fandomhigh | Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [09/06].

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Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [09/06].

It felt like ages since Rosa had taught this class, which was weird, because the last time Rosa had taught this class, she didn't want anything to do with it, and now there was a part of her that was actually looking forward to it, and it was super weird and kind of gross and she didn't really like it, but also, like, her classes were totally bad ass, enough that it was almost cool?

Whatever. Either way, it made her feel too many things, and that was just lame, so she was definitely phoning it in today to avoid accepting or dealing with any of them.

So she came in late, chugging the last of her coffee, tossed the empty cup into the wastebin by the desk, and sighed, giving the class a lookover. "Okay," she said. "Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide. The way I see it, you're probably in the class for one of three reasons: you thought it sounded cool, you're being forced to take it, or you know who I am and know I'm awesome. Either way, there are worse ways to spend your Friday morning. There are also a lot of better ways, too, and the first week is always the worst, so we're going to make this pretty qucik so we can all just get out of here. The first week is usually about introductions, so your teachers can get to know you and your classmates, but, honestly, I don't really care. I probably won't even remember. So we're not going to bother. We are going to bother, though, with being someone we aren't today."

Rosa turned to the board and wrote "SONIA RAMIREZ" in big letters.

"That," she said, turning to the students, "is the most recently added secret identity, and I don't mind using that here because I actually got it from one of those weekends where you wake up as someone else, so some people here have even met her. That's a thing, by the way, for all the new faces I'm seeing, weekends where you wake up as someone else. They're super fun, and, if you're lucky, won't screw you over when you turn back to normal. But Sonia here likes to use her meek and mild disposition to grift people, and she's the reason I've got to be careful if I'm ever out near Reno again. She's got papers, legal documents, which means I can go anywhere in the world as Sonia Ramirez and do practically anything without it coming back later and even touching Rosa Diaz. She's got a background, she's got goals, she's got real estate in Cancun. Having a solid alternate identity," or three...or a dozen.... "can come in handy, it's been crucial to my surival in a few instances, as well as the survival of others. And not just for throwing off creeps at picnics.

"So, here's the thing. Each of you has about five minutes. Gimme a good secret identity. Convince me you're someone you're not. If it's believable enough, you can go. Any questions? I mean, it's not that hard, and now you're just wasting time. So if you're ready, let's hear it, and let's get out of here. Literally none of us want to be here right now, especially me."

Rosa pulled out the chair of the desk, sat down, and kicked up her feet, arms folding, occasionally checking her watch and looking bored, like this was the longest five minutes of her life, although she knew these were always pretty great.

Oh, what a difference a year could make.

A whole. Goddamn. Year.

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"Alright," Rosa said, though technically it had only been four minutes, but she wanted to get this over with, "that's time. Someone come up and get started, tell us your secret identity and a little about them, and if it doesn't suck, you can go."

Even if it sucked, she was still probably going to let them go. She was still going to pretend that she hated this all even more than they did.

Edited 2019-09-06 11:19 (UTC)

Alternate identities? Yeah. Eleanor had one.

She put on her sunglasses and smiled sweetly. "Hi! I'm Diana Tremaine from Van-Quebec City, Canada! I'm very polite, apologize incessantly and like long walks in the snow and feeding reindeer."

Eleanor had a distorted view of what life was like in Canada.

"I'm a junior at college and totally of drinking age. My major is undecided and I just love Labatt's Blue and Manhattans with Maple syrup."

Seriously. No idea what Canada is like. Arizona bartenders and bouncers were very stupid.

She finished off with a girlish "Tee Hee" and then went back to being a slumped mess of a teenager who's taking a class on a Friday.

Oh, yeah. That was so convincing, Rosa could practically taste the poutine now.

"Van-Quebec City, Canada, eh?" she asked to the slumped mess of a presumably maple-soaked teenager, and then switched to French, "//I hear the moose migration patterns there are particularly beautiful this time of year. How do you like school in the States so far?//"

Fuck. (That was in her head so no filter there, Rosa.)

"Um."

Come on Diane. You can do this.

"Les croissants sont bleus au solstice enceinte. Bibliothèque."

Nope.

Maybe she could swear in french?

"Fourchette. Chemise."

Nope.

Well. Rosa had to give her points for trying.

Wait. No she didn't.

"Could use a little work, Diane," she said. "Please don't tell me that's ever actually worked on someone."

"You will find that the bartenders and bouncers in the great state of Arizona do not appear to have many brain cells and for that I am grateful," Eleanor said proudly. "Also none of them speak French."

She then did a finger gun and made a clicking noise at her new teacher.

"Props to you Sonia Ramirez. You've surpassed a basic Arizonian."

It was always on the forefront of Rosa's mind, sure, but sometimes it was nice to just be reminded that people were, in fact, as incredibly stupid as she made them out to be.

"I'm on my way to put in my MENSA application now," she said.

