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Runa
Feb 13, 2011

Same, I'm really enjoying the possibilities of the Markowitz Self-Own angle. Especially since he's the new guy on staff.

He totally didn't know what he was getting into when he took this job.

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jagadaishio
Jun 25, 2013

I don't care if it's ethical; I want a Mammoth Steak.

Butt Discussin posted:

I, too, vote for keeping Mr. Markowitz incompetent, in a "Was good in a completely different situation but now displays a complete inability to read the situation or adapt" kind of way. There should be an interesting reason for how he was able to stumble into this job, and rather than just having him killed, the rich students he annoys should do something like framing him for hitting someone close to him with a car, or something like that.

That's the Peter Principle in action. You get promoted to the level of your own incompetence.

numerrik posted:

It really seems like he’s just presenting Fuzzy with a series of arguments as to why she should be running the shadows after graduation.

The idea that the chosen book list this year - one by one - ends up making a really solid argument for class warfare, anarchy, and political resistance movements entirely by accident would be the best. "By the time I finished sophomore English lit, I'd really come around to the idea of doing mercenary work and corporate sabotage as a form of vigilante justice against the corrupt elite in a world gone wrong." :black101:

jagadaishio fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jul 21, 2018

numerrik
Jul 15, 2009

Falcon Punch!

jagadaishio posted:



The idea that the chosen book list this year - one by one - ends up making a really solid argument for class warfare, anarchy, and political resistance movements entirely by accident would be the best. "By the time I finished sophomore English lit, I'd really come around to the idea of doing mercenary work and corporate sabotage as a form of vigilante justice against the corrupt elite in a world gone wrong." :black101:

I want this, are you listening, Ice?

E: VV Option B

numerrik fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jul 21, 2018

Mr Apollo
Jan 1, 2013
Please, what is more realistic here? That Mr. Markowitz forgot to take in to account his audience when selecting this term's reading list, or that 'Mr. Markowitz' is, in fact, a carefully constructed cover identity used by a deniable asset backed by the UCAS as part of an anti-corp PSYOPS campaign. :tinfoil: :tinfoil: :tinfoil:

Nothingtoseehere
Nov 11, 2010


Your all being too harsh on him - it's mkre likely he's just complacent - I have no doubt the school hires the best teachers, so he probably has a grand vision about changing corporate kids using The great gatsby and just believes it'll all work out fine.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Kenji, Oli, Jayvon and Mr. Peters

"Oh my gosh, who does your hair?" asked a freshman girl.

Oli glowered at her from her seat but said nothing. The freshman girl made an expansive gesture towards her newly dyed, bright pink hair.

"Your makeup is flawless, too" she continued, "I'm an expert when it comes to these things and I can tell you put it on yourself. Putting on makeup is a dying art and you do so much with so little. I applaud you."

Kenji walked into the art class to witness the backhanded compliments. His instincts about sharing a class with Oli had been correct. It wasn't possible to protect her in her normal classes. Not until he started to make inroads with the new crop of freshmen, but he could be here right now.

"Hello there," said Kenji, with his most winning smile, "I don't know you. I'm Kenji, what's your name?"

She was a blandly pretty human girl who had her hair done up into a Mohawk braid that ended in a pony tail in the back. The braid was dyed a violent purple while the shaved sides were bleached. She arched an eyebrow at Kenji and quirked a smile. Oli held very still and her face was impassive, even as the girl turned away.

"Clarissa," she said, "Hey, you're cute."

There were no desks, but tables that were meant for four students a piece. Kenji sat at the edge of this one.

"Well thanks. Now that we've been introduced I want you to be nice to my friend, Oli," he said, "I'd take it as a favor."

Leading with a small favor was small, but it was easier to get a positive response with the doling out of a small favor. He motioned to Oli, whose face finally broke and she glowered up at her bully. Clarissa's smile fell and she rolled her eyes. She didn't notice the glower at all, or pretended not to.

"What, are you some sort of chubby chaser?" she said, sarcastically, "You can do way better."

Kenji's smile was practiced, so it didn't diminish in the slightest. He was irked, but he didn't let it show.

"Last chance to be nice," said Kenji, "What do you say? Still want to have a good day?"

Clarissa wrinkled her nose and shot him a scathing look.

"Are you threatening me or something?" she asked.

Kenji's smile turned sharp as he showed his teeth.

"Me? No, I'm harmless," he lied.

"Whatever," she said, dismissively.

She walked away and Kenji looked over his shoulder at Oli.

"I'll be back in one second," he said.

"Don't worry about it," she said, quietly.

"Too late," he said, his tone chipper, "Already worrying."

He slipped off the table and looked around for someone he knew. Art was an elective and therefore a mixed class. He saw Skylar again, but that wouldn't do. He didn't like her. There were a few others faces he knew, but he didn't immediately notice any he could work with for this particular task. Then he smiled as he saw Sarah. She was one of Olisha's friends, a senior and like her friend, prone to being cruel for fun. There were still a few minutes before class started and the teacher hadn't walked in yet. He walked up to the redheaded elf who was talking to a friend. He sat down on her table in much the same fashion as he had at Oli's. There were proprieties, so he didn't interrupt her conversation, and waited to be addressed. She didn't make him wait long.

"Hey Ken," said Sarah, "I thought you would've been expelled by now."

She winked at him and he chuckled.

"I'm waiting to do that in a spectacular fashion. It wouldn't do to get expelled in any old way," he teased, "Staying out of trouble?"

"Hardly," she scoffed, "Looking for some. Today is boring."

The girl she was talking to rolled her eyes a little at the small sleight, but said nothing.

"Want to make it less boring?" he asked.

A wicked smile sliced across Sarah's face.

"I might entertain you for a minute, but only if you tell me about the puppy dog eyes," she said, "I'm curious."

Kenji almost didn't catch her meaning, but nodded appreciatively as he figured it out.

"Olisha told you about me and Dog?" he asked.

Sarah inspected her nails as she tried to appear casual.

"Yep, and the rumor is that your eyes change color," she said, "I know a lot about your body changes since you were pretending to be musicians for party tricks, but magic has a hard time changing eyes. Any truth to that?"

"If there is, you'll be the one I show them to on purpose," he flirted.

She scoffed lightly and her smile grew.

"Okay, what do you want? she asked, "You only flirt with me when you want something."

"Am I that transparent?" he joked.

"Crystal clear," she cooed, "I let you get away with it because you're fun."

He chuckled softly and grinned at her.

"Fair enough," he said, "Behind me there's this new freshman girl with purple and white hair. Want to give her a warm welcome? She bothered me when I was trying to be nice."

"Can't have that," she said, "I want to see those puppy dog eyes though, remember that you promised."

"I will," he said, "Thanks much."

Kenji went back to Oli's table and Sarah went to sit across from Clarissa. The glower on Oli's face changed to one of confusion.

"What did you do?" whispered Oli.

"Me?" asked Kenji, innocently, "I talked to a friend of mine and she wants to be friends with Clarissa. I just want everyone to be friends."

Clarissa shot Kenji a death glare and Sarah giggled evilly. It looked like Clarissa had overheard their conversation. Kenji's smile was positively cherubic.

"You know she can hear you," said Oli.

Kenji placed a hand to his chest and did his best, "Who, me?" impression.

"What? Of course she can hear me," teased Kenji, "I just wanted to find a new friend and mentor for one of the incoming freshman class. Everyone is going to be good friends. Right Sarah?"

Sarah smiled wolfishly at Kenji and nodded.

"Now Oli," said Kenji, "Anyone else you know in need of a friend?"

"No, it's fine," said Oli.

"Okay, you just let me know," said Kenji, sweetly, but loudly enough to be overheard, "By the way, I didn't see you at lunch."

Oli's brow furrowed at the sudden change in conversation now that the innuendo was gone.

"Oh!" exclaimed Oli, "I got caught up in my painting. If I don't work when I'm inspired it gets away from me."

"Okay," said Kenji, "Just remember to be social sometimes. It's good for you."

Oli sighed miserably and put her head against the table.

"I suck at being social," she complained.

"I can help with that if you want," he said, "Being social is great."

The look that Oli gave him was disbelieving.

"It's a skill," he said, lightly, "Well, okay, a set of skills, but useful ones. You learn them with practice."

Oli grunted and turned her face away. A few minutes later, Mr. Peters walked through the door. The alchemy and enchantment teacher was also the island's only art teacher as enchantment had some heavy crossover with art skills. As there were just over twenty students in this class, it was one of the school's largest and most popular classes. He went straight to his desk and waved to a few students, who waved back and one of them walked up to him to have a chat. Kenji noticed that many of these students were from his enchanting class and realized that Mr. Peters had mentioned that while art wasn't specifically required for enchanting, it was encouraged. Oli didn't seem chatty so he listened to Sarah as she delivered a taste of Clarissa's own medicine in the form of far more polished backhanded compliments and catty witticisms.

Moments before the bell rang, Jayvon hobbled through the door on his crutches. More than a few people stared at him. After all, he was the only dwarf on the island and being wounded was strange among people had access to both magical healing and some of the best mundane healing that money could buy. He looked around the room and most of the tables were occupied so he approached Kenji's table.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

Kenji noticed that he didn't wait to lean his crutches against the table, though he didn't immediately sit down.

"By all means," said Kenji, "Oli?"

Oli lifted up her head from the table and looked to Kenji.

"What?" she asked.

Kenji made a gesture to Jayvon, who looked expectantly at her. Oli's chubby, pale cheeks turned a faint pink, though not for long.

"Oh, sure," she said, "Sorry to make you wait."

"No trouble," said Jayvon, gruffly.

With effort, Jayvon climbed into a seat that was meant for those of normal size and struggled with his backpack as Mr. Peters began to talk. His voice was quiet and soothing, so those who wished to hear him had to lean in.

