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

"So, iPhones." Sparkle raised his eyebrows a little, like maybe he was going to elaborate on why that in particular was relevant today, but he decided better of it. Because if he got started, today's class was going to be less of a lecture and more of a rant. "Funny thing about being down on your luck? Is that a lot of people who have it all are pretty quick to start telling you what it is that you do or don't need in order to keep living. You want this one thing that you need to have in order to not fucking die? Well, then you better be able to give up every single goddamn luxury to prove that you want to keep living enough. Even if that shit that people consider 'luxury,' you know, isn't actually the luxury that people think it might be. Someone thinks having a telephone is a luxury? Good luck getting a job, or a house, or a bank account, or anything without one in this day and age. Shit, I heard of someone saying that fridges are a luxury item, as if having a place to safely store your food isn't fucking important. As someone who has lived without a fridge in a modern city, I cannot stress enough that they are really luxurious if you've had to spend any amount of time watching your food rot in the summer fucking heat because you have no way of preserving it."

Okay, he was still ranting a little. But it wasn't like it was irrelevant to the topic of the class, exactly.

"And we're right back to that goddamn trap I was talking about before," he sighed. "If you want to pull yourself out of the dead-end fucking pit you're in, you have to prove you want it badly enough, by giving up things that people who have never been there think you, as a person of a different social class that they have deemed lesser than their own, don't deserve. You want health care? Give up your iPhone, even though there's roughly zero goddamn equivalence between the two, and doing so would make practically zero difference, because you'd have to be buying like fifty iPhones a month to be spending as much as some people spend in this country on health care."

He pulled in a deep breath. Held it for a moment. Exhaled slowly.

"I have a lot of feelings about this shit," he admitted. "It's this whole other level beyond 'I'm not going to give him money he says is for food, because he's going to just turn around and spend it on drugs anyway.' There's no way to convince people who have already decided they know what your priorities are that they're wrong. They perceive you continuing to exist as a drain on society, and if you aren't working twenty-five hours a day without breaks in order to pull yourself out of the hole you're in, then clearly you just don't want it hard enough. Never mind that you still need to rest just as much as anybody else. Never mind that they'll judge you for spending money on the expensive clothes so that you can impress a potential employer who's going to judge you hard on everything they can see about you, because if you really wanted to eat, you would've gone to that thrift store to buy clothes that are cheap even though they don't fit or they're threadbare or they smell funny, and there is no fucking winning with these people."

Why was he having these lectures in the school? He needed a smoke, here.

"So today, we're going to talk about luxury items. You know, the kind that once you sit down and think about it for thirty goddamn seconds, you realize aren't, so much. Good clothes, a means of contacting the outside world, a way to keep food fresh... if you were to find yourself homeless, what are some things you think people would judge you for keeping, or for going out to get for yourself, that actually serve some purpose toward surviving or even getting yourself back on your feet?"

[OOC: OCD is up, and class today is good to go!]

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Luxuriously.

Ahsoka Tano

Ada Miller

Gratuity Tucci

Jalian d'Arsennette

Shiemi Moriyama

Cassandra Pentaghast

Merrill

He might be angry.

Health care itself is going to be an issue for another week. This week was supposed to be hygiene, but are you fucking serious, right?

Are there any items you can think of offhand that you currently have access to that people would consider a luxury item that you don't really need, if you ever find yourself homeless? This can be anything at all, from nice clothes to a pet. Explain why it is that these items aren't the frivolous luxury that people might say they are, and go right ahead and tell the class where people can stick it if they tell you that you're wasting resources by keeping it.

"A functional car," Tip said immediately. "They're expensive not just to get, but to keep up and keep fueled." And she didn't even have experience with car insurance. "But plenty of places don't have safe sidewalks or public transportation, so they're the only way of getting around. Plus, it's a tiny, enclosed shelter. With doors that lock, and even climate control if you're lucky. And don't a lot of, like, delivery jobs want you to have your own before they'll hire you? That's, like, one of the cliche entry level jobs, and you're supposed to already have this super expensive thing just to get in the door."

"I got a medical condition," Ada said simply. "At any given time, m' room has two or three dehumidfiers goin' so I can breathe." Not to mention all the open jars of silica gel scattered around the room. "'M sure th' 'holier than thou' set would tell me t' stop usin' 'em t' save on th' electric bill, before I ended up homeless. But havin' a home ain't no good if'n 'm-- incapacitated-- b'cause I didn't use 'em."

"My knives?" Jalian said unsurely. "I think they are necessary, but here people don't seem to think that they are. But they help with food, and defense, and are good for many things."

She still wasn't very good at modern culture.

"I don't have a cell phone, so..." Shiemi considered hard. It wasn't that she was spoiled or anything, but the only things really luxurious that she had were plants and her friends... And you could grow plants for free!

Unless you counted her kimono... She stretched out her arms, the cloth draping prettily. "My clothes? Though they're old."

"The Dalish don't have many books at all," Merrill said slowly; she'd taken her time speaking up, because all of that lecture had hit fairly close to home. (Which, in a strange way, she found somewhat comforting.) "Just a handful to a clan, if we're lucky, maybe even just one. It seems silly, doesn't it, especially since we just keep moving from place to place, and it isn't like they're going to keep us fed or protect us, but . . . we don't have much left of our culture any more. Our lands are gone. It's the Keepers and the hahrens who pass on all the lore we remember, but books . . ."

She shrugged, made a vague fluttering gesture with her hands before tucking them back into her lap. "They're solid."

Angry, angry Sparkle.

If Tip is about.

Tip had also heard that particular line. There may have been a rant about even Highboov Smek wasn't that stupid that resulted in Bill trying to use his tiny robot self to gently pat her on the head.

I basically spent yesterday just silently screaming into the void and it isn't even my goddamn country.

PREACH

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

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Lecture

Necessary Luxury

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Talk to Sparkle

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OOC

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