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How to Deal with your Dark Side, Tuesday - Fourth Period

Raven had arrived early to her classroom to get things set up properly. She wanted the students to feel comfortable, physically and mentally, so she had arranged for a variety of places and surfaces to sit upon. There were more traditional chairs and desks, but also several squishy bean bags and pillows on the floor, all of which could be easily moved if the students wanted to sit closer together or apart.

When it seemed everyone arrived, Raven stood up and began to speak, though not without a hint of nervousness to be teaching her first class. "Good afternoon," she said, radiating calm as she gave all the students a smile. "Welcome to How to Deal with your Dark Side. My name is Raven, and I was once a student here at Fandom. During that time, I struggled a great deal with my own dark side and...almost destroyed the world one or two times in the process." Details. "I thought perhaps that I could now help others with their own struggles, and make their experiences less traumatizing than mine.

"This class room is a safe space," she continued. "Anything you say in here or to me will be kept in complete confidence if you wish. The squirrels have been warned." She glanced sideways out the window, trying to see if there were any reporters lurking there. "Please introduce yourselves and tell me why you have taken this class. You may tell me that privately if you wish; please do not feel pressured. My hope is that I can offer help tailored to your particular situations. And if you have any questions about my own experiences, feel free to ask."

[~~Wait for the OCD, please!~~ OCD is up! And label any threads NFB if you don't want the squirrels reporting on it. At work, busy with systems change, so will likely be SP.]

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Charlie Gale

Gray

Beta

Graham Cracker

Guillermo de la Cruz

And ask her any questions!

Your issues, give them to me.

"I'm Charlie Gale, a freshman, and I'm pretty sure the Aunties signed me up for this class," she said cheerfully.

"The Aunties?" Raven repeated. "You think they believe you need to take this class, but from your tone, you do not?"

"Okay," Charlie said. "Some if the Gale Girls who turned out to be Wild when they got their powers were... problematic. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to be."

Honestly, Charlie was too laidback - lazy, according to the Aunties - to cause many real problems.

"Powers" and "wild" Raven understood, because she'd had more than one incident where her powers had not quite been under control, like, say, making half the school fall in love with her without meaning to.

"Well, perhaps you will learn some techniques to keep your powers under control," she said. "Just in case any problems do develop."

"I'm happy to learn anything you think might help," Charlie said easily. "It can't hurt and it might get the Aunties to back off a little."

"And I would be more than happy to write to or speak with your Aunties to assure them you are well prepared to deal with any sort of incident," Raven offered.

So far her students seemed not terribly troubled, which she found surprising, because back in HER day, it felt like there were a lot more potential world-destroying people around. Or maybe it was just her.

Oh Charlie had the potential to be world destroying. She just lacked the inclination to do so.

"Thank you," she said sincerely. "Not sure it will convince them, but it might help!"

"I'm Gray," Gray said, "and I'm a sophomore, and I have a, uh...I'm cursed." Thank you, Gray, for barely scratching the surface.

Edited 2022-08-30 17:25 (UTC)

"Cursed?" Raven said, frowning slightly. "Are you comfortable sharing what you have been cursed with or cursed to do?"

Gray shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "It's kind of complicated..." Okay, Gray, you signed up for this class. You knew you were going to have to talk about this. "Do you know what the deadly sins are?"

Raven couldn't help but wince a little at that. "I do," she confirmed. "I have had my own experiences with them as well."

"You must be from a different universe, then, because I don't remember you. Unless you met one of my brothers?"

"Most likely," Raven agreed. "We come from so many different worlds here."

She hesitated the merest fraction of a instant before continuing. There was no shame in sharing her past and how she'd successfully (or unsuccessfully at times) dealt with it. "In my world, I am supposed to be the embodiment of the sin of Pride," she said. "I have six half-brothers, who represent Lust, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, and Wrath. I am not certain why our father wanted us to be this way, but I am apparently the 'white sheep' of the family, as my brothers embraced their roles."

Wow, that was...weirdly familiar in some ways. Weirdly different in others, but.

"Okay, well, I'm Sloth. That's my curse." There it was. "But we're definitely not related. You look nothing like Al."

He had never wondered before what would have happened if one of their fathers had had a girl first. The curse was on the firstborn sons, after all.