"Hello everyone," he said, "I'm so very excited to see so many faces for art class this year, both new faces and returning faces. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mr. Peters. I teach enchanting, alchemy and art. For those of you not in the know, we have a mixed class as many of my students from my enchanting class are encouraged to take my art class to further their studies in enchanting. However, I do my best to teach those who long for the joy of creation and artistic expression whether that's magical or mundane. To me, nurturing that urge is just as important as making magic."

His smile was open and genuine as he looked around at the tables filled with students.

"I do have to split my time, but many of my students from enchanting teach the others," he continued, "So today, I'd like a volunteer to show those from my enchanting class how to use a rock tumbler."

A broad shouldered older human teen with a shaved head raised his hand.

"Thank you Jeffrey," he said, "That's very good of you. I'm glad to see you back."

Mr. Peters nodded to Jeffrey, and the older teen with the shaved head nodded and smiled back.

"Now since that won't occupy the entire class I want everyone to pay attention. We're going to launch directly into painting," he said, "Now I suspect most of you have painted before, but if you haven't that's just fine by me. As long as you put forth your best effort and try to develop your skills, I'll be happy with the results. I'm going to demonstrate some techniques and..."

"Why don't...Argh," hissed Clarissa to Sarah.

What Clarissa said was only half heard by Kenji, but she sounded pissed.

"Miss Liman," said Mr. Peters, without skipping a beat, "Do you have something to share with the class?"

Clarissa's head swiveled around to meet Mr. Peters as her back was to him. After a pause, she answered.

"No," she said, sullenly.

The teacher's face didn't change at all. His face was serene.

"Miss Liman, I do you the courtesy of using your name when addressing you," said Mr. Peters, "I ask that you show courtesy in return. In the future, please use my name when addressing me and hold any conversations until after I'm done speaking. Do you understand?"

A few emotions flickered across Clarissa's face: Indignation, wounded pride, anger and frustration. Everyone in class was staring at her though and soon she buckled under that pressure.

"Sorry, Mr. Peters," she said, quietly.

There were a few quiet chuckles and giggles from the students, including one from Oli, Kenji noticed. Mr. Peters nodded to her.

"Thank you, kindly," he said, "Now, back on topic. I'm going to demonstrate those brush strokes. Our subjects will be simple objects, but that's just for today and tomorrow. Weather permitting, we'll go outside and we can look for subject matter in nature. After I'm done with my demonstration my enchanting students will go to the rock tumbler and Jeffrey will demonstrate how to polish rocks. By this time next week you'll have a shiny, polished stone to use in a project or maybe to take home to admire or give to a friend."

Kenji felt like this was all pretty corny, but the class was relaxing. For the next hour and fifteen minutes he watched Mr. Peters demonstrate how to paint, he learned how to smooth rocks in a rock tumbler and then he painted a picture of a vase. The last of his stress melted away as he, Oli and Jayvon worked at their table. They chatted rarely as they were all focused on their work. Jayvon often dropped his brush and would occasionally swear, but art was otherwise soothing. Kenji could forget his troubles in creation. At least for a time.

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
If incompetent-literature-teacher’s next book is a Scrooge McDuck graphic novel, he could be trying to show different views of the rich in literature.

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL
I want surprisingly incompetent teacher to be surprisingly competent somehow, too. Yeah, Perter Principle, but he was hired for a reason. Like, in spite of everything, he manages to make a pretty big impression on Fuzzy or something.

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER

Dr Subterfuge posted:

I want surprisingly incompetent teacher to be surprisingly competent somehow, too. Yeah, Perter Principle, but he was hired for a reason. Like, in spite of everything, he manages to make a pretty big impression on Fuzzy or something.

Or incompetent for a reason - a last minute hire, a secret idealogue, or just too ambitious for his position - he’s teaching not-magic at a magic school. He’s far more replaceable than other teachers.

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

Dr Subterfuge posted:

I want surprisingly incompetent teacher to be surprisingly competent somehow, too. Yeah, Perter Principle, but he was hired for a reason. Like, in spite of everything, he manages to make a pretty big impression on Fuzzy or something.

This sounds good to me too.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Sasha, Marcus and Coach Bolt - Tuesday, July 23, 2075 - Afternoon - Blake Island

Sasha's thin arms shook as she struggled to squeeze another push-up out of her out of shape body.

"I said ten, Oliver," drawled Coach Bolt, "You've given me six. Straighten out your back."

She'd actually done ten, but the form that Fuzzy drilled her on had fallen apart after six, so Coach Bolt had repeated the number six, four more times. With an effort of will, Sasha straightened out her back and tried.

"Just six, huh?" said Coach Bolt, "Well, that's something. Everyone on your backs. Crunches, go!"

The four older students who'd been through this class before did as they were told without hesitation, followed by a small chorus of "Yes coach." The four newer, out of shape students, Sasha included, struggled to ready themselves, though some struggled more than others.

"Lift your knees, keep your toes pointed, Denicolo," he barked, "Hands behind your head. You're exercising your core, not your neck."

Sasha managed a full fifteen before her stomach began to tremble. After some sharp words from Coach Bolt, she managed another five.

"Side crunches," ordered Coach Bolt, "Marcus, demonstrate how for the new meat since they seem to be having problems with their crunches."

Sasha knew Marcus. He'd been briefly sucked into the orbit of her father by way of a traded favor through her girlfriend, Fuzzy. He was six foot six, lithely built without an ounce of fat showing on his body, with short, light brown brown hair and light brown eyes. Though Sasha wasn't interested in men, she knew how other girls whispered about him. He was a clean cut, blandly handsome type of guy whose looks were attractive without being striking of threatening. The sort of person that her parents had tried to fix her up with before she'd come out to them as a lesbian. In fact, the only distinguishing feature about him that wasn't bland were his full sleeve tattoos, intricate and black on pale skin. He, like everyone else, wore a grey workout uniform with the Blake Island insignia on it, and he was at the head of the class as he ran them through how to work their obliques.

The young man who'd once courted her family for favors tried his best to conceal his anger and embarrassment. He was good at it, Sasha knew. She didn't know the full extent of his power set, but control of his body and emotions were among them. So while it was normally hard to read his emotions with her astral sight, the strength of his feelings were plain to see. While the rest of the students looked at her with a mix of distorted reds with disgust and anger, only he felt embarrassment, his aura was a red tinged with pink. Coach Bolt's emotions were less complicated. A simple orange of someone at a task. These were Sasha's thoughts as she exercised muscles she barely knew she had.

As close as everyone was to the hard packed earth that served as their training ground, those emotions were hard to make out. Layers upon layers of emotions were mingled with the very earth from days long gone that concealed them. The black of frustration, anguish fear and pain were mixed with the whites of triumph, elation and joy. If she stared hard enough, she could see the faded emotions of years gone by, all compacted by that orange of work, and faintly, ever so faintly, she could detected both approval and disapproval in the orange. It was all so compact, like sediment, and this class was adding yet a new layer. These were the thoughts she used to distract herself from the aches and pains.

"On the bars!" bellowed Coach Bolt, "Pullups, go!"

Another chorus of "Yes coach" bellowed out from the older students, and the newer students, herself included, echoed belatedly. Of the eight students, she could tell which ones were repeats and which weren't. Besides simply being in shape, the return students knew what to expect. Their emotions were simple and their auras were bright orange as they went about their tasks, though tinged more white with pride than black with pain, though that was there. The auras of the new students, herself included, were almost all black from pain and frustration. Though some of the new students were dealing with their pain, one of the others, a senior elven boy with shaggy, blond hair, whose named she was pretty sure was Douglas, looked like he was getting his rear end kicked as hard as her. Or at least that's what his aura was telling her. Neither of them could manage a single pull-up. Coach Bolt blew on his silver whistle and began to run in place.

"We're going on a run!" he yelled, "Everyone move! Marcus, you knew the way! Go!"

Without question, he lead and responded with "Yes Coach", as did everyone else. It didn't take long to get how this class worked. Sasha was suddenly glad that she'd gotten Fuzzy to take her on morning runs and hoped that she wouldn't be run so hard that she'd throw up again. She followed and they ran one of the better marked trails that was almost completely devoid of rocks and roots, though it was hilly, which Sasha wasn't used to. In under a minute, Sasha began to tire and she migrated to the back of the class with Douglas. Coach Bolt brought up the rear.

"You two can still drop it and go find some nice, soft class with a book to stick your nose in! " he shouted from behind, "Either of you feel like that?"

"No coach!" shouted Douglas.

Sasha actually did want that, but that wasn't why she was here.

"No!" she shouted.

"When you talk to me, you call me Coach!" barked Coach Bolt.

"No, Coach!" she called out.

"So you want to stay in my class?!" he exclaimed.

"Yes Coach!" yelled Sasha.

Douglas tried to turn around to speak, but tripped from lack of attention. Sasha tried to reach out, but she saw magic gather around him. Then she saw Douglas briefly tumbled through midair before he was set back on the ground. She slowed down to look.

"You want to stay in my class, eyes forward, keep running!" he shouted, "Next time I let you fall, Denicolo!"

"Yes Coach!" exclaimed Douglas.

So Sasha ran and so did everyone else. What felt like hours later, the run finally ended. She hadn't thrown up and the new meds were certainly working to help her control her panic attacks. She was still drenched with sweat, doubled over with her hands on her knees, but as she looked at Douglas, she was glad she wasn't the only person who was out of shape in the class. She saw his aura grow sharp and red with anger and indignation as he noticed her stare.

"Don't you dare compare yourself to me," he snarled.

Sasha looked away. That had hurt, but her aches and pains helped distract her. On reflex, entirely unwilling to experience aches and pains, she summoned up a healing spell. It wouldn't take away all of her pains, but it would blunt them a bit. She concentrated, thought about the formula and just as she ran her magic through the formula, the spell was dispelled as roughly as one might take a sledgehammer to fine china. Sasha gasped at the suddenness of it and she froze in place.

"There's always one," drawled Coach Bolt.

