to feel sorry for you, or as I said, annoy them, or just get them up in arms about something unrelated. Overly emotional people are less likely to accurately judge the worth of what you want. Get them on your side or violently against you, and they're easy to manipulate."

Which he'd actually learned from hundreds of years of manipulating people with talking, and not simply from watching politicians.

"So, pair up again, and pick something interesting, then try to get your partner to agree to your point of view. Any questions?"

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"And everywhere else since," Kanan agreed, giving Gratuity a wry smile. "I've tried pointing out that I don't know the first thing about dogs, but he doesn't seem to be listening."

Dog-Real-Name-Pending looked up at Kanan, tongue lolling out of his head, and panted happily. Kanan waved a hand, a sort of silent 'go ahead,' and Insert-Name-Here trotted over to sniff at Tip's knees. He was still a short pup.

"Funny," he added, "that's the only thing he hasn't listened to so far."

"Sometimes pets pick you," Tip said, crouching down to say a proper hello to the dog. "That's how I ended up with Bill." Who wasn't quite a pet but wasn't quite not a pet either, so. "And kind of how my family got our dog Lincoln, but that was more his previous owner and I choosing each other, so we inherited him."

"I've never really had a pet before," Kanan admitted, watching To-Be-Determined happily sniff and enthusiastically butt-wiggle-tail-wag as Tip crouched down to get acquainted. "And don't get me wrong, I actually do like animals. But this was really not the plan."

The plan had always kind of involved a solo life on the run across the galaxy from the forces of the Emperor and certain death. It hadn't ever included a multicolored sidekick that whined when left alone.

"I had no idea ending up with one was so easy."

"Easy's one way to put it," Tip said. "Or lucky. Mom used to say that animals are good judges of character. But then all the cats on Earth got all snuggly with the Boov invaders. Turns out they're mostly just really good judges of 'smells like they have food'." Tip gently ruffled the dog's ears. "What's its name?"

Boov, like those ones that Tip had pointed out to him back at the restaurant? Kanan considered the word 'invaders' for a moment, filed that away, and then nodded a little.

If nothing else, cats would be cats.

"I haven't really come up with one yet," he admitted, shrugging awkwardly. "I was kind of hoping I'd be inspired or something, but mostly he's just been 'Dog' in the interim." A pause, and then he added, "I might have been procrastinating. If I had named him before we left Frankticon, there's no way I would have been able to put him back."

Which hadn't happened anyway. So.

"Well, it's a little late for that now," Tip said. "'Dog' is okay, but it's a little on the nose. Naming your pets after animals works better when it's a little ironic. Mom's cat's name is Pig."

"I wasn't planning on sticking with 'Dog,' don't worry," Kanan chuckled, shaking his head. "I guess at this point, I'm just kind of waiting for him to earn a name. He's not really going to just sit up and tell me what he'd like to answer to, after all."

Well, Kanan could use the Force to make a connection with the little guy and see if he inspired anything in particular, but he was still trying to scrub the rainbows from his brain after meditating near where the dog came from in the first place.

"Spot also seems a bit too on the nose."

"Little bit," Tip agreed with a laugh. "And -- I mean, alien dog, who knows what it might turn out able to do. But maybe just try a couple different names and see what sticks? What he responds to?"

She'd never had to name anything that couldn't understand her and tell her it liked the name, before. Well, other than Slushious, but Slushious was a car.

The car probably wasn't too concerned about what it was called, but then, considering the billboard...

"Maybe," Kanan mused, looking at the dog thoughtfully. "Fenn? Kasmir? Sammo?"

The puppy glanced back at him, sneezed, and then returned his attention to Tip.

"Or not any of those. Check out this little critic."

Tip laughed a gain. These two could put on a show. "Guess you'll just have to keep trying."

"I guess it's gonna have to be a work in progress," Kanan agreed, shaking his head. At least he was smiling. "I have a whole galaxy of names and then some to pull from, now."

"Yeah . . . that's kind of how having a pet works in general," Tip said. "Being, you know, a work in progress." She shrugged. "You should hear the number of names Mom has for Pig. Mostly depending on how obnoxious she's being at any given moment."

The cat, not the mother. Though Tip's mom had her obnoxious moments, too.

But really, who didn't, right?

"So, the first name is the hardest, hm?" Kanan gave a thoughtful nod. "I suppose names aren't really something to take lightly. You're going to be stuck with 'em, after all."

It had taken him a few months of going by 'kid' before he'd come up with a new name, himself.

"True. But you can always have more than one." Said the girl alternately called Gratuity, Tip, Turtlebear, or Stupid-legs -- or occasionally 'humansboy' when she was around the wrong Boov.

"Yeah," the former Jedi formerly known as Caleb Dume replied, shrugging his shoulders. "So I have no idea why Dog here is being so picky."

The Canine Currently Known As Dog just sat and panted.

"Maybe because you don't mean it, yet," Tip guessed. "You're just throwing out sounds now. Not really talking to him yet."

"Those were all perfectly good names," Kanan sighed. But then he shrugged. "I guess I need to make a connection, first. More than just being followed home, I mean."

If he'd known dogs were this tricky...

"Probably," Tip said. ". . . I mean, I named my pet based on kind of a pun, so I'm not actually one to judge. But still."

"Yours at least answers to it?"

Kanan had to check. Just to be sure.

"He does," Tip confirmed. "But -- he can also have a conversation. So."

Really, if Kanan just took his head out of his ass and embraced the Force a little more, he could totally have a talk with little Patent-Pending, here.

"That does tend to make things simpler," he conceded. "Ah well. Patience, I guess."

"Always useful," Tip agreed, sage beyond her years. "Though not always easy."

Oh, but Kanan had stories about all of the times he'd learned patience the hard way.

He'd been a very impatient Padawan.

"More difficult in some things than others," he agreed. "But if Dog here is willing to wait until something strikes him, then I guess I can, too."

"I bet he will," Tip said, giving the dog a broad, goofy grin. "He's a good dog. Yes he is!"

Then she blushed faintly when she listened to herself. Still, she'd dare anyone to look at a little puppy face and NOT be compelled to tell it what a good dog it was.

Kanan wasn't going to judge. Kanan talked to The Great And Powerful Dog like that whenever he thought nobody was looking.

"He's pretty much the best dog around," he decided, smirking as he leaned back against the desk. "Not that I'm at all biased."

This from the guy who wasn't going to keep him, honest.

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