talentforlying: (can't clean me up for polite company)
John Constantine ([personal profile] talentforlying) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2026-01-06 10:07 pm
Entry tags:

The Long Con, Wednesday, Period 1 [1/7]

It was a grumpy, rumpled librarian that stomped his way into class after the students had arrived, bonelessly dropping into his chair and kicking his feet up on to his desk as he fished about in his coat for some cigarettes.

God, why the fuck had he been assigned first period? This was some sort of fucking revenge by that sodding moose, wasn't it? John hadn't started drinking yet, but this was fucking inhumane, to be sober at this hour. Bloody hell.

"Right, I'm Constantine, and you're most likely here because you're gullible and thinking this is going to be an easy 'A', a delinquent, or for some strange reason thought this was an academic class with philosophical value," he said, lighting up. "More the fools you, but I can work with it."

"So, let's start with the basics. A con is a game, one where hopefully you're the one writing the rules and the people around you are the pieces you're moving. It's a scam, a grift, a hustle, all those words designed to make it sound as shady as possible, although the number of reasons you could be running a con are infinite, at least when you're justifying it to yourself. It usually just boils down to one, very simple motivation: You want something," he continued bluntly. "So give me your name - or whatever the hell you want to be called for the purposes of this class, I don't care - and tell me one time you ran a scam on someone. Give me an idea of what you already know, kids, then we'll get on to Arts and Crafts."

...did he mean for that to sound slightly ominous? Maybe. It was too fucking early for this shite.
mostnonheinous: (tribulations)

Re: Talk and Stuff!

[personal profile] mostnonheinous 2026-01-07 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh." Billie nodded, still frowning, then brightened. "My mom and my aunt did some most triumphant cons, then! They're from medieval England and needed to pretend to be modern so they could marry the dads and get jobs."
mostnonheinous: (for real)

Re: Talk and Stuff!

[personal profile] mostnonheinous 2026-01-07 10:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"She is quite excellent at that, indeed!" Billie said enthusiastically. "So is my dad, actually, but I think that's probably because he is very well known, and thus not always aware that he doesn't belong in a given situation."

Ted was actually often very aware that he didn't belong. He just didn't let that stop him from doing things. It helped when you found out as a teenager you were destined to save the universe. Little things like "should I actually be here?" tended to fall by the wayside in the fact of that sort of pressure.