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

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survival skills

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

Unlike the first time he had taught this class, Sparkle looked... actually mostly at ease in front of the room, today. The tiniest grin was pulling at his lips, in fact. Okay. He could do this. He was going to stand in front of the class and he was going to teach them things.

Some of them for a second time. That was cool too.

"Hey, guys. Welcome to Urban Survival. I'm Sparkle-- just Sparkle, I don't do the last name thing, I'm like Cher or Björk or whatever. I'm from Toronto, which is the largest, most populated city in modern-day Canada, that big cold country north of here. It's also probably not anything like half of the cities you guys know, going by the variety in students we get around here."

Yeah, this was going way more smoothly than that first time, already. Good.

"But in this class it isn't going to matter if you're from Calgary or Coruscant. 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 change from place to place... but they're people. They're gonna be people no matter where you go, complete with a lot of the same 'everyone for themself' shit." He gave a little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "So, starting next week, we're gonna make it work. This week 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 shitty fast food coffee. And I'm teaching this class because I've been there and done that, which around here is enough to pass as actual teaching qualifications, I guess. See, easy. Your turn."

[OOC: Open!]

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In a city!

Breq

Theron Shan

Rufus Shinra

Jughead Jones

Rhys

Uma

If you were in this class last time around, you might even notice that he didn't stupidly babble his way through this one.

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.

And... go!

"I'm Breq, and I've spent my life on spaceships rather than in cities." That was sort of true. "Where I'm from the closest thing to a big city would be the palace stations. They are maintained by station AIs and human staff, and every citizen is entitled to food and housing. Which doesn't mean that food and housing is particularly nice if you don't have a family to support you, but still. I'm not planning on staying there though, and cities can be of all kinds in my universe. Which is why I'm taking this class."

Sparkle nodded a little, looking thoughtful as he listened.

"Well, welcome to my class, Breq," he said, giving her a little smile. "Hopefully I'll be able to cover enough basics for you to be able to at least know what you're looking for in order to get by in any of those cities, once you get there."

The palace station thing sounded intriguing. A promise of food and housing, even if it wasn't necessarily nice, was still... food and housing. It was easy to appreciate that if you came from a situation where there was never any promise of either.

"Thank you," Breq replied, making sure to smile back.

A few of those things came at a cost though, Sparkle.

Theron might have left the robe in his room, but he was still dressed in far too obvious Jedi hand-me-down to feel comfortable with someone name-dropping Coruscant like that. "Theron," he said. "Never been to Coruscant, but that's definitely a city. Seems like a good idea to know how to get around one."

Especially since he didn't have Master Zho looking out for him now.

Sorry, Theron. Sparkle's roomie had taken him to a few of the more notable cities in your galaxy a few times. Coruscant had kind of left an impression on him. As did Jedi fashion. Not that he was going to mention it if you weren't.

Well. Once it started to get colder, he might shove a more attractive jacket at you or something.

"Can't hurt," he agreed, nodding. "Even if you're never planning on being homeless or whatever, hard times can hit anyone."

Would it be a colourful more attractive jacket? Because Theron hadn't quite realised he could wear something other than earth tones yet.

"Something like that," he agreed.

Damn right it would be. Sparkle was picturing maybe something in red...

"You have any questions about any of it, don't hesitate to ask, okay? Even if it's just something you want to learn in particular this semester."

"Rufus Shinra," he said, once it was his turn. He lifted one hand in something vaguely wave-like. It managed to be dismissive. "I'm used to a city called Midgar. It's the largest city in the world and it is built on two levels. Under the plates are the slums, above the plates are where the middle and upper classes live."

Well. It was a bit more complicated than that, but he was keeping it basic.

"I like knowing how to survive," he settled on as his reason.

That was even mostly true. Would wonders never cease?

Edited 2018-01-04 18:03 (UTC)

"Doesn't everyone?" Sparkle gave Rufus a wry grin. "I'm going to try to cover some stuff I didn't get to last time around, we'll see what we have time for and whether something tries to kill us all this spring. Good to have you back, though."

"I enjoyed your class last time," Rufus said, which hey, was also the truth. He was on a roll today. "I look forward to seeing what we're taught this time."

"A lot of this is mostly going to be refresher for you," Sparkle replied, shrugging his shoulders a bit. "It's basically survival fundamentals, and most of the class is new. But I'll be sure to dig up something new to add to the mix anyway. There's always something."

Life was complicated like that.

So, Jughead had pretty much covered all this stuff with Sparkle before, but guess he had to do it again. "Jughead Jones." He was going to be brief, though. "I'm from a small town, not a city by any stretch of the imagination, but, um... This seems useful."

His new roomie was in this class. He wasn't going to go into details.

That was fine, Jughead. Sparkle knew better than to pry in a class like this, anyway. It did help that they'd been through some of this already before.

"That's the hope," he agreed. "Never hurts to have a few more survival skills in the repertoire, anyway."

"'M Uma," Uma said, once again her feet up on the desk. Look, the class before had been a bar fight and the topic right now already had her hackles raised. "I guess the most important city--" her lip curled "--I know is the capital city. You know. Big. Rich. Where the royals live. Everyone's pretty and well-fed. We see it on the TV."

"Gross," Sparkle replied, shaking his head. "Though I didn't ask for the most important city, you know? Just for the one that matters."

There was a difference. Sparkle got that.

"I've only ever been in one place before this," Uma muttered, eyes down. "Isle of the Lost, where I was born. More shanty-town than city. Not big enough to be a city. Or have enough people."

Though, considering they were all shoved onto a small cluster of islands, the population density was fairly similar.

"Well... It's what you know. And like I said, people are people. You might find some of this stuff more familiar than you think."

Small town kid. One that looked like she had a story. This would be interesting.

"Oh, and I'm looking for a TA if anybody wants the solemn duty of, like, standing off to the side and nodding knowingly for a semester, if you care about extra credit or whatever."

He shrugged. It'd be nice. He'd cope if nobody cared to.

This week has been something, let me tell you.

I'm going to try to grab pings where I can through the day. We're expecting to get smashed by a huge storm in the evening, and NS Power sometimes goes out across the province because somebody sneezed funny. Plus my cat has been hospitalized. Again. So if I vanish at any point, I promise I'll get back to it when I can.

Unless someone else offers, Breq will offer to be a TA, She'd wait to see if someone else does though.

Sparkle would be happy to have her aboard! We can touch base later-- he isn't opposed to having more than one, either, if it comes to that.

Sounds great!

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

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