Right. Introductions were just going to be a recurring ordeal this week. It was the logical way to start a course of lessons when there were multiple sentient beings learning collaboratively, Beta surmised, and would help to establish a baseline for the rest of the semester.

That still didn't mean she had to like them.

"I'm Beta," she said softly. "I'm a junior, and I... I'm here because..."

She gave a nervous glance around the room, not sure if she should go on. (She would, she might just need a nudge.)

"You may speak to me privately if you are not comfortable sharing with the entire class," Raven said. "Or if you are merely collecting your thoughts, please, continue."

Beta shook her head. It took her a moment to visibly collect herself, but she spoke up again.

"It's okay." Aloy said being here would be good for her, and she trusted that. "I don't know if I have a dark side, necessarily. But ... the people who... oversaw my development were not good, or ethical, or moral. So, logically, I can't just dismiss the possibility either."

"That is certainly a valid concern," Raven said. "You worry that these people who raised you may have shaped you in ways that you do not yet fully understand?"

Beta nodded, swallowed, and nodded again. "This isn't exactly the kind of thing you can run predictive models for."

'Raised' was a very generous term for the Zeniths' involvement in her creation, but she wasn't getting into that just yet.

"You would not be the only one in Fandom who has concerns and questions about the hows and whys of their upbringing," Raven said, sending out a warm thread of reassurance almost without even thinking. "I hope we may find ways to put your worries to rest."

It was fleeting, but Beta offered a rare smile.

"Thanks," she said, awkward as always, and then tried to fold herself down a little smaller in her seat again.

"Hi, there!" Graham grinned at Raven and the class and swept his arm up in a wave. "I'm Graham, Graham Crac--"

But as he spoke, he started to realize that squishy bean bag he'd chosen to sit in was maybe a bit too squishy, as he was slowly, slowly, sinking down into it, and, startled by this realization, he quickly had to swim him way back up lest he be swallowed up by it entirely!

And once that was settled, he perched himself closer to edge.

"...and I'm a sophomore!" he continued, as if nothing had happened. "I'm taking this class because I'm gonna be a knight some day! Maybe even a king! And I bet there's all sorts of temptations down those roads that could lead a lesser man astray! So I want to bulk up my resolve so that I'm ready for nearly anything!"

"Well, it is very important for a knight -- and especially a king -- to be free of temptation and unwanted influence," Raven said, trying not to show her amusement of the bean bag situation. Bean bags could consume anyone caught unawares, after all.

“I’m Guillermo de la Cruz, I’m a sophomore and I …” Guillermo hesitated and looked a bit nervous, “I recently found that I’m a descendant if Van Helsing, I’m supposed to be a vampire hunter only …I don’t want to hunt vampires,” he admitted.

For more private conversations.

When Raven's class had wrapped up, Summer came breezing in with two cups from the Perk in her hands. "Hiiiiii, Raven!" she sang out. "Just dropping in to see how your class went! I wasn't sure if you like coffee or tea, so I just got one of each and figured you could pick which one you wanted."

"Tea would be wonderful, thank you," Raven said. She rarely talked so much as she had been doing in the class, so her throat was a bit on the dry side at the moment.

"I think the class went well," she added. She hoped.

Summer took a second to check the cups, and handed the one with tea over to Raven. Just a nice simple Earl Grey, it was classic, you can't even offend a Radchaai with something like an Earl Grey!

(Well, you definitely could, but anyway...)

"I feel like anything short of 'oh god, it was horrible!' is a good sign, really," she mused.

Earl Grey was fine! Raven usually put a bit more sugar in her tea, but it was perfectly good as is. She took a small sip and savored the flavor.

"It was definitely not horrible," she confirmed. "Just getting to know my students and how I can possibly help them."

Summer nodded a little, with a sip of the coffee that was now hers. Which was black, since she wouldn't have known how Raven took it (but there was definitely probably some kind of joke to be had there!), so it was going to be a little rough, but she'd had much, much worse than black coffee before.

"Was 'the first week is pretty much all introductions' pretty much tradition back when you were a student here, too?" she wondered.

The fact that this interface has "Casual HTML" and "Raw HTML" is making me giggle for some reason....

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How to Deal with your Dark Side, Tuesday - Fourth Period

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