Sasha looked up from her position, bent double, as the other students that were covered in differing amounts of sweat looked at her with their unkind expressions and angry auras. Coach Bolt bent down to meet her at eye level, but kept his voice raised to talk to the class.

"Oliver, pain is a teacher," said Coach Bolt, "You're not going to work around it. You're going to work through it and with it. You'll learn to use it. All of you will. Pain is going to be a constant companion in combat magic. If you fall down and didn't break or tear something, you get back up. If it's too hard then you can still apply for a gym class. Plus in a very real way, you will deny yourself the ability to grow stronger. When you strain your muscles, they tear and build themselves back up harder and stronger than before. If you use magic, that doesn't happen. Your muscles go right back to where they were and you deny yourself any chance at strength. Every single one of you is going to heal the old fashioned way. You let your bodies do that for you, take some aspirin, ice down the worst parts and suck it up. If you get cut then you grit your teeth and rub some dirt in it. If I catch a whiff of healing magic for anything less than broken bones or lacerations I'll wash you out. Oliver, ten push-ups. Go."

Sasha grit her teeth as her wounded pride roared to be heard. A year ago she would have walked away, buried her nose in the proverbial book and relied on her bodyguards to protect her. Then she remembered all of a sudden that Beef and Duncan were gone. What she had left was a girlfriend who wanted to take their place. That was something she wouldn't allow. This class was full of lessons that she needed to know. So she swallowed her pride and despite her aching body, she got down to her hands and knees, did her best to maintain her posture and began her first push-up.

"Everyone else, do the same," said Coach Bolt.

"Yes coach," was what the older students said, and the new students belatedly echoed.

"And Oliver, when I give you an order, you say yes Coach," said Coach Bolt.

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut hard to keep from crying.

"Yes Coach," she said, through gritted teeth.

This time, despite her aching body, she did her ten. The sweat that poured down her face hid her tears.

Edit: Rolls and Stuff

Let's see how the rest of the day goes. Things are going to calm down.

Sasha stays behind and talks to Julian.

Fuzzy is pretty happy, but also feeling guilty about being happy as Julie is not well. I roll to see if she understands what happened to Julie as "doctors for the mind" is descriptive, but doesn't fit perfectly for a psychiatrist. She rolls intuition 4 + logic 2. She does well and gets 3 hits. So yes, she understands that Julie is basically in the hospital, but it's a hospital for emotions. She rolled 6 hits on an earlier roll for composure, so she's going to feel down, but bounce back quickly and focus on what she can do. Kenji is in English class with her and she meets Mr. Markowitz. He's a mundane English teacher. Over the year, they're going to be reading a number of books together and talking about themes. The first of which is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm going to say that both Fuzzy and Kenji have probably never read a book before, though Kenji has read Edward's comics. They're raised in a time where literacy isn't actually 100% necessary to get by if you have the right app and games have long supplanted books and movies (like they have within the last few years) as the dominant form of media. Literacy is beginning to become optional. So Mr. Markowitz also talks about bringing in a favorite book. Not exactly a book report, but for the teens to talk positively about books in front of their peers. Fuzzy approaches Mr. Markowitz at the end of class and tells him that she's never read a book before and has some serious questions about the book she's reading because it's very difficult for her.

Oli shows up. A girl is bullying her. I roll her composure test. With 6 dice she gets 3 hits, and she's able to deal with being bullied. Kenji steps in and tries to disarm the situation. I rate the girl at 8 dice for etiquette, so the polished side of average. Kenji has 12 dice, does not get his street cred but gets his first impression bonus instead because she's a freshman, so he gets 14 dice. Kenji rolls a 1 hit on 12 dice and has no edge left. She rolls a 2 and succeed. So while she's interested in him, she takes offense when he chooses Oli over him and call Kenji a "chubby chaser" which sparks another composure test from Oli. 2 is not enough, but she is mostly okay. Mr. Peters isn't here yet so he doesn't intercede.

Kenji is smart enough not to intimidate her as that can blow up in his face. This is a mixed class of freshmen through seniors, he sics Sarah, who were briefly met in book 4 on her. He has 16 dice with his street cred bonus this time and I roll an 8 on an etiquette test which is a critical. I assign a dice pool of 12 for Sarah for intimidation and a dice pool of 8 for the defender. Sarah gets 4 hits and the younger one gets one hit and a glitch. One of the younger girls talks to loud while Mr. Peters is talking and get embarrassed in class.

Kenji, Jayvon and Oli all sit together at a table for four, but there aren't enough students, so they're the only ones there. Mr. Peters does some painting, talks about art and what they're going to be doing over the semester and asks his older enchanting students to teach the new ones how to use the rock tumbler in order to polish stones. It's all very relaxing. Kenji notices that there are quite a lot of faces in this class from Mr. Peters' upperclassmen and realizes that this class isn't just for art, but learning how to create telesma, or the items that are used for magical focuses. I roll etiquette rolls to see how everyone gets along. Everyone makes 3 hits on 12, 10 and 5 (6-1 for being bullied for Oli) dice. Everyone gets along well. It seemed that Oli didn't come in at lunch because she was inspired and doesn't want to lose that feeling. And she's going to ask Mr. Peters if she can work on her artwork during class, but with input from him, which he will agree to so long as she incorporates the technique he uses into her work.

Sasha's class with Coach Bolt. It sucks and she's in terrible shape. Sasha rolls composure for day one and she gets 3 hits on 9 dice (4 charisma + 3 willpower + 2 meds) so no chance of a panic attack. Marcus is there. Oh boy. He looks at her but he doesn't look shocked, angry or surprised. He is unflappable. At least on the outside. Inside he's all of those things. Sasha sees him in the astral and gets 5 hits on 12 dice minus his kinesics of 2 which helps mask his feelings. Sasha sees his embarrassment and anger beyond the placid exterior. The hostility she sees from the other students is far more open. However, Coach Bolt gets everyone's attention. Time for pushups, situps and a run. Sasha has been working on these! But not for long enough for it to matter. Less than a week.

Sasha has 1 die (strength 2 - 1 for defaulting) for running and 6 for lift and carry (derived stat of body 4 + strength 2) for all of this as she has no relevant physical skills with her only physical skill being swimming. She's here to build herself from the ground up. Her constantly spending edge isn't sustainable on the long term, so I'm not going to bother. She needs 1 hit not to embarrass herself on everything.

Pushups - 1 - She manages 10 pushups (eventually)
Situps - 1 - She manages 20 sit-ups.
Running - I roll edge. Nothing despite 6 dice. She's at the back of the pack the entire time.

All in all it's been embarrassing for Sasha. She's out of shape, no one likes her and Fuzzy isn't here to protect her. She's out of her element, but that's the point. I roll composure of 9 - 2 for her poor showing as she's gassed. 4 hits. It seems that she's gassed and determined. No sign of a panic attack at all. She's not the only one out of shape though. Half the class are newbies and two others are out of shape as well, so she's in good company. So she looks over to one of the others and gets the following from an older teenage boy, "Don't even think about comparing yourself to me." Coach Bolt delivers some disheartening news. No healing herself. Those who are out of shape are going to get worked into shape, but they're not allowed to heal themselves with magic. The body grows stronger through small tears in the muscle. If you heal the muscle, it goes right back to where it was and doesn't grow stronger. The body needs to heal on its own. No shortcuts. Sasha feels unwelcome, humiliated and sore, but she is determined.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jul 25, 2018

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
For Markowitz, a wise old fart once told me, "There aren't many things more pitiful than a man educated past his own intelligence." I think he looks good on paper, but in practice he is seriously lacking. But he makes s connection with a student, Fuzzy, and learns how to be a better teacher. He came with a goal and an idea, to Gatsby the hell put of thesr spoiled corporate brats. Instead he'll find the true meaning of being an educator.

Brought to you by the Hallmark Channel.

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL

Deadmeat5150 posted:

For Markowitz, a wise old fart once told me, "There aren't many things more pitiful than a man educated past his own intelligence." I think he looks good on paper, but in practice he is seriously lacking. But he makes s connection with a student, Fuzzy, and learns how to be a better teacher. He came with a goal and an idea, to Gatsby the hell put of thesr spoiled corporate brats. Instead he'll find the true meaning of being an educator.

Brought to you by the Hallmark Channel.

I wasn't envisioning it being so Hallmark-y. I just don't want him to be a complete fuckup :ohdear:

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
I want it to be Hallmark-y.

Also thankyou for enshrining my horrible spelling.

VanSandman
Feb 16, 2011
SWAP.AVI EXCHANGER
It’s interesting if he’s a fuckup without the plot armor (edge, in game mechanics) the main characters have. However Ice wants to play it will be interesting.

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL

Deadmeat5150 posted:

I want it to be Hallmark-y.

Also thankyou for enshrining my horrible spelling.

Heh, welcome to the club. I have a dumb typo of Peter enshrined twice on this very page.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Julian, Julie and Coach Bolt- Tuesday, July 23, 2075 - Evening - Blake Island

Julian sat at his desk in his office as he wrapped up his day. The first day of school was always hectic and that would only decrease gradually over time, though that wasn't guaranteed. There were some dozen reports of bullying that he'd been passed by his coworkers. It was his job to evaluate what behavior to crack down on and what to let slide. If he was too strict, he'd lose the carefully maintained order that the school instilled in students who were not at all used to feeling like rules applied to them. If he was too loose with the application of that order the exact same thing would happen. He looked over a few of the worst offenders in his augmented reality program for mandatory conflict resolution.

Before that though, he'd need to interview the scant amount of students who'd volunteered to moderate these grievances to make sure they were serious, qualified and then properly trained. He also needed to make sure that the ones he turned down didn't feel sleighed. Only Joyce Sartel came pre-trained in conflict resolution and he doubted that the juniors or seniors would listen to him due to his age. Still, if the program worked out like he hoped, he could get the students to help with the work load and give them a better sense of control over their own lives. After he made his choices, he'd need to sell said choices to the other faculty during the morning staff meeting. He was glad that out of his three classes, only his class on the principles of shamanism had homework. Grading and lesson planning ate weekends. Few appreciated, cared or even understood that Saturdays were unofficial workdays for teachers or that the end of the school day rarely meant the end of his workday.

