piper90 | 007: AMAs, Third Round

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007: AMAs, Third Round

So, we've got a load of new people, and that means it's time for me to do the only thing it feels like I get on these comms to do anymore: AMAs.

For you new people, I find it helps when we get together and explain a little bit about ourselves, any powers we have, and our skillsets. That way we know what we're starting with and what we can build off of. So, please, come and introduce yourselves and be willing to answer questions.

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Pleasure to meet y'all, I'm Dan Sagittarius. [Dan's voice is raspy and fried like someone dragged it behind a truck for six miles.]

I'm from the year 2020 and Earth, since it seems we got some variance on that. Back home, I go looking for whatever supernatural things are terrorizing or killing people and I try to de-escalate the situation, which usually gets me classified as a monster hunter since unfortunately sometimes I gotta shoot someone.

I can't say I got many skills to offer except if you want to learn human firearms up until, you know, 2020. I been hitting targets since since before I could string a full sentence together. I ain't half bad at piano or poledancing either, but those don't never come into play around here. But I'm friendly, I promise I don't bite.

Edited 2021-01-12 00:25 (UTC)

Why are you encouraging this lax bs?

[ Daaaan c’mon, man. He likes you. ]

What, the hobbies? Prevents burnout.

[ That isn’t what he meant, but now he’s been side-railed. ]

Who has time for hobbies?

I put poledancing in as my training time. It's much more effective exercise than situps or those goddamn Planker rooms.

[He hasn't touched a piano in years and it breaks his heart.]

Unless you meant something else.

[ There’s nothing wrong with sit-ups. It’s better than early morning jogging. THAT is annoying. ]

I meant before we got here. I don’t know anybody with a hobby, unless tv counts.

[Dan taps his finger against his lower lip, and his tone gets more serious.]

You gotta understand, Ric, I've worked a lot of odd jobs. A hobby's a qualification when you're trying to play piano at a bar or draw caricatures on a boardwalk. Hunting monsters pays ████ and I don't got a lot of options, given I don't read or got documentation. Ain't nobody gonna pay me to watch TV.

[ He’s had exactly two “real” jobs, because he suspects that X-Force and Excalibur don’t count as jobs.

And he doubts that an explanation about what the monster hunter needs is a bunch of sugar daddies willing to feed and house them all. ]

Believe me, if there was a job you could get for watching tv, I’d know. My ex would’ve killed for that.

[Dan grins.]

Who wouldn't? If only they tested TV shows for plot holes the way they test videogames for glitches, we'd have better entertainment and a lot of happy couch potatoes.

I don’t want to be a happy couch potato. If you can’t b&$@) about the plot holes and fight scenes, what’s the point?

I’m not sitting there for eight hours without someone saying “Julio. This is not how you riposte with a sabre.” I’ve started doing it myself.

Then you can be the plot-hole finder. If you're going to find them anyway, may as well get paid. [Dan uses watching movies as one of his many excuses to drink, naturally. It's the artichoke leaf to his butter.]

You got someone big on swordfight accuracy in your life?

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someday Julio will find Dan in the dorm eating butter with an artichoke

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I've heard that poledancing is a good core workout, does that kick in early on or is that only once you're past the beginner stage?

That kicks in in your first twenty minutes, if I recall correctly. It just starts being a workout instead of just torture after a few weeks. I started it about fifteen years ago when I was working the club circuit.

Okay, but is it more fun than sit-ups? Because sit-ups get boring really quickly.

Infinitely. If I could get away with it, I'd never do a situp or a pushup again and I'd still be in great shape.

Is there anything in the training room we could use for lessons? Because this seems like a skill that is both useful and could be used to annoy my friends, which is the best kind of skill.

[Ooh, that is a dicey proposition. He doesn't know if Stacia didn't read between the lines, or if she just doesn't care, but the optics of teaching a teenager to poledance, especially given the way Dan's learned it and why...

He just comes out and says it.]

Stacia, you realize when I say "club circuit" I'm talking about exotic dancing, right?

[Stacia raises her eyebrows.]

I know I walk around acting like a cute kid all the time, but I've gone into several places that required the use of fake ID's in the company of various bad influences in the name of teaching me how to not stand out in uncomfortable situations.

But you're right, I should have asked you if you'd be comfortable with that first. Sorry.

[There is nothing that says "cute kid" more than using "I've gotten into places with a fake ID" as a way to establish cred. If Dan were condescending, which he isn't, he'd call it adorable.]

I ain't gonna get anywhere close to teaching you the style I dance, but I can teach you some basic, athletic lifts and and twirls. But I gotta warn you, it hurts when you start.

[She's definitely not saying what she did in those places once the fake ID got her in. It was very illegal and also usually violent. Except the time she found the archangel Gabriel in a strip club, that was just a high-stakes conversation about averting the end of the world.]

Oh, oh yeah, that's definitely all I wanted to know! And I promise, I'll whine to someone other than you about it.

[Dan laughs.]

You won't be able to. You'll be whining right then and there. I'm not joking. Try pinching your inner thigh and then imagine doing that with the pressure of your entire body weight, and add in some friction burn. Then tell me if you're still interested.

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Oh! Dancing! I like to dance, and I need to get back in shape anyway. If you're teaching Stacia, can I learn too?

First, I have to ask how old you are, but also, yes, I can teach some lifts and twirls.

[Completely honestly:]

I'm sixteen. I know there's some techniques it's not a good idea to do much of while you're growing because of the potential for long term damage to the ligaments and underlying bone structure, but unless those are what makes your style "exotic", I don't foresee that being a problem you'll have to be worried about with me.

[Dan's body just kind of tenses with a "well now what to say" energy.]

That's, ah, not what makes it exotic dancing, but nothing I do to make it that style is necessary to teach you some fundamentals. Just lifts and twirls.

So long as you know it's going to hurt, a lot, during and after. Your body adjusts after a few weeks, you get calluses and get stronger, and then it just becomes fun exercise.