fandomhigh | First Aid for Fandom

The Danger Shop today looked like a comfortable (albeit somewhat luxurious) living room - not a body in sight.

Yet, anyway.

"Not all first aid, particularly in Fandom, involves physical damage," Hannibal said. "This past Halloween's happenings involved little or no wounding, so far as I'm aware or radio reported. However, there are undoubtedly those who have been harmed by it. Psychological damage can be more difficult to detect and treat, but it is nonetheless there."

He leaned on the edge of a table and looked them over. "It also demands an entirely different sort of first aid. In some respects, it is the same as you've been learning so far - treat the symptoms until the individual can arrive at professional help. However, in this time and place, professional help of a psychological nature is often denigrated or even shunned, and your help may be the only assistance a person gets - if they are even willing to accept it."

He smiled wryly. "Which is not to say I expect any of you to become experts in psychology and psychological damage. But learning what you can of it would certainly be helpful. Today's exercise, then, will be to speak to each other. I want each of you to come up with one thing that has hurt you, even traumatized you, in the past. Talk about it, discuss why it hurt, and work with each other to come up with something that would have helped at the time, and perhaps something that might even help now."

He held up a hand. "If you are uncomfortable with speaking of a past trauma in front of your classmates, come up with something reasonable, perhaps something that hurt someone that you've known. Solve someone else's problem if not your own. Although you would also do well to consider on your own why it is you have such issues with a thing still. And of course," he spread his hands, "should you wish professional help, please feel free to see me after class."

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There was no hiding. Hannibal pulled up a chair next to her. "Are you having difficulty with this?"

"Difficulty? Me? What sort of difficulty could I, the great and adorable Peridot, possibly be having with a lesson like this?"

Yes. Yes she was.

"It would seem you have one more thing in common with humans of this time and place, then," Hannibal said, leaning forward to confide. "They have a similar lack of problems."

Or ability to admit to them.

Peridot squinted a little at that.

"But they have so many problems."

So did you, 'Dot.

"They don't think so," Hannibal pointed out.

"Do they not think so, or do they simply not believe anybody is properly capable of comprehending the nature of those problems as well as they would themselves?"

You know, not thinking about any Gem in particular.

"A bit of both," Hannibal said. "It's easy to believe that nobody else can understand your problems as purely as you can. And to an extent, it is of course true. But often your own viewpoints contain so much of yourself in them, that an outside viewpoint sees more clearly."

Peridot paused for a long moment at that one, and then hedged, "One would think it would be difficult to understand the viewpoint of a person whose entire nature you can't really comperehend."

"It can be, yes," Hannibal acknowledged. "But when you comprehend so little, it often means you see things that that person may not, either."

"Or you could get everything horribly wrong," Peridot countered, "and end up doing more damage than you might have done otherwise."

"Perhaps," Hannibal said. "But I'm speaking of advice, not surgery. Working together, you can achieve a great deal."

Peridot gave Hannibal a look best described as 'not terribly convinced.'

"I've found that most advice I've gotten since arriving here wasn't given with my best interests in mind. I'd rather not."

Hannibal smiled and spread his hands. "The wonderful thing about advice is that you can always choose to ignore it. Why not try mine?"

Peridot crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow.

"What advice would you give?"

"That depends; what would you like assistance with?" Hannibal asked.

"I don't need assistance," Peridot muttered, arms still over her chest, and maybe frowning just a little bit more. "I'm fine."

Also stubborn.

"Are you?" Hannibal asked. "Surely there's something you would like to understand better."

"I work in a library," Peridot pointed out. "It's an endless source of knowledge that I have almost unlimited access to every Wednesday."

Except for Special Collections, but Special Collections really didn't come with the sort of insights that she was looking for.

"Libraries are very useful," Hannibal said. "But without the proper frame of reference, even the best library can only tell you so much. Particularly about the place you hold in a world the books don't cover."

Peridot was quiet for a long moment before she simply raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"So, what perspective can you give me on being a functionally immortal being from a society of functionally immortal beings, suddenly stranded on a world where the dominant sentient species is a race of fragile creatures that basically begins eroding the minute they reach maturity?"

Hannibal thought about it. "Make what friends you can. But get used to saying good-bye."

Peridot gave Hannibal the sort of look that suggested that she thought this was truly the worst advice ever.

"Uh-huh."

"The alternative is never to become attached," Hannibal said. 'To anyone or anything. You may try that instead, if you prefer. But you seem to prefer involving yourself with them."

Peridot couldn't deny that, really.

Which just meant her sour look was growing a little more sour.

"I think I'll stick to asking my books for further insights on the matter."

"If you prefer." Hannibal nodded to her. "As I said, you are free to ignore any advice you get. Or to ignore it for now, and remember it later."

Re: Class activity

era_two_triangle - 2017-11-12 23:03 (UTC) - Expand

sharp_man - 2017-11-12 23:09 (UTC) - Expand

First Aid for Fandom | Thursday, period 1

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