"I really need to get laid," he groused.

His mind tracked back to Lisa, a woman that he'd dated over the summer. It had been fun for a fling but it had also come to an end. After all, he spent most of his time here on the island along with Mother Bear. No way could this many students be left unattended overnight. Not even with a security team on standby and patrolling spirits. So he'd broken it off with her. He'd been up front about that and she'd been more than accepting of that fact, so neither of them had illusions of what they'd enjoyed lasting more than a summer. Still, she'd been funny, charming, intelligent, blonde and had legs for days. She would have been a great catch, but Julian wasn't in a point in his life where he could offer the stability needed for a long term girlfriend. He could barely offer stability to his kids. So while Lisa had been fun, she'd also been a distraction. A distraction he'd desperately needed, but also one that he couldn't afford during the school year.

He pored over the disciplinary reports but made no headway as he was distracted and bored. The work was no closer to done and it needed tending to by tomorrow. He made a wave of dismissal and the AR screen disappeared. He sighed as the weight of the day finally settled in on him. He'd gotten only a few hours of sleep last night and a quick nap during lunch that only made him feel more tired than he'd been before he'd slept at his desk.

"Sleep first," he said.

Unable to keep his mind on much of anything, he slowly spun around and around in his black rolling chair for a few minutes and made mindless farting noises with his lips, because that's where his mind was at that moment. So it was something of a surprise when his commlink buzzed. He made another hand command while he continued to spin and the AR screen came back up. His heart ached and he came to an abrupt stop as he saw who it was from. Suddenly, his mind focused and he sat up straight as he answered the call, audio only.

"Hey Julie," said Julian, calmly, "How are you?"

"Um...I um..." she began, nervously, "Sorry, I wanted to wait until after school until I called. Is this a bad time? It's a bad time, isn't it? I can call back later."

"No, I just finished up with work," he lied, "Tell me what's going on. How was your evaluation?"

There was a pause. If the call status wasn't in AR he would have thought she'd hung up on him.

"Not great," she eventually said.

"No?" asked Julian.

"No," said she repeated, "Really not great. The person who evaluated me, I don't know their title, she said that she wanted me to stay for a while. I'm really scared."

Julian felt a hard lump in his throat form at those words. He tried to swallow that lump and failed.

"Do you want me to come down?" he asked, careful to maintain his tone.

"No!" she exclaimed, "No, it's fine. You've done enough. I just...I'm really scared about talking about stuff. You know. I just don't know what to do. Julian, I really think I need help."

She needed help. Those were the magic words. Literally so in a sense. A spirit mentor required a certain sort of behavior from those that they granted power. For a follower of Dog, like Kenji, it required loyalty to their pack. For a follower of Dolphin, like Krupa, it required a sense of justice and love for the environment. For a follower of Fire Bringer, like Julian, it meant helping those who sincerely asked him for help. So he began with what she needed the most.

"Julie, everything is going to be okay," he said, soothed, "I'm going to help you. What do you need right now?"

Julian could feel Fire Bringer's pleasure. It burned merrily in his stomach, like hot chocolate mixed with whiskey on a cold day. Warm and so pleasurable it was almost narcotic.

"Someone I can trust?" she asked, "Everyone here seems so nice, but I need to be sure about who I talk to."

"I understand," he said, "Can you stay for a little longer while I arrange for someone?"

"I think so," said Julie, "I'll ask."

There was a pause. The sound of the commlink came through as it jostled with her movements. The sound of soft speaking between Julie and someone else came through, audible but barely intelligible.

"They said I can get a bed," said Julie, "You said you can arrange for someone?"

"I'll need some time, but yes," said Julian, "I'll find someone good that I trust."

"Okay," she said, quietly, "I'm really sorry for being a burden."

Julian took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he tried to control the emotion in his voice.

"Julie, you're not a burden," he said, "You've helped so many people. It's time for you to get some help too."

They made their goodbyes as Julian's mind whirled with possibilities. Someone who'd done what Julie had done, seen the future that is, even if briefly, was something that people would kill for. Information of that caliber would offer life changing wealth to anyone who made the wrong people aware. That is if they lived long enough to spend it. Loose ends were often cut short. He opened his notebook of contacts and went through them. Again, he was paralyzed by indecision. His contacts were good and tended to be good people, but merely good wasn't good enough. Slowly, his eyes turned away from the AR screen, which hovered in the air as shown through his contact lenses and focused on his belly as the warmth that Fire Bringer offered him continued to slowly spread.

"Oh poo poo," he whispered, "You want to talk?"

As a student of Fire Bringer, anyone who asked Julian earnestly for help would receive it. This applied to Fire Bringer itself. There would be a cost. It would instill an eagerness to help people, like something of a trickster would continually martyr itself, but also provide him with needed direction and strength to do just that. Julian closed his eyes, his soul filled with dread. He took a deep breath and reluctantly made his choice.

"Fire Bringer, I need your help," he said, quietly.

The warmth rapidly spread through his body and that dread disappeared. Instead he was filled with purpose and knew just what to do. He needed to commune with Fire Bringer first which meant being in his cabin and staring into the fireplace to receive orders, though he still had those reports to deal with. He made a hand command, the AR screen popped back up and he made a number of decisions, all of them objectively correct. It was so easy and he was delighted as the work for the day and tomorrow morning was done. He never felt more like a teacher than he did when Fire Bringer guided him. He got to his feet, stretched and groaned with pleasure as his muscles popped. With a tuneless whistle, he strode out into the hall and smiled as he noticed someone.

"Hey Jonathan," said Julian, cheerily, "Mind if I ask for a favor?"

Coach Bolt, the shorter of the two, still in his workout attire, looked up at Julian with a hint of suspicion.

"I'm leaving for the day, Julian," he said, "The boat leaves in ten minutes. The fact that it's leaving at all is a minor miracle."

Julian nodded and his smile fell.

"It's important," said Julian.

"So get Paige to do it," said Coach Bolt.

Paige Turner was Mother Bear's name, who for the obvious reason preferred to be called by her nickname.

"She's been stressed out lately," said Julian, honestly, "Not as young as she used to be. I've been picking up some of the slack for her. She's probably hitting the hay early tonight."

Jonathan Bolt circled his finger in a "get on with it" motion. Julian sighed.

"Watch the kids for the bonfire and a few more hours?" he pleaded.

"Hot date?" asked Coach Bolt.

With a chuckle, Julian shook his head, though the irony of the assumption wasn't lost on him. Then his face fell and his face took on a serious expression as he sighed.

"I wish. I'm helping a student," said Julian, "Julie is undergoing some counseling and she needs my help. She just called. I'm going to try and find her the right counselor."

"Yeah, I heard about that," he said, quietly.

Coach Bolt softened, but still didn't look sold on the idea. He looked around Julian at the exit, so Julian smoothly circled around him and put a hand on his shoulder while he extended his other.

"I'll sweeten the pot," said Julian, "Whiskey. I'll buy you some Jameson. Not the sythahol. The real stuff. Barrel aged. Single malt. None of that blended stuff. Made for sipping. I'll have it delivered tonight. I'm not leaving the island so you'll be able to enjoy it later entirely guilt free. A bottle can go a long way if you treat it right."

Coach Bolt licked his lips. That was when Julian knew he had him, but he didn't change his smile. It wouldn't do to let Jonathan know that he knew.

"I sort of like the blends," said Coach Bolt, gruffly, "There's this limited reserve I've been wanting. Hint of almond and vanilla. I'm skint until the next paycheck. Summers don't pay. You know how it goes."

"I know how that goes," he repeated, his voice filled with understanding.

As if by magic, Julian produced a black credstick from his pocket and held it between two fingers.

"Get one for me too," said Julian, "I'm curious about what the fuss is all about. Anyway, you watch the kids at the bonfire and make sure they're okay. Security is on call in case anything happens and I'll be in my cabin. I should be done in a few hours. Maybe even shorter. We'll have a drink afterwards, you can get some sleep in the guest cabin and I'll be on call for the night shift."

Reluctantly, Coach Bolt took the credstick and pocketed it. Julian's hand slipped off the shorter man's shoulders and he smiled.

"Thanks a bunch," said Julian, "It's a real help. I didn't want to have to ask security. It's better that the kids have a face they know and trust around just in case."

Jonathan Bolt nodded a few times, but suddenly froze. He stopped in his tracks, spun on his heel and touched his whistle, which softly glowed. His eyes went out of focus and he scowled before the small light went out. Julian knew that he'd been made. As both an adept and a shaman, called a mystic adept, Jonathan Bolt couldn't see the astral on his own or astrally project at all. His whistle was his focus for peering into the astral. It was always on hand if he needed it and discreet enough not to be noticed unless someone looked closely.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, "Are you really dragging me into your Fire Bringer nonsense?! Again?!"

Julian raised his hands in surrender and shrugged. There was no hiding it.

"I go where I'm needed," he said, apologetically, "It's possible that nothing could happen."

Coach Bolt kicked over a trash can and began to cuss up a storm. Despite the anger, Julian took this as a positive sign. After all, the boat would be leaving soon. So he let his follow teacher vent his anger in the otherwise empty halls of the school. The minutes ticked down and Julian managed to look properly chastened when Jonathan Bolt would briefly vent his fury his way before he continued to rant at the injustice that had been done to him. By the time he calmed down, the boat had left and Coach Bolt was breathing far harder than he ever would during one of his workout regimens. He squared up with Julian and looked upwards, and Julian could see him covered in a small sheen of sweat and his face was red.

"Fine," he growled, "If only so it doesn't blow up any worse. I'll be buying a case by the way. Think you can cover that?"

Julian shrugged in response.