Hey, give Eleanor some credit. There were definitely two cops at the 99 who have come up with worse cover identities!

"I'll be happy to provide any endorsement or recommendation letters for you."

One benefit to not really knowing who you were any more was that it made it easy to pretend to be nearly anyone else. And she felt, in a place with talking cat creatures and time travel and alternate dimension, anything was pretty much fair game. In a way, that made it harder, to pretty much be boundless in parameters on which to construct an entire false persona.

She could probably even tell the whole truth and have it be perceived entirely as a lie.

"Well," she finally decided, "I'm Awls Nenkur," and she did feel particularly smug about that particular choice of house name, not that anyone in this room would understand why it was so brilliant, "though I don't think I should have to tell any of you that. I'm sure my reputation precedes me."

Was she maybe tapping into a little bit of Seivarden to pull off a certain haughtiness and self-importance? Perhaps. She couldn't really help it, right down to mimicking her ridiculous accent.

"You might even be wondering what a Nenkur would be doing in a place like this, but," she laughed, gesturing dismissively, "if you must know, my mother actually believes it might get me to settle down and stop squandering away our house fortune. It won't work, of course." The smile she gave was so smooth it nearly made even her own stomach turn, especially now that she was trying to channel up a little Raughd Denche. "But I'm not about to tell her that any time soon."

Yeah. Rosa had been side-eyeing this one pretty hard so far. It would figured, all of a sudden, there's a baby Radchaai and, of course she'd be in her class.

And if the goal with her identity was to make her teacher physically ill, she was hitting it right out of the damn ballpark.

"Ugh," said Rosa, because she couldn't help it. And was tempted to just tell Awls here to just get on out of here, but, because sometimes her sadism came with a side of masochism, too, she asked, "So here's a question for you, Awls. What are your thoughts on tea?"

"Yo," Mae said, dropping her voice just a little and giving Rosa a carefully bored expression. "I'm Jeffrey." People mistook her for a boy all the time. Also, people here apparently thought she was a cat, so she was pretty sure they'd believe anything she claimed. "Jeffrey Pulaski. 'Sup."

Considering the wild, spastic, often stick-wielding energy Rosa was used to seeing from Mae in her classes, this was actually a nice change of pace, especially with the assignment.

"Jeffrey," Rosa nodded. "Why don't you tell us a little about yourself."

“Why?” ‘Jeffrey’ asked, looking at Rosa suspiciously. “You a cop or somethin’?”

She was hilarious.

"So what if I am?" asked Rosa, quirking a brow. "Will that be a problem, Jeffrey Pulaski?"

"Dunno," 'Jeffrey' said coolly, looking at her nails. "Am I being detained?"

Ooooo, someone remembered her lessons on civil disobedience from Jack.

Yeah. Thanks for that one, Jack.

"Trust me, Jeffrey," Rosa snorted, if only to keep herself from rolling her eyes instead. "IF you were being detained, you'd know it."

"Cool." 'Jeffrey' nodded, then jerked her thumb at the door. "So can I go, or what?"

Rosa shrugged, gesturing a little as if inviting Jeffrey to find her chill, nonchalant self a pathway right out. "If you want."

"Later," 'Jeffrey' said, and managed not to start bouncing until she was out the door.

She was so looking forward to pulling those lines on Aunt Mall Cop next time she was home!

"Hello." Lana smiled. "I'm Laura Benson, from London. I've come to the United States to study and get a better idea about other cultures."

It was possible she remembered this from last time and had been thinking about it for a while.

A simple, solid start, and an interesting risk. Rosa tilted her head. "Okay, Laura," she said. "What've you found to be the weirdest thing about the United States so far? You know. Compared to London."

Oh, that one was easy. Lana shrugged sheepishly. "Honestly, the accents."

"My name is Lesedi Naidoo," Shuri said, changing her accent slightly to sound more South African. "I'm from Cape Town, neh? I'm smart enough to get into university early, but I'm too young for most of the students to hang out with me, so I spend my time in the Company's Garden downtown, giving tourists bad directions and telling them I'm a cousin of Nelson Mandela." She smiled. "It's hilarious."

Kuroko wasn't exactly devious. Oh, sure, she'd tried to pull some stuff in middle school, but it had never proven very effective. She might be able to solve problems creatively, but rarely through actual deception.

So it took her a couple of minutes to even come up with a plan that might stand a chance of not making her look like an idiot.

She'd just pretend to be someone she knew! No one else here knew anyone from back home, so they'd be none the wiser!

So Kuroko put on her best smirkily-amused grin and sat up a bit straighter. "Hi, everyone. My name's Ruiko Saten. I'm obviously new here, and I just graduated from Sakugawa Middle School back home." She paused for a second to consider what Saten would say next. "Oh, I don't expect anyone to have heard of it, it's not very well known."

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Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [09/06].

Introductions - BABSG, 09/06.

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