fandomhigh | Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [10/04].

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Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [10/04].

So the jello had just been a one-off thing, which was good, because dealing with it had been super annoying and if it did turn out to be anything more than that, she might have had to cancel her class, which would be bad because it was October now, which meant they had some work to do before Halloween.

There was a sign on the door to the classroom, simple and straight forward and to the point, and something the students should generally start expecting half the time for this class, anyway:

Gym.

At least this time it came without the threat of any punching, right? And when they arrived for the period, they'd find the gym all decked out for an obstacle course, with some very specific focuses.

"Stealth," Rosa said, maybe with a faint grin because this was one of her favorites. "Because there's a point in every girl's life where they're going to need to sneak into or out of something without being noticed. And unless you're some kind of magical ninja from who even knows where and I don't care anyway, that sort of thing takes time, practice, and patience. So take a few minutes, stretch out, get limber, and then we're going to see just how well you can do getting through the courses without making a sound. And yes," Rosa added, looking over at Lana ~~assuming she was there~~, "I know some of you have done this before and that some of you," it was literally just the one, that she knew of, "have abilities that make it a whole lot easier than the average person, so do yourself a favor and try to do it without. And do your friends a favor by not helping them, because then they won't learn shit for when they have to do it without."

That said, she moved on.

"First step: laser course. Only instead of real lasers, we've got ropes, and each rope has bells on it, so if you hit it, we know, I blow the whistle, and you start over. If you manage to make it through that, then we've got platforms, made of nice creaky wood, so they're noisy, and if you're too noisy, back to the start. And then there's the window." Yes, she'd rigged up just a freestanding wall with a window in it. "Get this thing open and slip out without too much noise. Out of all this crap, this one's probably the most useful. Be careful, though, because there's some bells on the other side. Wouldn't want to set one off and have to start over again. And finally, if you think you're real bad ass, we have this rope climb. A rope. With a bell on it. See how far you can get to the top without rining the bell or, if you really want to challenge yourself, without special powers, and then you can be smug about it.

"A few tips: don't be afraid to take your time. Focus on your breathing and the balls of your feet and keeping low to the ground. Don't let something like clothing or hair trip you up: a buckle scraped at the wrong moment could give you up like that." She snapped her fingers. "And to give you all an idea and prove that I'm not just full of shit...I'll show you what I mean."

She shrugged off her jacket, tossed it aside, rolled her neck a little, and approached the first course. One deep breath, a pause, and then she swept through the tangle of cross-crossing ropes in a fluid motion that she hadn't spent all morning practicing to make sure it was still as perfect as last time or anything, shut up, but, yeah, flawless, and thank god, because that would have sucked to biff it like that right in front of the class.

"Any questions?" she asked. "Take five, warm up, then we'll get started. You," she quirked her chin at literally anyone, there was no way you could tell if she had a particular person in mind, "you'll go first."

[[ ocd is up! huzzah! ]]

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Stealthily. Duh.

Start warming up and take in the instructions. Not much there, really, but it gives you a moment or two to prepare.

In true spy movie fashion, there are ropes strung out across the gauntlet at various angles and heights, each with tiny bells on them at various spots to make it very clear when you hit one. And when you do, Rosa's hot on the whistle to send you back to try again.

Simple enough: hop from one obstacle to the next without touching the ground, right? Well, that wood is not very forgiving towards a hard landing, and Rosa's not very forgiving with that whistle, either.

The window's a little creaky, and it jams a little when you try to open it, and you've got to watch out for those bells on the other side, but this is arguably the most important thing you could possibly master in this class.

Anyone who attempts this will immediately be deemed a show-off. Anyone who pulls it will earn a grudge from Rosa about it that just sticks with her even an entire year (plus two days) later...

She'll fight the temptation to blow the whistle every five seconds into what you're trying to say.

My week has been so shitty, y'all. Blatantly copy-pasta'ing this class has actually made me feel better because it's still one of my faves.

Right down to the gif:

Mae Borowski

Did the ropes account for people who were very small? Because Mae was very small.

She looked over the ropes with her head tilted, plotting her course, then took a couple preparatory hops before flinging herself at them, jumping from floor to wall and back again, over and around and through.

She got about halfway before setting off a bell. At which point she had too much momentum to just stop, so she went crashing along into several more as she tried to about face and go start over. . . .

Once she made it through the "lasers" Mae figured this part would be a breeze. Hopping from one thing to another was literally what she did.

She set off the first creak pretty much immediately, and spent a moment just loudly cursing the wood before going back to the start.

Eventually, Mae made it to the window.

This one she breezed through. She'd been sneaking in and out of various windows for years.

". . . Yeah no." Mae pointed at the rope. "That's not a thing."

Tisarwat

Tisarwat let out a small breath to sort of bolster herself for this kind of thing. Of course she'd had some trainings, but her aptitudes were middling at best, especially with physicality. Stealth in a mental respect was her forte, but she was too rangy and awkward to be much good with this sort of thing. But she also knew, if she just focused, if she just took her time like was suggested, she could probably do a passable job. Just maybe not the swiftest stealth run in the world...

Sneaking around into the access cores of various AIs had its share of tight spaces, but nothing quite like trying to avoid the ropes in this course. Tisarwat took a deep breath, tried to map out what looked like it would be the easiest route for herself, and started. Taking her time, being very careful, making the most of her thinness, feeling glad she always put her hair back neat for classes. ANd she felt she was doing fairly well, until she got that first whistle blow.