"I live here five days a week, eat cafeteria food and live in a cabin," he said, "Only Paige socks away more than I do."

"gently caress it, fine," snarled Coach Bolt, "I'll take my therapy case and remember this the next time you ask for something."

Coach Bolt shouldered past Julian, but Julian wasn't mad. He knew what he needed to do. Fire Bringer didn't speak directly to him, but he could feel himself guided inexorably towards his cabin. He had a fireplace to stoke.

The Rolls:

Julian rolls etiquette with 14 dice and Coach Bolt rolls 10. Julian fails with 2 v 4. He attempts again with a +2 bribe and a +2 since it'll only be for a short stint, but -1 for repeating. Julian crits with 9 hits and Coach Bolt takes the whiskey and his measly 2 hits.

Coach Bolt asks what this is all about. I roll 16 dice for Julian's con skill and he gets 1 hit. Shadowrun dice everyone. Coach Bolt rolls 12 dice for perception and gets 4 hits. He realizes what Julian is up to. He's communing with Fire Bringer, which is rarely good.

Continuing to write.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Joyce and Krupa - Tuesday, July 23, 2075 - Evening - Blake Island

"A sari is a bit much for eating hot dogs around a campfire, don't you think?" asked Joyce.

His fiancee was currently dressed up in her blue and black wrap dress, one arm bare and the other with a long sleeve that fell nearly to the ground. On the black parts were delicate and intricate white floral patterns which swirled across the traditional wrap dress. Though she hadn't lived in Indian since she was six, it was still a nod to her cultural heritage. Tir Tairngire may have been trying to create its own metahuman nation which just so happened to mostly be elven, but it didn't stamp the previous identities out of its immigrants. Not completely anyway.

"I want to wear it," she complained, "I only got to wear it once in Tir before we left."

"You remember last year," he said, stuffily, "It's an informal gathering. We may offend others if we upstage them. It's to help the freshman see us as normal people. We want to make them feel welcome, not shabby. Remember how scared you were last year? First time out of Tir?"

Krupa sighed explosively, hands on her hips.

"Fine," she said, "Okay."

"I'll take you to a party this weekend," said Joyce, "We'll dress up and have a nice time. You can wear that and I'll wear that suit you like."

Krupa didn't look sold, but did look mollified.

"We'll go dancing too," he added.

Krupa squealed with delight and hugged him. Her face drew back a few inches from his and showed off the slight height difference between the two, her being just a few inches taller than him.

"I thought you didn't like dancing," she said.

"I don't," he answered, honestly, "But I like you."

"Charmer," she teased.

Joyce's pale cheeks colored as he kissed her. Both came away with smiles on their faces.

"You're going to ruin my makeup," she said, tone mockingly severe.

Despite her protests he kissed her again, though she sighed this time.

"Okay, drab uniform today, sari and dancing this weekend," she said, as she caved.

"And a hike weekend after next," said Joyce, "There's this state park called Saint Edward. I hear it's got a good view of Lake Washington."

Krupa stuck out her tongue and made a face that clashed with the elegance of her outfit and makeup.

"You know the locals call it Lake Acid, right? All that acid rain and runoff from the city?" she said, "It makes me depressed."

"We can do something about that, you know," he said, "Make it a project."

Krupa arched a delicate eyebrow.

"That's a really big project," she said, dubiously.

"What, are you scared or something?" he teased.

"Welp, that's it," she said, dramatically, "Now it's a challenge. Challenge accepted."

She flung up her hands as she retreated to the bathroom to change, and the long piece of fabric on one arm billowed before she closed the door. The drama of the scene was ruined as the end briefly got stuck in the door as Krupa was unused to the length of the dress. Many minutes later she came back out in her normal blue and green shorts and t-shirt, her face scrubbed of the elegant makeup and replaced with something simpler and understated. Joyce, ever the gentleman, offered his arm to her despite the lack of elegance and finery. She took it and they walked out of Joyce's cabin together.

Still writing

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jul 22, 2018

CourValant
Feb 25, 2016

Do You Remember Love?

Ice Phisherman posted:

"Side crunches," ordered Coach Bolt, "Marcus, demonstrate how for the new meat since they seem to be having problems with their crunches."

I like Bolt.

Ice Phisherman posted:

"Oliver, pain is a teacher," said Coach Bolt, "You're not going to work around it. You're going to work through it and with it. You'll learn to use it.”

I really like Bolt.

Ice Phisherman posted:

This time, despite her aching body, she did her ten. The sweat that poured down her face hid her tears.

Welcome to the Next Evolution, dear. :respek:

Ice Phisherman posted:

The body grows stronger through small tears in the muscle. If you heal the muscle, it goes right back to where it was and doesn't grow stronger. The body needs to heal on its own. No shortcuts.

So, does the opposite also hold true in the case of atrophy and lack of use? Say you used to work-out daily, and over time, stop exercising. Can you cast heal on a regular basis to restore your muscles to its pre-atrophy state?

Ice Phisherman posted:

His whistle was his focus for peering into the astral. It was always on hand if he needed it and discreet enough not to be noticed unless someone looked closely.

I really, really like Bolt. :)

Ice Phisherman posted:

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, "Are you really dragging me into your Fire Bringer nonsense?! Again?!"

Do elaborate?

Ice Phisherman posted:

I roll 16 dice for Julian's con skill and he gets 1 hit. Shadowrun dice everyone.

Rolling 16 dice for Con? I’m surprised Julian doesn’t have at least 2-3 families who all swear he’s ‘Father of the Year’.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



CourValant posted:

So, does the opposite also hold true in the case of atrophy and lack of use? Say you used to work-out daily, and over time, stop exercising. Can you cast heal on a regular basis to restore your muscles to its pre-atrophy state?

This is something I made up. In shadowrun, mechanically, the heal spell heals physical damage. When you work out, you need to sustain small amounts of damage so your muscles can heal back stronger. Technically you can't heal stun damage with spells, but I like to think that healing yourself can erase a few aches and pains of a hard workout. However, a side effect of that is that you rob yourself of the chance to grow stronger. Totally inconsequential in the short term, but it destroys your ability to grow stronger in the long term.

As for atrophy, your cells don't rip and tear from lack of use. Not as I understand it anyway. It's not damage as much as diminishment from lack of use.

quote:

Rolling 16 dice for Con? I’m surprised Julian doesn’t have at least 2-3 families who all swear he’s ‘Father of the Year’.

Julian rolls 16 dice for most of his charisma skills. He's a far more practiced version of Kenji who rolls 12 dice for most of his skills and 14 for intimidate and leadership. I don't add in street cred/notoriety bonuses for Julian and people like him though.

Mechanically, Julian is both a shaman and a face, which is a sort of charismatic manipulator and therefore my favorite type of role to play in tabletop games. Shamans use charisma to reduce drain, so it makes sense to have social skills too.

CourValant posted:

I really, really like Bolt. :)

Bolt is modeled after one of my favorite martial arts teacher, Rhonda. She was big on discipline, pushing limits, using minimal amounts of protection in order to toughen people up and very old school training techniques. I remember in my martial arts classes when we'd screw around too much and our discipline waned, she'd make us lie on our backs, lift our legs and she would lecture/berate us while walking across our stomachs to make sure they were flexed. She was a tiny thing, so there was little chance of hurting us, but it definitely made an impression. No pads, no gloves, full contact with bare knuckles and all strikes were permitted with the exception of eyes, face and throat. If you got kicked in the groin and weren't wearing a cup, that was your fault. If you got hurt during a spar, she called it just long enough to make sure you were okay before throwing you back in to continue sparring while wounded, because it is an extremely practical skill to learn how to fight while injured. If we didn't make the correct fist, someone would hold our legs wheelbarrow style and we'd walk forward on our fists to make sure we'd get it right. We'd fight far smaller or far larger opponents than ourselves, and I remember a visiting black belt taken down by my six year old brother who thought he'd be cute. He grabbed one arm, then the other, and then my brother executed a perfect groin strike which took down a full grown man who forgot to wear a cup that day because he underestimated a kid. Part of our walked drills weren't just kicks and punches, but keyhole strikes which were specifically to jab someone in the soft part of the throat with three fingers and then twist. Also we learned how to use bo and jo staffs, which are basically just spear drills in retrospect and escrima sticks which was pretty cool.

Kyokushin is a brutal style, especially at age ten. It made a serious impression on me and I toughened up a lot. It's hard to find a dojo like that nowadays that isn't filled with MMA bros. I learned some from other martial arts styles later down the road, but there were tons of rules and pads. Any style that uses anything more than the four ounce gloves to keep knuckles from splitting during full contact sparring doesn't encourage me to take it seriously. That's with the exception of boxing styles, which ironically that a person with gloves on often does more damage than fists. There's also an emphasis on ducking and weaving which coming from a karate style was pretty alien to me.

One of the neatest things about martial arts is learning a new technique while sparring. Not because it was taught to you, but because it was necessary to improvise in order to overcome. Coach Bolt catches Fuzzy's spearknife and she retracts it back without thinking about it so she doesn't get disarmed for instance. That was the original inspiration for people being able to cast spells they don't know like Sasha's pulse plus or in retrospect, Julie's mana bolt, as spontaneously casting a spell in shadowrun is not a thing. Also I need to address Sasha's spell at some point. Anyway, pressure and desperation can teach people things they didn't know a second beforehand because it became necessary to know in that moment.

quote:

Do elaborate?

I like insinuating stuff between characters that hasn't totally been explained. Coach Bolt realizes that he got tricked is what I'm trying to insinuate and realizes that something bad is going to happen eventually. Not because of Julian and it won't be his fault, but Julian is going to be there when it happens.

At his core, I'm trying to write Julian as someone who is very manipulative, but uses his powers for good. The Fire Bringer archetypes in most cultures are tricksters and thieves who are heroes of the people. So Julian oh so casually asks Bolt if he'll cover for him because that sounds reasonable. It goes over a lot better than saying, "Hey, going to talk to Fire Bringer, something bad is going to happen soon. Cover for me buddy." And then doing finger guns before walking away.

