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Monday - Period One: Fuck Yeah! Science!

Instructions had been sent out in handwavily means to tell all students to meet Barry at the park. When they arrived there they would find Barry had set up a few tables. One of them had various breakfast foods and beverages because it was fucking Monday morning and who wanted to deal with an 8:00 am class on an empty stomach? The second table had composition notebooks and a bunch of research materials on dinosaurs available.

The final table was off limits and had a sheet draped over it. Behind it was a very large tent.

"Morning. I'm Barry Ween and I was student much like yourself a few years ago," he said cheerfully once everyone had gathered. "So you're probably either an old hand at this or totally freaked out by now. My advice? Embrace the weird and your life will get a lot easier for you. Welcome to Fuck Yeah! Science! The whole point here is to have fun and make sure you learn something as well."

"Normally the first class is all about introductions. But fuck that. I'm turning all you motherfuckers into dinosaurs."

[ETA: Dinosaur icons are on the OOC thread if you need them]

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Barry took the sheet of the final table revealing various vials.

"So, these vials contain a fluid that you can drink which will turn you into a dinosaur. These over here will turn you into a dinosaur for an hour. These over here will turn you into a dinosaur for four hours in case you don't have classes or work and just want to hang out in the park and be a motherfucking dinosaur."

"You will still have your intelligence. You can still talk normally. And if any of you jokers get an idea to eat anyone or get violent," Barry held up a small handheld device that looked like a raygun. "I'm turning you back to normal and you get detention."

He pointed to a large tent he had set up behind him. "You can go in there to change out of your clothes and drink the fluid in the vials so you don't ruin your clothes and walk around naked in front of everyone."

He pointed at the table full of composition notebooks. "Make sure you take one of these when you're done being a dinosaur and write about the experience. You'll be keeping these notebooks for all your classes with me."

Edited 2020-08-31 10:51 (UTC)

Astrid definitely had her reservations about this, but it didn't take long for her to reason that it wasn't any stranger than some of the other stuff that had happened to her here. She'd also had enough experience that, even though this was a new and unfamiliar teacher, that nothing was likely going to happen that would possibly go too wrong, right? And what would be the worse to happen if it did? She'd spend the rest of her life as a dinosaur, roaming the preserve, helping to manage to population growth of teal deer and alots. Seemed at least a little more exciting than being a lamb.

This would definitely be a story, too, and a possible source of inspiration for some new art, and it was miles ahead of the science lab she'd nearly fallen asleep in half the time back at Fairfax.

So now this was a thing, and the first thing she thought of now that she was a dinosaur emerging from the tent was how difficult it would be to paint with short arms and claws and whether there was enough prehensile ability in her tail to hold a paintbrush.

Barry gave Astrid some applause when she stepped out. "You look good... whoever you are," he said with a grin. "How do you feel?"

"I'm Astrid," she offered, and talking as a dinosaur and hearing it come out of her as she usually sounded only seemed to make her next statement that much more valid. "And I feel weird."

She did always have a knack for understatement...

"Yeah. Okay. That's a valid scientific observation," Barry said trying to hide a smile. "What's weird about it? Your senses? The temperature on your skin? What can you smell? It's probably better than you are as a human."

Shuri held up her tablet. "Do I have to use paper like some sort of refugee from the 1700s?" she asked.

"No. For you? You have to use a rock and another rock to chisel out your notes," Barry joked. "Use whatever the fuck you want as long as you can get it to me."

Mae had zero hesitation about this. Zero. She was grabbing that four-hour vial almost before Barry finished talking, and bolting towards the changing tent.

SHE WAS A MFING DINOSAUR! She had a club for a tail! There were SPIKES GROWING OUT OF HER BACK.

"THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY EVER!!!!"

"And it's only the first class," Barry said very pleased to see Mae's reaction. "How does it feel to be a dino?"

"STOMPY!" Mae shouted. And stomped around in a circle. "And . . . kinda heavy. I'm definitely not going to be able to go on the powerlines like this."

"Not unless you enjoy getting electrocuted but I'd like to see you try and get on one," Barry chuckled. "Try focusing on your senses. You can probably smell things better than you usually do. The vision might be different and you do have scaly skin."

Mae attempted to jump. The result was a little bit of a horsey kind of hop. She swung her tail around wildly.

"I have SPIKES!"

Barry laughed. "Okay. Make sure you write that down as one of your observations."

"You sound like my therapist," Mae said. "Is it okay if my observations are illustrated?"

"Yeah, I'm no therapist but if you want to draw? Great. I'm down with that."

"What's in this?" Arabella asked warily, pointing at one of the vials.

"Sure. It's a genetic-"

And what followed was a careful explanation of what the liquid was, how it worked and how it was perfectly safe and would have no lasting effects on the person drinking it because SCIENCE.

"-and then when it wears off," Barry said completely understanding if a student wasn't willing to try this. "If you don't want to do this, it's not going to affect your grade in any way. This is totally your choice and I respect that. I'm not doing lab tests here and I would never put your health in danger just so you could stomp around like a dinosaur. If it helps at all? I created this about 17 years ago so this is not a new thing I'm having you do."

Arabella nodded along with that. She maybe didn't understand all of it, but at no point had she heard the words 'Osiris Serum' so she was willing to roll with it.

"Okay, I'm going to try it. But if, uh, something unexpected happens, nobody panic, okay? Don't panic."

Barry paused for a moment. "If there's something that's risky about your health, I can assure you this is safe. And I can reverse the effects immediately," he said as much to himself as to Arabella and the rest of the class.

Arabella considered explaining, then decided not to risk it unless she had to. "It's not a risk to my health," she finally said, and just ducked into the tent with her vial.

A few minutes later, a dinosaur emerged. "False alarm!" it chirped with Arabella's voice. "I'm medium-sized!" Okay, that was...maybe an odd way to describe something nearly twenty feet tall. Then she tilted her head and asked, "How did you pull off speech with this oral structure?" Asking because of reasons.

"I had to make a lot of alterations to the voice box," Barry admitted proudly. "Getting the bilabial and labiodental phonology just right was a total pain in my ass.."

Arabella nodded her giant head and said, "I bet," to cover her disappointment that it was probably not something she could replicate. The Beast just sort of was what it was.

She shifted her weight, looking down to make sure there were no people in risk of being squished like it was automatic. "The balance is weird with these tiny arms."

"Good observation," Barry said, looking pleased. "And you have way more power in your tail than you would as well with those arms."

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