fandomhigh | Scoobying Workshop #5, Afternoon 6/20/2006 (Main Campfire)

[Roster]

This time there's a widely-spaced row of folding chairs in the open area near the main campfire. However, astute observers (AKA those with eyes) will notice that there's only enough chairs for about half the campers in the workshop. Xander waves people back to the usual logs to actually sit down after they sign in, though, leaving the chairs empty except for two rolls of tape on the seat of each. One duct, one gaffer.

He walks over and picks up both rolls from one of the chairs, holding them up in one hand. "So today I thought I'd talk about a role on the team that everybody thinks is a bad one, but it can actually be an advantage if you look at it right: The One Who Always Gets Kidnapped."

Xander waves his tape-filled hand. "I know, I know, how's that useful when it means your team has to drop what they're doing and go and rescue the person, maybe pay a ransom or at least have to let the bad guy get away with something. I'm not saying getting kidnapped is a good thing, on its own. But.

If there's somebody in your gang who always does seem to be the one who's snatched or trapped or drugged or... lured into the house of a sexy biology teacher on a pretext that in retrospect seems unbelieveable even to them and ends up in a cage waiting to be munched on, and you know you're that person, you can do two things:

You can get good at escaping so your team doesn't have to rescue you, and you can use the advantage of knowing somebody's gonna bean you over the head and you'll wake up in his lair. Scope out the setup. Figure out where he keeps his Doomsday Weapon, not dirty. Get him to go muahahahahahaha--" Xander actually does a pretty good muahahaha; it's probably kind of disturbing. "--and reveal his sekrit plans for global domination, then hightail it outta there. If you plan it ahead of time, you can even get kidnapped on purpose as a plant, to put some kind of trap in place, or keep him occupied while the rest of your team storms the castle."

"So." Still holding the rolls of tape, he ticks things off on the fingers of his left hand, two of which are still taped up themselves. "You can help your team by being a spy or a distraction. You can make things easier on them by learning to rescue yourself. And if nothing else, it can help you can develop your other skills by using them to try to get away. Natural talents I've seen help with this would include whining, screaming really loud, and turning into pudding and okay that was only on Bitterwoman but it worked for Pudding Girl and you gotta admit you never thought that power would come in handy -- but I bet there's all kinds of other things you can put to use too.

So that's what we're gonna do today - a little kidnapping roleplay, also not dirty."

_____
[OOC, for next week: Next week's workshop is going to be kind of a graphics-war, based on making faces, so if you've been waiting for a chance to use those "Bitch please" and "WTF?" icons, yay. If you don't have a lot of those, linking to pics of your character making the face you want to illustrate will work just as well. If there aren't a lot of useful pictures of your character, pictures of anybody making that face are golden too. Google images is your friend.]

[Open like an open...post.]

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"...Point," Bridge concedes.

Once he had the wrists taped together, Zack started wrapping the duct tape across Bridge's chest to secure him to the chairback. "Not to mention that drugging you would dull your senses and help prevent, or at least increase the difficulty of escape attempts. I don't know why more movie villains don't at least try drugging the hero."

"Because it's not in the script?" Bridge points out reasonably.

"Then the scriptwriters lack imagination."

"Or perhaps are contractually bound to come up with a situation where the kidnapped person will be able to escape, as they're obligated to come up with a scenario that a potential audience will enjoy, in order to generate the highest possible revenue- and most people do like seeing the good guys win."

"But wouldn't a situation where it was as hard as possible for the hero to escape make for a more satisfying denouement when the hero eventually did escape?"

"Please. Modern consumer culture is all about the *instant* gratification."

"Ridiculous." Having used up all of one roll of tape, Zack fetched another and started adding a second layer of tape. "How can the hero triumphing over all odds be in any way gratifing without there being actual odds to triumph over?"

"I'd shrug but I'm sort of tied up at the moment."

"Good, since for all I know you're a contortionist with the ability to escape given any slack."

"Maybe I am, and I just lied to you right now."

"That's why I'm using three rolls of duct tape and am criss-crossing the tape to provide better structural stability."

"But what is stability, really?" Bridge asks thoughtfully.

"Something most evil geniuses don't seem to get the value of," Zack replied. "Seeing as many of them nowadays seem to be evil businessmen out to destroy the very society that they gained their resources from."

"Well, then they're really not evil geniuses, are they?" Bridge points out. "They're more just evil people, which are a dime a dozen, apparently."

"Which again, defeats the whole point of the hero's journey by minimising the obstacles he must face. I can't make for good entertainment."

Scoobying Workshop #5, Afternoon 6/20/2006 (Main Campfire)

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