Anyway, the point is that I'm making up a lot of stuff that makes sense, but is not only not in the Shadowrun universe, but has very little to no mechanical way of modeling it in the Shadowrun dice pool. It's mostly just little flourishes which I find neat and make magic look like more than flinging dice.

Still writing. I'm about half way through the scene. It's going to be a longer one.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jul 24, 2018

CourValant
Feb 25, 2016

Do You Remember Love?

Ice Phisherman posted:

Kyokushin is a brutal style, especially at age ten.

Yikes.

While hardcore, do take care to reduce arthritic issues when you get older.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
Sounds a lot like learning MCMA. I used to drive up to Camp Pendleton every Saturday I wasn't underway to take classes and made Brown Belt.

Question Time
Sep 12, 2010



So far there have been a few dark intimations that fire bringer is abusive and that there is going to be terrible trouble because of him, but I haven't seen him/it do or say anything that I wouldn't wholeheartedly support. When does the fire really start burning? Soon, I hope.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
Firebringer is like Dragonslayer. It gets its shamans into a lot of trouble and will probably ultimately be the reason for their demise, but they can be immensely powerful. For instance in Shadowrun: Dragonfall your Dragonslayer shaman can be granted an ability to mark an area and create a ley line. In the game that's... ok. But in the actual SR universe that would be an incredibly powerful ability that can easily give a couple of mages a good bit of edge against whoever they are fighting.

super sweet best pal
Nov 18, 2009

Let's go toxic shaman.

Dr Subterfuge
Aug 31, 2005

TIME TO ROC N' ROLL

Butt Discussin posted:

So far there have been a few dark intimations that fire bringer is abusive and that there is going to be terrible trouble because of him, but I haven't seen him/it do or say anything that I wouldn't wholeheartedly support. When does the fire really start burning? Soon, I hope.

Ice's basis for Fire Bringer is basically Prometheus, who did a great thing (brought civilization to mankind) and paid a terrible price (eternal torment). A spirit who demands that people follow in those footsteps is basically going to demand the greatest good, no matter the price, and punish them with worse if they don't. We have yet to see Julian refuse Fire Bringer, but we have seen the consequence of following an order: protecting Fuzzy the best way he knew how, which ended up with Julian completely loving up his relationship with her for about a year. (Admittedly his best was wholly inadequate.)

Actually, some kind of flashback with Julian refusing Fire Bringer might be a cool way to flesh out his character more and shed some light on the abusiveness.

E: We have seen Fire Bringer tell Julian what a failure he is and reminding him that he asked for this situation. That's pretty good evidence of the abusiveness of their relationship. Like, that's not at all the kind of mentor someone should have if they were trying to be a better person.

Dr Subterfuge fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jul 26, 2018

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



So people have been talking about Fire Bringer and I'm going to let people take a peak behind the curtain for a bit. Normally I'd hold back on this for a bit, but people have been asking about Fire Bringer and I've been thinking a lot about what is behind it all the way back to book one. Julian was originally going to be the main character of this series until I decided otherwise at the very last minute, so he actually started out as a pretty well fleshed out character. If you don't want to take a peak behind the curtain about Fire Bringer, don't look behind the spoiler tag because there are some spoilers there. :frogsiren: If you respond, please spoiler your answer. :frogsiren:

Before I start, this isn't a criticism of anyone in particular.

So I'm going to talk about the education system. Specifically the US education system. What this has to do with Julian and Fire Bringer I'll get to eventually.

So I have a friend named Ryan. Ryan is pretty pompous and full of himself, but he's got a pretty good heart. He went to college to receive his masters in education. He skipped from bachelors to masters without seeing the inside of a classroom which wasn't particularly smart. He should have done this in his final year of his bachelors degree but his school allowed him to delay it until his masters program. You see, teachers expected to go for their masters with basically no support, financial or logistical, a few years into teaching or they often just get fired. Ryan thought he was being smart and getting it all done at once. I see this as his college being extremely abusive.

So he's in his last semester and he's finally doing the student teacher thing for the first time where he teaches a class under the guidance of another teacher. You see, you'll be lucky to see the inside of a classroom by the end of year two. I spent a ton of time learning child psychology for about two years, little to none of it was actually practical. I I spent two years in a rigorous teaching program before I bailed out after getting a look at what the administration looked like. I knew I was going to butt heads with them at some point, because that's just how my personality is. Anyway, I'd seen the inside of a classroom for one of about...Oh...I want to say eight classes. Only at the end of my second year was I allowed to sit in on classes to observe students. Not to teach, just observe. Tons of padding, and I went to one of the best schools for teaching in the nation, and I can tell you that when I went through it, the first two years were an almost total waste of time. I learned almost no practical skills.

Back to Ryan. He failed a mandatory student teacher class because the teacher who mentored him had say over him passing or failing, and from all accounts he was going to make a terrible teacher. He found this out in the last semester of year six. He took this class again a semester later and failed again.

So why was Ryan a terrible teacher?

Now I grew up with Ryan. Objectively decent person besides being pompous, but when one of his students failed, he feels like he'd failed. That failure lead to anxiety which effected his job performance. Downward spiral. Every student who failed he took personally as his own failure. He had some serious problems with anxiety which should have been a red flag early on to wash him out of the program, but that just didn't happen. Everything bad that happened he felt like was a personal reflection on himself, and not because this student had been failed before, or because they didn't give a poo poo, or because their home-life sucks, or because they're high all the time, or because it's the morning and they can't eat breakfast at home because there is no food, or because the administration told the previous teacher to pass them because failure was not an option, or one of a dozen other reasons.

Ryan couldn't separate the failures of life and a system that objectively sucks from his own failure. So he washed out. He now works at Lowes. More power to him.

The education system doesn't want educators. It wants martyrs. Let me repeat that just in case you didn't get it the first time. The education system doesn't want educators. It wants martyrs.

It wants people who will put in long hours for low pay. It wants people who will feed that low pay back into their job for essential supplies. It is not asked for as much as expected and if the teacher doesn't do it, they can't do their jobs. They may not even have proper books, or those books are raggedy, or are full of nonsense because some for profit institution or religious institution has influenced their school district. Saturdays are work days for teachers. Sometimes Sundays too, not to mention before and after school. None of this is paid work. Paperwork will bury them. Budgets are tight. Grading homework eats their life. Often they're not allowed to fail students for any reason. They have almost no ability to discipline their students. Often there's no budget for an in school suspension teacher. Students are aware of this and will often act out. Fights between students often gets both suspended because of "zero tolerance". Many students don't want to be there. Many aren't prepared for a 8:30 math class because they didn't have breakfast, so they can't focus. Maybe they didn't even have dinner, or if they did, it's something like ketchup on bread. Whatever calories they can scarf down so they don't die. Classes are outside of the normal rhythms of children and that directly impacts grades, but because school is an unofficial babysitter, they go before most parents leave for work. It's not uncommon to lose students to drugs or crime. And by that I mean actually lose them. They just disappear one day and are never found again, or just end up dead or in prison. Teachers have to teach to the test because the test is how you get more money, because the GW Bush administration tied academic performance directly to funding. So if the students are failing, the school gets less money which is totally hosed. The school administration is constantly guilting you into more time while also sabotaging you. Many parents are objectively awful and will either scream about their precious angel being persecuted when they're being awful or the parents just don't give a gently caress, or maybe they give just enough of a gently caress that after a parent teacher conference you notice the bruises the next day and the child is sullen and withdrawn because their parents beat the gently caress out of them. If you live in a republican state, the odds of you having a failing education system is high, because there is very little interest in actually funding education. Education cuts in red states are common and just this year there have been multiple teachers strikes in Oklahoma and West Virginia to not only increase teacher pay, but the budget for spending on children. That's if they still have a teacher's union, and many states don't like my state of South Carolina, or they're under attack like in Michigan. Don't forget that there's the ever present possibility that you'll have some kid flip out, grab his dad's gun and go on a murder spree. That's also just the ones that get reported. From what I understand from talking to my teacher friends, many close calls are hushed up.

I could go on, but I'm not going to otherwise I'd be here all day. I could easily double that list. Instead I'm going to list some school shootings. Some of these will involve colleges, but the vast majority are K-12 education.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States#2015_to_present

This one stands out to me in particular, because it not only ends with no fatalities, but an Indiana science teacher nailed a kid with a basketball and then tackled him. If that isn't peak Indiana, I don't know what is.

This is what is expected of teachers these days. Not because it's part of the job description, but because the culture in the US is becoming more violent and it's easy to access firearms.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/26/indiana-teacher-threw-basketball-to-avert-school-shooter

I have friends in education and listen to a podcast where two teachers talk about teaching pretty often. The current state of education is hosed. It's underfunded and politicians really only care when it's voting time and there is very little way to actually hold them to their "campaign promises" after they get elected. While there are a ton of problems with the education system, I'd say that a lot of these problems would go away if they were better funded and that a lot of the worst problems would be blunted. In the long term, an educated society is a productive one as well and there's way less crime.

You watch movies about teachers. Dangerous Minds is trash of the highest order. It has propelled tens of thousands of middle class people, often women, into desperately poor communities thinking that they're going to change everything just like the movie. Despite it being an old movie, the teacher as savior or teacher as martyr idea still persists and is taken for granted.

Fire Bringer is a near one to one criticism of the education system. You look at Julian. He's handsome, he's successful, he's helping the children. You see that and you see him doing stuff that is objectively good.

What I don't see commented on is his almost total lack of a life. Of him involving himself in projects to keep away from Fire Bringer's gaze. Of his dread of being noticed by it. Julian involved himself in Julie's prophecy because she views him as a trusted adult. He is! He's a trusted adult. But that's a ton of pressure to put on a person and he just shoulders it. There's a lot of love for Mother Bear, but she's not the one who is taking point on Julie's prophecy. In fact she's extremely reluctant to be in that situation. It's Julian that just takes on that responsibility.

