fandomhigh | Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2

Okay. Deep breath. First time in front of a classroom. Well, okay, it wasn't Sparkle's first time in front of a classroom, he'd done that roughly a billion years ago when he wound up temporarily inheriting a class, and then became Electroclash's minion for the remainder of a semester. But this wasn't that. This was something else, and Sparkle was in front of a classroom because he'd wanted to be, and now he had students.

So. Deep breath. Exhale. Teenagers could smell your fear and all that.

"Shit. Okay. Hi." And those were going to be Sparkle's first three words in front of a class of actual students here to learn what it was he was teaching. This was off to a stellar start already. "I mean, Hi. And welcome to Urban Survival. I'm Sparkle-- that's it, just Sparkle, I'm not giving you my last name and don't Mr. Sparkle me or anything, that's some kind of dish soap in Japan. I'm from Toronto, which is the largest, most populated city in modern-day Ontario, Canada. It's also probably not anything like half of the cities you guys know."

Hey, he was breathing now! This was good. He glanced around the room, taking stock of the different faces there. It was actually a bigger variety than he'd expected.

He could work with that.

"But that's not going to matter. Not entirely. Even if the cities change, what you're going to need in order to survive if you're out on the streets in them is going to remain fairly consistent. And people might differ a lot from place to place too, but you know what they say about the more things change..." He gave a little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "We make it work. Starting next week, we'll make it work. This week, I'm gonna be one of those teachers. Yeah. I want to get a feel for who I'm teaching. So, let's hear a little about you guys. Your name, a little bit about what it is you consider a city back home, and what you hope to pick up from here before the end of the semester. Like I said, I'm Sparkle, from a big modern city in the land of hockey and Tim Hortons. And I'm teaching this class because... I've been there. Done that. Which I guess is enough to make a guy qualified around here, at least when job applications are being vetted by a moose or something. There. Easy. Your turn."

... Wait, was that all there was to it?

[OOC: Open!]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

In a city!

Sparkle even mostly manages to not babble through it.

Once he gets going, anyway.

Pretty straightforward. Sparkle wants your name, the sort of city you're familiar with, and what you're hoping to get out of this class.

Though in hindsight now he's wondering if he should have come up with some kind of icebreaker activity. Trust falls? Was this an appropriate class for doing trust falls?

Maybe just stick to the introductions.

If you need anything in particular that you don't want to discuss in front of everyone in the class, he's right here. Totally calm and super casual.

What the hell had he been thinking!?

MISTER SPARKLE

Ahsoka Tano

"I'm Ahsoka and I grew up on Coruscant." Which was going to skew your expectations even when the majority of your experience with other cites wasn't them being active warzones. "I guess I'd like to figure out smaller cities."

Gratuity Tucci

Tip did her best not to smile at Sparkle's opening three words. She'd signed up for this class mostly because she'd liked talking to him before. She was pretty sure she'd made a good choice.

"Gratuity Tucci," Tip said with a wave of her hand to the rest of the class. "Friends call me Tip." And she wasn't afraid to get pointed if you tried that before she'd decided you were friends. "I grew up in urban Pennsylvania -- uh, modern, twenty first century Pennsylvania. I know it's not big like New York is big, more like Baltimore big." Tip, stop trying to earn your urban survival cred. "I kinda -- spent awhile living out of a car a couple years back. If it happens again, it'd be nice to know some tricks and stuff. Since I won't be able to get by on 'I'm 11 and cute' next time."

Rufus Shinra

"Rufus Shinra," he said, "from Midgar, which is a two-tiered city where the rich live on the top and the poor live on the bottom."

And it was obvious, wasn't it, just to look at him in his low-key but expensive clothes which half he lived on.

"I am simply interested in learning a new side to city survival."

Which wasn't quite true but Rufus was still gauging the potential usefulness of this teacher.

Sparkle, at the very least, resisted the urge to give a low whistle.

"Doesn't get much bigger than Coruscant, anyway," Sparkle agreed. I can see how the smaller stuff might seem intimidating in entirely different ways, if everything is.. well. There."

