Fandom High School

Aphra hadn't had any precious bundles of joy visit by switching on the radio was enough for her to send a single email to the class before hunting through the liquor cabinet for the real good stuff.

NOPE. Class cancelled.

Today the Danger Shop was set up like a kitchen, or rather, 'kitchen' as the equipment was decidedly haphazard.

"So it occurred to me that some of you are probably going to be graduating soon." Probably, it's not like she'd actually paid attention to what year they were in. "And going on to study on planets were it doesn't literally rain food. So in the interests of helping you make it to next homecoming I'm going to teach you to cook like university students."

And by that she meant giving them ingredients and letting them them figure out how to make something edible.

Aphra had the projector set up at the front of class.

"Holodrama day!" she said cheerfully. "Forgery, art theft, and daddy issues!"

Today class looked almost dangerously low key for Aphra, just desks and flimsy and styluses.

"So there's one of this planet's big romantic holidays coming up," she said. "Which since you are teenagers and full of hormones, is likely to encourage you to do something stupid with your crushes, or ex-crushes, or ex-crushes who are now deadly enemies." Aphra, most people's exes didn't become their deadly enemies, you were just special.

"Now some people claim that spontaneity is the essence of romance." Including Aphra, usually when someone realised she'd forgotten some important date or the other. "They are wrong, that way lies drama and mixed messages and bounty hunters. Though sometimes they'll just cut out the middle man. Woman. Being. Whatever. Point is. Planning, planning is great. So you're all going to plan out your most creative romance related gesture, whether you want to impress someone, make them feel special, apologise for screwing up, to make it clear just how awesome your life is now that their not in it and they should be the one feeling bad and lonely that they dumped you."

"Anyway, feel free to workshop, kids!"

"Hey, kids, you know what's fun? Nature." Nature was not actually fun in Aphra's opinion, but she was a morally ambiguous (at best) lesbian, so she'd had a weekend. "More specifically mimicry, which since this school rarely teaches biology, means looking like something you're not, usually so you don't get eaten."

Truly, no matter how many lies Aphra told, she'd never match nature in the deception stakes.

"So, I've provided a bunch of random junk, and your job is to make it look like something else entirely. A real something else, because that's the point of mimicry."

Congratulations, class! Your teacher was not a tooka! Which had been a real possibility up until the weekend.

"Hi, new kids!" Did Aphra care if you were new or not? No, no she didn't. "I'm Doctor Aphra, and this is a class about unlocking your inner creativity, for fun and possibly profit." Theirs, hers, who'd know for sure, a rising tide and all that.

"It's time for us to get creative, so introduce yourselves, creatively!"

Aphra was at the front of class with the glee that came from no surprise children, and from remembering just how much of a karking annoyance she'd been at that age.

"So those of you who've experienced the joys of parenthood have no doubt realised just how much creative thinking that involves. Especially when your little ankle-biters start asking questions. Like 'why?'."

She paused for effect. "So, why?"

"The floor is lava!" And indeed the floor of the Danger Shop was indeed lava. "And that thing you want is on the other side of the room!"

You could see where this was going, right?

Class was in a pyramid, and Aphra seemed disturbingly chipper.

"Time for some exploring, kids!"

Clearly this would end well.

For a change, class today was in the computer lab.

"So, emotions, they're pretty terrible," Aphra started. "I mean, even the ones that feel great can be terrible on the old judgement skills, but since you can't really just turn them off, you might as well learn to make them work for you. Sometimes this means taking advantage of other people's emotions, but since that's pretty advanced stuff, we're just going to focus on dealing with your own. Empathy, mainly." That was one of the main causes of many of Aphra's problems, after all.

"Which is why today you're going to be playing a little archaeologist sim and just work on keeping your little archaeologist alive."

It was harder than it looked.

"So the thing about thinking creatively is you've got to make it a habit," Aphra told the class. "But since you're just starting out, it's probably a good idea to build up to advanced practice methods." Which was one way to put continually getting into the kinds of situations that required creative solutions to stay alive.

"So, riddles and brain teasers! They're a classic, so find a partner and try to stump them!"