If I were to ask Julian what he is, what he thinks of himself as first, his identity. It would be a teacher. Not a shaman. A teacher. Shaman is lower down the list, maybe top five, but definitely not number one. And that identity continually eats more and more of his life. He sacrifices free time, lives most of his days at work, negotiates between many corporations to implement a new system of carrots and sticks after a school related shooting which he was at ground zero for. A system I might add that none of the teachers actually want to use the sticks because it will cause problems, but they have no way to really enforce punishment or discipline on their kids if they just outright refuse to be disciplined. I also haven't talked about why the corporate kids don't get suspended, because either it has little to no effect or the kids are subject to abuse by parents who are so above the law it's laughable. No parent who is responsible for hundred million nuyen projects is going to go to jail because they beat their kid.

Julian is talented and smart. He could be making real money doing anything else and be appreciated. He could find fulfillment beyond work. He could find identity beyond his work. He could have a life. Instead he takes in low pay so he can teach the next generation, burn himself out and get relatively little appreciation for it. He gets a hug from Fuzzy at the end of book four. Not a whole lot for Julian. Mother Bear on the other hand talks to Julie about boundaries when she calls her over the summer, because she's not some martyr like Julian is. Julian is not perfect and he will feel real guilt for those imperfections. If anyone asks Julian for help, no matter how big or small, he has to help so long as it is sincere. Otherwise Fire Bringer punishes him for not being a martyr for good.

That is the current lot of the teacher. Administrators look for people just like Julian who they can bully and cajole and guilt into pouring more and more of their blood, sweat and tears for what is ultimately a nearly thankless job with low pay and long hours. Where their own identity becomes synonymous with being a teacher, and if they stop being a teacher, they lose their identity and it crushes former teachers with depression. Where their life and the lives of their students are endangered by school shooters which are only becoming more and more frequent. So many teachers burn out in their first year because if they were really told what teaching was all about when they started, we'd have an even graver teacher shortage than there is now. Martyrs are the ones who make the cut.

Fire Bringer in this story is not Prometheus or Maui or Azazel or Coyote, Mother Spider, Hare or Crow. I go deeper. Fire Bringer is capital E Education. I talk about how Dolphin and Dog and Dove and Cat all have their own personalities, well so does Fire Bringer. It is an individual spirit that has its own good and bad qualities along with its quriks. It brings good into the world, but at the expense of the individual, which it uses up at an unsustainable rate. Fire Bringer is about doing good and being an educator, but its main tools to accomplish this are guilt and callousness. To Fire Bringer, the individual does not matter. They are only there to be manipulated. Their suffering is meaningless to him. Julian doesn't look like he's being abused because we assume his already abusive lifestyle is normal because he is a teacher. Julian is every movie you watch or book you read about teachers. They project the idea that teachers are somehow superhuman. Hell, in Harry Potter, the teachers gear up to fight magical terrorists at the end of the books because the government has been co-opted and no one talks about how hosed up that is.

Fire Bringer is capital E Education, and that system wants to do good, but is deeply flawed and deeply abusive, and we see it as normal.

Again, if you respond, please spoiler your response.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Jul 26, 2018

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Anyway, it's been a while since I've posted about my thoughts and style of writing. We will talk about what's behind the spoiler text in the story eventually. It's just a cause or a problem (or both, it depends on your POV) that is very personal to me. I'll try and remember to post it again once it becomes explained in the story.

I'm still working on the update. We're going to have a pretty big vote coming up and I wanted to get to it. I'm trying a more traditional storytelling format for once. A three act story. As the planning for book six, where I finally talk about Charlottesville, racial supremacy and if we make one of two choices, something else, though I don't want to spoiler that. The structure of Julie's story is going to be different than the rest.

Anyway, act one is about reestablishing where Seattle is right now in the wake of Ares and Lone Star getting outed for being lovely with a final cherry on top. Act two is going to be shorter and deal with Human Nation and Kenji's morality is now that he's no longer Edward's slave before we get into act three, which I've kept somewhat under my hat.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Jul 26, 2018

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope

Ice Phisherman posted:

Instead he takes in low pay so he can teach the next generation, burn himself out and get relatively little appreciation for it. He gets a hug from Fuzzy at the end of book four.


I admit, I find it hard to believe that Blake Island doesn't pay *extremely* well. It's a dedicated private school for hyperspecialized, hyper-elite students that can only be taught by hyperspecialized teachers. This isn't a public school with bachelor of education teachers who are idealists, this is a top of the line preparatory academy specifically for the most valuable humans in the world. Each of these people had to be specifically sought out and recruited, none of them were reading the classifieds and found this job. I had assumed Julian's shabby clothes and all was an act, but if it isn't... oofda. That's jarring and hard to believe.

edit - I should note that I don't think it changes much if he *is* paid very well, specifically because the money isn't the point for Julian, but I don't know how he would get any additional teachers who *aren't* being goaded by a spirit if they at least aren't raking in cash.

Zodiac5000 fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jul 26, 2018

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

Zodiac5000 posted:

I admit, I find it hard to believe that Blake Island doesn't pay *extremely* well. It's a dedicated private school for hyperspecialized, hyper-elite students that can only be taught by hyperspecialized teachers. This isn't a public school with bachelor of education teachers who are idealists, this is a top of the line preparatory academy specifically for the most valuable humans in the world. Each of these people had to be specifically sought out and recruited, none of them were reading the classifieds and found this job. I had assumed Julian's shabby clothes and all was an act, but if it isn't... oofda. That's jarring and hard to believe.

edit - I should note that I don't think it changes much if he *is* paid very well, specifically because the money isn't the point for Julian, but I don't know how he would get any additional teachers who *aren't* being goaded by a spirit if they at least aren't raking in cash.


I would assume it's relative compared to what they could be making somewhere else, which kind of ties into Ice's point. Even relatively well-off teachers for the elite are still being wrung out in an exploitative system designed to demand self-sacrifice from teachers on basically all levels of their lives while giving little to nothing in return. Julian's specific situation is just that core idea amplified to cast a light on it.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
So I was right, Firebringer IS going to be the death of Julian one day.

I have several friends in education here in the US. One is a professor, two teach high school, and one just went off to teach English in Finland this year. Guess which one is the happiest.

I really want to copy and paste your rant on Facebook for people to pass around because you are 100% right about the system not wanting educators. It does wany martyrs, and there are so many out there willing to destroy themselves for it.

ThatBasqueGuy
Feb 14, 2013

someone introduce jojo to lazyb


Taking bets on whether Blake Island is for-profit or non-profit, and how much of the overall omega high tuition actually goes to teacher salaries. My guess is that all the equipment and the resupply of that in a year costs more than the total teacher salaries.

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope

Xarbala posted:

I would assume it's relative compared to what they could be making somewhere else, which kind of ties into Ice's point. Even relatively well-off teachers for the elite are still being wrung out in an exploitative system designed to demand self-sacrifice from teachers on basically all levels of their lives while giving little to nothing in return. Julian's specific situation is just that core idea amplified to cast a light on it.

But isn't this the rub? Blake island is fundamentally incompatible with that kind of an exploitative situation because Blake Island and their teachers have about sixteen trillion times more relative power than the average school or teacher in modern times has in any context. In order for Blake Island to exist in Shadowrun, it has to provide a service better than the MegaCorps can do themselves. This means their teachers have to be better, on average, than the entire resources of Ares' internal education staff. This means that Blake Island is not just 'a school', it's 'the most important magic school in the UCAS' or somewhere around that. It's hella exclusive, populated only by hyper-elite teachers, and only teaches hyper-elite students.

The Blake Island system explicitly cannot be exploitative in a similar manner to the US' current education system because there is no comparable situation to it in the modern US. By restricting the clientele and available pool of teachers, the ability for the issues of modern education to relate to Blake Island are substantially diminished. Not that it can't happen, but without something like Fire Bringer physically forcing somebody to act as if they have no power in a situation, no teachers in Blake Island are even close to the level of powerless that modern schools/teachers are in at any time, specifically because they all have an alternative available at all times by virtue of being extremely talented mages AND extremely talented teachers, which is a massive reason why modern teachers don't have as much power. Their skillset does *not* provide them those alternatives.

I'm 100% willing to accept 'authorial fiat' as the reason Blake Island can retain teachers for little not no money/also beign powerless while them still being extremely good at their jobs and mages though. Julian also specifically gets a pass on the martyrdom thing because of Fire Bringer and his personal need to lay-low, without needing authorial fiat.

edit - this also doesn't factor in that the entire staff of Blake Island might have dark secrets or whatever keeping them there, which sidesteps all my issues quite handily.

2nd edit - I also have a tendency to get nit-picky, and education is just something I'm very familiar with, so if I'm off in the weeds just tell me to lighten up, I won't mind.

Zodiac5000 fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jul 26, 2018

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

Zodiac5000 posted:

But isn't this the rub? Blake island is fundamentally incompatible with that kind of an exploitative situation because Blake Island and their teachers have about sixteen trillion times more relative power than the average school or teacher in modern times has in any context. In order for Blake Island to exist in Shadowrun, it has to provide a service better than the MegaCorps can do themselves. This means their teachers have to be better, on average, than the entire resources of Ares' internal education staff. This means that Blake Island is not just 'a school', it's 'the most important magic school in the UCAS' or somewhere around that. It's hella exclusive, populated only by hyper-elite teachers, and only teaches hyper-elite students.

The Blake Island system explicitly cannot be exploitative in a similar manner to the US' current education system because there is no comparable situation to it in the modern US. By restricting the clientele and available pool of teachers, the ability for the issues of modern education to relate to Blake Island are substantially diminished. Not that it can't happen, but without something like Fire Bringer physically forcing somebody to act as if they have no power in a situation, no teachers in Blake Island are even close to the level of powerless that modern schools/teachers are in at any time, specifically because they all have an alternative available at all times by virtue of being extremely talented mages AND extremely talented teachers, which is a massive reason why modern teachers don't have as much power. Their skillset does *not* provide them those alternatives.

