Fandom High School

"So," Sparkle said, smiling wryly. "Last week of show and tell, and this week I'm leaving it up to you guys again. Not because I'm gonna, like, grade you on what you figure is worth sharing with the class or anything. This workshop is purely participation points. But because I've been giving you guys topics all summer and figure you might want to come up with your own, now."

And with that, he held up a little two-gallon fish tank with a double-tailed betta inside and grinned.

"This is Milady," he shared. "I got Milady last October when I was in an 'in America for Canadian Thanksgiving' funk, and I left her at Demon Marcus for a while. Alluka's the one who named her; Milady is a 100% certified AMAB trans-lady-fish, mostly because I didn't have the heart to correct her about that, and it isn't like Milady cares all that much either way. She's a fish." He grinned faintly. "A few months back, Milady came back home with me because I kind of needed some company at the time, and like a moron I forgot to leave a note explaining why she disappeared. So when Alluka decided that Milady had gone on grand adventures, Milady started sending postcards."

Sparkle laid out some copies of half-decently photoshopped pictures of the fish against such backdrops as the Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge, and the moon.

"I'm kind of jealous of her adventures, honestly. Milady is one well-travelled fish."

Milady was the best fish.

"Okay, your turn!"

Okay, Sparkle was looking mildly disgruntled when he showed up for class today. He'd messaged the students asking them to think of some music to share this week. That part had gone just fine. But no matter how many times he tried to rehearse his lecture for today, it came out sounding... flat. Not terribly enthusiastic. And for a guy who used enthusiasm as a cover for a lot of things he'd rather not talk about, the island's shenanigans today left him feeling weirdly naked.

"So, uh, today we're sharing music," he said, trying to make up for his near deadpan with a wry smile. "Some song that's really meant a lot to us, or something we heard a lot when we were kids, or that we wrote ourselves, or just something you heard on the radio and thought was fun. Like, I brought in Hello, Dolly, because-- ah, shit. I just made a lot of memories to that song, for better or worse."

While drunk. And crying on some old woman's floor. Details.

"But also because I just shamelessly love musicals. They're fun, and theatre folks just get... things."

This was really hard without the ability to put emphasis on anything, for the record.

"Here, look, I'll just play the song, it's the Carol Channing version because she did it first, though there have been a bunch of great versions since, and then you guys can go."

Hopefully Carol wouldn't come out of the speaker sounding flat, too.

This week, Sparkle's class had been sent an e-mail in advance with a prompt for what to bring in to the classroom today. And that prompt was, 'toys.'

Which they were free to interpret however they cared to, just so long as they kept it clean.

He'd admit he was curious to see how Ringo managed this one, having used her AT card on day one.

"Okay," he said, grinning at the class. "Not every week can be a field trip week. Well, I mean, it could. There are literally classes that do that. But I'm not that organized anyway, so we're going to trade off every now and again, at least. And this week, I asked you guys to bring in some kind of toy, if you have anything that qualifies. If you don't, here's where you fake it, which is an important part of the whole 'show and tell' experience."

Or maybe Sparkle just figured that lying was more important than plenty of people might prefer. One of those. Either way, he was pulling a little black stuffed toy cat from his bag, and holding it up for the class to see.

"This is Velcro II," he shared. "Named after Velcro the first, who was my pet cat while I was a student here. I couldn't keep him after grad when it was time to go back home, so Velcro found a home with one of the other students, and when I came back to the island I wound up living with a guy whose one house rule is 'no cats.'" Atton was lucky Sparkle liked him. "So he got me this guy instead. I'm pretty sure he felt bad about the house rule? I dunno. Either way, Velcro II comes along with me whenever I've got my backpack anywhere, because... I'm a big kid? Whatever. Here's my toy, that was my bit. You guys can pass him around if you like, but someone's gotta share."

Funny thing about teaching a no-brainer class? Sparkle looked way more comfortable up at the front of the classroom this week than he did at the front of the classroom last semester. This one, hopefully, was going to be way less intimidating to teach than that one about 'urban survival.'

Which was not a hard bar to skip over, admittedly.

"Hey, guys," Sparkle said, offering people a little grin. "I'm Sparkle," yes, really, shut up, "and this class is basically my excuse to keep my teaching cred without putting out any real effort."

He gave the students in the room a grin. Maybe he was even joking! Who knew!

"Fortunately, it's easy marks for you guys, too, right? If you aren't from a place where 'show and tell' was a normal thing when you were growing up, it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Presumably it's supposed to help people work on, like, public speaking or whatever, so sure, we're gonna go with that. You bring something in, show it off, and then tell the class a little bit about it. I'm not going to leave you at a total loss for what to bring in every week, hell, I'm gonna try to keep this fun, too, but this week we're gonna have to keep it pretty simple. Name, how you ended up in this class, and show off and tell the class about one random piece of clothing or item in your pockets."

He grinned.

"I'll start. I'm Sparkle, I already told you why I'm teaching this class, and..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue, kind of plastic-looking bill. "... And I guess I still have Canadian money on me because, hell if I even know. This is five bucks. Five bucks Canadian. It's pretty useless here, but it's got some old guy on the back and space dudes on the front? I think that's the Canadarm or whatever it's called. You can pass it around if you want while you guys do your introductions, just so long as I get it back when you're done. And go."