Seriously, what didn't Coruscant have?

~~Besides Jedi.~~

Aw, Pennsylvania. Sparkle had never been to, like, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but even if Tip wasn't from a roughly modern that-neck-of-the-woods, she'd hardly have to prove herself to him.

"And cute really only gets you so far in the first place," Sparkle agreed, smiling reassuringly. "Brings out this whole new set of dangers, and little kids don't always have the same context about the world around us as adults generally do. Not to mention... you know... getting a job and getting back on your feet to support yourself really isn't an option, then."

And hadn't been for Tip anyway, if he was remembering their conversations correctly. He wasn't going to drag that one out in front of the class, though. It really wasn't his place.

"Hopefully it won't happen again. I mean, I hope it doesn't happen to anyone, but if it does, yeah, I'll try to make sure you've got a starting point."

Sparkle looked at Rufus thoughtfully while the boy talked. Rich kid, clearly. It didn't take much guessing to figure out which tier this guy lived on.

But he was here, which could have meant any one of a hundred things. He clearly wasn't here to gloat over the poor people, and the phrase 'interested in learning' was promising. Sparkle nodded a little, offering up a smile when the boy was done talking.

"I'm teaching this class just as much for life skills as I am for perspective," he replied. "And I've seen cities that exist in tiers before, even if they weren't ones I happened to live in. I think I might be able to give you some idea of how people go about surviving on the top or the bottom."

Because, yeah, fat chance there weren't people down on their luck getting by in the alleyways and on the street corners up top, too. That wasn't how cities worked, no matter what the NIMBY types wanted to think.

~~Functioning democracy.~~

"Yeah," Ahsoka said. "You go between the upper and lower levels and it's like going to another world without even leaving the planet."

~~Touché.~~

"In other cities, you can sometimes find the same thing just going from street to street," Sparkle noted. "They don't have a whole planet to kind of funnel people away out of sight under, but I don't think there's a city in the multiverse that doesn't end up with something similar in one way or another. New buildings become old buildings, old buildings become cheap buildings, cheap buildings become neglected buildings..."

He shrugged a little.

"I'm oversimplifying it," he admitted, "like, a lot. But that divide is something I'm going to want to go over in depth later. It'll probably be one of the more depressing parallels I can draw between Coruscant and the smaller places, I'm guessing."

Of course not. Corruption was rampant no matter which level you lived on or what sector you lived in.

Rufus smiled slightly. More than anyone else in Midgar, aside from his father, Rufus was privileged. Still, he wasn't quite as sheltered as the teacher's words seemed to imply that he was.

"I look forward to it," Rufus said mildly.

Sorry, Rufus. Sparkle had spent the better part of a few months being spat on by people who came from the privileged side of things. It was a difficult implication to shake.

... Better sheltered than evil and outright antagonistic, right?

Then again, Rufus.

"If there's anything in particular you want me to spend any extra time on, just let me know. In the meantime, it's good to have you in the class, Rufus."

Ada Miller

"Probably," Ahsoka agreed dryly.

Jalian d'Arsennette

"I am Jalian d'Arsennette." She nodded to Sparkle. "Ken Selvren's settlement is smaller than the island here; I had seen no cities before Baltimore. I have been learning, but it would be good to know more about them."

"Ada Miller," she said with a wave of her hand. "I've traveled t' lots of cities from California to Alabama, but my family tends to stay out of the bigger ones since there's less of a profit there. Baltimore's th' biggest I've been in since I was tiny, an' I'd like t' know more about how t' navigate a new city you ain't been to before."

Before class, Ada plopped an oversize styrofoam cup with plastic lid on Sparkle's desk, filled with the shitty dorm coffee.

Not that he needed more caffeine, but whatever.

Page 1 of 3

Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2

Sign In

Listen to the Lecture

Introduce Yourself

Talk to Sparkle

OOC

Re: Sign In

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Sign In

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Sign In

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Sign In

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Sign In

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Introduce Yourself

Re: Talk to Sparkle