I'm 100% willing to accept 'authorial fiat' as the reason Blake Island can retain teachers for little not no money/also beign powerless while them still being extremely good at their jobs and mages though. Julian also specifically gets a pass on the martyrdom thing because of Fire Bringer and his personal need to lay-low, without needing authorial fiat.

edit - this also doesn't factor in that the entire staff of Blake Island might have dark secrets or whatever keeping them there, which sidesteps all my issues quite handily.


You know what, you're right. I definitely don't think the teachers on Blake Island, being private school teachers for a double-exclusive clientele, ultra-elite and magical, are nearly as poor-off as those at public schools. That's why Julian's relationship with his spirit mentor is what it is, because their situation is otherwise so divorced from the exploitative US education system that we need a more literal illustration of the idea to fit it into the scenario. Though, being ultimately beholden to the megacorps can't be healthy either.

sheep-dodger
Feb 21, 2013

ThatBasqueGuy posted:

Taking bets on whether Blake Island is for-profit or non-profit, and how much of the overall omega high tuition actually goes to teacher salaries. My guess is that all the equipment and the resupply of that in a year costs more than the total teacher salaries.

I bet it's a non-profit for tax reasons, but pays its board members some absurd bonuses, similar to how the non-profit concentration camps today pay out absurd amounts to their management:
http://time.com/5316722/nonprofit-paid-458-million-trump-administration-detain-migrant-children-family-separation/
"Southwest Key rapidly increased the compensation of its CEO, Juan Sanchez, from about $269,000 in 2010 to more than $786,000 in 2015, the most recent year for which its tax returns are available through the website Guidestar.org. His compensation nearly doubled to $1.5 million in 2016, according to tax records for an Austin charter school he founded."

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Zodiac5000 posted:

I admit, I find it hard to believe that Blake Island doesn't pay *extremely* well. It's a dedicated private school for hyperspecialized, hyper-elite students that can only be taught by hyperspecialized teachers. This isn't a public school with bachelor of education teachers who are idealists, this is a top of the line preparatory academy specifically for the most valuable humans in the world. Each of these people had to be specifically sought out and recruited, none of them were reading the classifieds and found this job. I had assumed Julian's shabby clothes and all was an act, but if it isn't... oofda. That's jarring and hard to believe.

edit - I should note that I don't think it changes much if he *is* paid very well, specifically because the money isn't the point for Julian, but I don't know how he would get any additional teachers who *aren't* being goaded by a spirit if they at least aren't raking in cash.


Sorry, not low pay exactly. More like low amounts to put in the bank. It's very possible to make good money and still be terrible with managing it.

Zodiac5000 posted:

I admit, I find it hard to believe that Blake Island doesn't pay *extremely* well. It's a dedicated private school for hyperspecialized, hyper-elite students that can only be taught by hyperspecialized teachers. This isn't a public school with bachelor of education teachers who are idealists, this is a top of the line preparatory academy specifically for the most valuable humans in the world. Each of these people had to be specifically sought out and recruited, none of them were reading the classifieds and found this job. I had assumed Julian's shabby clothes and all was an act, but if it isn't... oofda. That's jarring and hard to believe.

edit - I should note that I don't think it changes much if he *is* paid very well, specifically because the money isn't the point for Julian, but I don't know how he would get any additional teachers who *aren't* being goaded by a spirit if they at least aren't raking in cash.


So Julian lives on an island, his actual home which is an apartment which we've seen, which he doesn't live at very often, sees very little use and he doesn't seem to spend money on anything. So yes, he gets paid well. But that begs the question about what he spends his money on.

So you look at his simple, even shabby clothing and think about why a high powered corporate negotiator who not only did her legwork, but probably had a significant legal department leaning into the legwork would fall for that. Why they'd expect his clothing to be shabby. Why they'd use sexual appeal on him and expect that to work. I've said before in the text that his style of dress, the posters on his wall, etc are camouflage so he can prey on the expectations of others, as people are prone to underestimate teachers.

Julian does get paid well. Not as well as he could be making in some corporate job, but still. Well. He has money, but also is prone to wearing shabby clothing, covering his office is inspirational posters, living a lonely life and generally being consumed by what it takes to fuel his identity as a teacher. Fire Bringer is abusive, and I went through a litany of those sorts of abuses in a previous post. Many of those abuses are quiet and taken for granted, because they do spread out good among other people, but Fire Bringer is no good for Julian.

It's not that the Blake Island teachers are paid poorly. I can't really imagine that. In fact, Mother Bear is swimming in money since she spends so much time on the island and lives primarily in the past, so she just rakes it in and has nothing to spend it on. So imagine what Julian cares about and you'll figure out pretty quick what type of stuff he spends his money on.


Deadmeat5150 posted:

So I was right, Firebringer IS going to be the death of Julian one day.

I have several friends in education here in the US. One is a professor, two teach high school, and one just went off to teach English in Finland this year. Guess which one is the happiest.

I really want to copy and paste your rant on Facebook for people to pass around because you are 100% right about the system not wanting educators. It does wany martyrs, and there are so many out there willing to destroy themselves for it.


Please do. People should know what they're getting into with the education system. If they march in with eyes wide open I won't stop them, more power to them in fact. Godspeed. However, many are sold this idea of being Robin Williams in the Dead Poet's society or Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act when the actual reality is pretty bleak.

I watched Sister Act 2 no less than a dozen times in high school, and Dead Poet's Society and Dangerous Minds were shown as well. It was pretty rare that we watched normal movies and looking back, I think this is deliberate. You've got to hook the kids while they're young.


sheep-dodger posted:

I bet it's a non-profit for tax reasons, but pays its board members some absurd bonuses, similar to how the non-profit concentration camps today pay out absurd amounts to their management:
http://time.com/5316722/nonprofit-paid-458-million-trump-administration-detain-migrant-children-family-separation/
"Southwest Key rapidly increased the compensation of its CEO, Juan Sanchez, from about $269,000 in 2010 to more than $786,000 in 2015, the most recent year for which its tax returns are available through the website Guidestar.org. His compensation nearly doubled to $1.5 million in 2016, according to tax records for an Austin charter school he founded."


Don't even get me started on charter schools, holy poo poo. I assume that some are okay, but so many of these charter schools end up being scams. It's not uncommon for some con artist to start one up, put in the minimum effort and walk away with tons of money. Or worse, simply close midway in the year and run away with millions in taxpayer dollars and leave a community without a school or the resources to fund one.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/charter-school-scandal-haunts-john-kasich-220700

For profit schools are a cancer. Essential services should not be handed off to people whose first priority is to turn a buck.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jul 26, 2018

Runa
Feb 13, 2011

ah, I see

And I'll probably see even more when we get more focus on Julian.

RabidWeasel
Aug 4, 2007

Cultures thrive on their myths and legends...and snuggles!
My dad is a teacher at about the closest equivalent to something like Blake Island that exists in the real world (elite boarding school that costs more per term in fees than most people earn in a whole year) and he is (not extremely) well paid but also regularly works a 14 hour day. It's still loving exploitative. The place is basically run as a way to extract cash from millionaires via their kids and the staff get treated like poo poo, the biggest draw to stay is that the students are all from wealthy backgrounds and therefore aren't literally starving / in gangs etc. and the school buildings and equipment are world class. So your logic seems fairly sound even given Blake Island's uniqueness.

I came pretty close to pursuing a career as an educator and I'm extremely glad that it fell through, I just really like math and it seemed like a good socially responsible job to be doing. Luckily I didn't have to waste years of my life in teacher training before realising that it was a bad idea.

RabidWeasel fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 26, 2018

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



RabidWeasel posted:

My dad is a teacher at about the closest equivalent to something like Blake Island that exists in the real world (elite boarding school that costs more per term in fees than most people earn in a whole year) and he is (not extremely) well paid but also regularly works a 14 hour day. It's still loving exploitative. The place is basically run as a way to extract cash from millionaires via their kids and the staff get treated like poo poo, the biggest draw to stay is that the students are all from wealthy backgrounds and therefore aren't literally starving / in gangs etc. and the school buildings and equipment are world class. So your logic seems fairly sound even given Blake Island's uniqueness.

I came pretty close to pursuing a career as an educator and I'm extremely glad that it fell through, I just really like math and it seemed like a good socially responsible job to be doing. Luckily I didn't have to waste years of my life in teacher training before realising that it was a bad idea.


Teachers make poo poo pay. If you factor in all of the time that's required for a teacher to do their jobs, you're looking at many schools that pay below minimum wage. 14 hour days are pretty common and that often includes Saturdays. The problem is that the teaching culture expects this and teachers accept it as their lot. In reality, it's exploitative and abusive. You get a professional class of martyrs and those who don't conform to that role or learn how to separate themselves from their job while also keeping it are in trouble. Burnout rates are very high.

A few years ago, Oklahoma's teacher of the year fled to Texas because Oklahoma didn't pay for poo poo. It was below poverty level for someone with a masters degree in their field.

As a person who lives in the US, the public school system is one of the few social glues that we have. We aren't all the same race or religion. We don't have any old world pillars to stand on. School is one of the few things that we all have in common, and that social glue is coming apart under mismanagement and greed. It is a serious problem beyond mere teaching. Not to mention that while literacy rates are in the high nineties, effective education rate is far lower. You're looking at about 30 million people in the US that can't read, write or do math above a third grade level. Further, many of these people with low amounts of educational achievement are likely to be mired in poverty. They're also highly likely to not understand how to participate in democracy or be taken in by empty rhetoric.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jul 26, 2018

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Question Time
Sep 12, 2010



I was the most curious about Fire Bringer, but I'm not reading the spoilers. I appreciate you using the spoiler tags, I'll have to remember to come back after we get to the in-story reveals.

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