Because after that, Rosa seemed intent on catching her again; one time, she barely even toughed the rope, the bell had barely made a sound, and...

...all of a sudden, Tisarwat had a feeling she was really going to hate the sound of that whistle by the end of this class.

This one was....easier. Not at first. The platforms were so creaky and loud at first, but after subsequent attempts, it became easier to know where the creaky spots were and how better to land, so it was a lot of work and took a lot attempts, but, eventually, Tisarwat made it through, feeling slightly more accomplished thanks to the trial and error that it had taken in the first place.

Just like with the others, this one took a little trial-and-error for Tisarwat-figuring out where it squeaked, where it jammed, trying to figure out if it was better to try to slip through the small space of the open window before it jammed or to try to jar it open a little more so she didn't just tumble out onto the bells they'd been warned about, but she managed it, remembering a little too well some of the harder-to-get-to spots during cleaning duty on Mercy of Kalr.

Tisarwat did not expect to pull this one off, but she wanted, at the very least, to try, especially since she figured, at the very least, her gloves would actually be helpful in getting up the rope.

After the first few failures in not ringing the bell, she decided to just ignore the bell for now and just see if she could actually make it to the top. She probably could use a little more physical training, if she was completely honest with herself.

Rosa gave a cool glance over to the rope being pointed it. "Sure it is," she said, shrugging at Nightmare. "It's right there. It's literally a thing that is there. And I've seen it done before."

By someone in this class, no less.

So now Rosa was suddenly okay with Lana having pulled it off last year thanks to her special magical powers.

Mae crossed her arms. "Prove it."

"Not by me," Rosa pointed out. "But it has been done."

You just had to have weird magic powers to do it.

"Point is, it's still a thing. Just a very hard thing. What, you expect everything to be easy?"

"No," Mae said. The number of times she'd had to go back to the beginning so far proved that. "I do expect it to be maybe some sort of trick question though."

Rosa's furrowed brow considered Nightmare for a moment.

"How?"

By being impossible, obviously.

"Trying a route that makes noise just to see if you can make it not make noise is kind of pointless, right? So a real badass would just take one look at it and go 'nope' and find another way."

Rosa considered that for a moment.

"If," she allowed, "this was a situation where actually making noise would make a difference, sure. One hundred percent. But, since the worst you might suffer if having to listen to me blowing this whistle right now, a real badass might see it as an opportunity to at least understand the mechanics of it so that if they ever were in a situation where they might have to scale a rope as quickly and quietly as possible, they'll have a little more confidence in how to do it."

There was a pause.

"Almost as if this is designed to be a learning experience and not real life or something."

Even if, in Nightmare's shoes, Rosa would definitely be saying the same thing, but she was a teacher now. She was paid to be exactly this kind of hypocrite, right?

"I wouldn't use a rope anyway, though," Mae said. "I'd jump."

She was a really good jumper.

"Okay, then," said Rosa, quicking her chin up and lifting her eyes toward where the rafter from which the ropes were dangling. "Jump."

Mae looked around the gym, plotting out a ~~gleefully modded~~ route of tiny perches along the walls. (Despite the temptation, the first tiny perch wasn't Rosa's shoulder. Mostly because Mae was pretty sure if she tried that, she'd die.) Then she took two hops and launched herself off the ground.

A good fifteen or so jumps and near miss later, she was in the rafters, kicking her heels happily next to where the rope was anchored.

"I'm the king of the gym!"

"And you got to the top without ringing the bell," Rosa shouted up at her. "Told you it could be done."

Had she planned to turn this into an actual Teaching Moment from the beginning? God no. But was she going to seize the opportunity when it showed up in front of her? Why not?

Just for that, Mae was going to deliberately kick the bell.

Because she was a little shit.

And it was a good thing Nightmare was all the way up there to make it even harder to spot the fact that maybe that got a tiny little smirk out of Rosa.

"Nice," she said dryly. "Now get down from there before you fall and crack your weird skull open on the gym floor. We all know these mats won't do crap."

Edited 2019-10-04 16:11 (UTC)

Kuroko Shirai

Kuroko blew out a frustrated breath when it became clear that this was supposed to be a "now powers" sort of exercise. She was actually pretty good at being stealthy when it came to things she couldn't just teleport around. So, yeah, she could walk quietly and stuff, but these were all textbook examples of obstacles she'd just skip right past normally.

She had a feeling that she was not going to impress anyone today.

Lana Beniko

Right. No Force. Lana could do this. Completely.

Even if it had been fun doing it last time with.

Fine, so no using the Force. Or at least not consciously using it. Lana was still very aware of her surroundings, and she couldn't exactly turn that off, plus she was very good at balance and patience when she had to be.

It took her a while; she wasn't going to be able to do this particularly quickly at first, but she made it through.

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Bad Ass Bitch Survival Guide; Friday, First Period [10/04].

Sign In - BABSG, 10/04.

Listen to the Lecture - BABSG, 10/04.

Course One: "Lasers" - BABSG, 10/04.

Course Two: Obstacles - BABSG, 10/04.

Course Three: The Window - BABSG, 10/04.

Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Talk to Rosa - BABSG, 10/04.

OOC - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Sign In - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course One: "Lasers" - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Two: Obstacles - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Three: The Window - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Sign In - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course One: "Lasers" - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Two: Obstacles - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Three: The Window - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course Four: The Rope - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Sign In - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Sign In - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Listen to the Lecture - BABSG, 10/04.

Re: Course One: "Lasers" - BABSG, 10/04.