Dorm Log

[raw_angel_power]

Who: All of Smash.
What: Dorm log! Summertime special.
Where: Student and Teacher dorms, and quite possibly beyond campus.
When: Approximately the latter half of July to the earliest of Augusts (25th - 15th)
Warnings: YOU KNOW YOURSELVES

We all know our characters experience downtime after classes and their busy schedules, and this is a good venue for those kinds of miscellaneous dorm-shenanigans to take place. Not only does it give your characters the easy chance to meet new people in a laid-back environment, but it's a good mechanism for strengthening CR. It's easy!

Feel free to begin in any way you please! Plan with (a) fellow player(s) if you'd like! Or, set up a thread and wait for characters to bite! Just add a thread with the room number (and date/time, if it matters) and the characters that reside there (just for reference!). You do not have to use one character's thread as a dual-purpose for both characters if you do not want to. Doesn't have to be a dorm room, either, if you have something else in mind.

And don't forget: things are getting pretty freaky! Shadow bugs are still rife around the school and city, causing all kinds of trouble, but most significantly capable of cloning people and even objects. For the remainder of July, the dimensional lines are a little blurred and causing alternate universe versions of characters to show up. But something ever curiouser has started to show up on campus... Bubbles?

Subspace bubbles? They look kinda like the ones dotting the sky... Dare ye enter?

If you do, you'll find that it... just ends up being a portal to another part of the school. Sometimes they may lead you into some part of town. Weird! Hopefully it doesn't lead you anywhere embarrassing, like in the middle of a stage play or in the bathroom of the opposite sex. That's mortifying.


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7/27: Shadow bugs go wild and clone a bunch of office supplies. Do shadow bugs get bored or something? Beware of that stapler you're about to pick up... It might be a shadow bug clone! They're animate office supplies all around the school. At least it's easy to tell the difference between the real things and the animate ones, because the clones are purple. Unless, of course, your supplies are all purple. Then you're in a bind...er.

Also, they cloned the Kraken fountain and now it's come to life. Hope you brought some slippers.

8/1: You know those hazy purple-black pockets of subspace that keep showing up across the sky? Today, a humongous one swallowed up the sun completely. For almost all of the daylight hours, there will be a full-on solar eclipse. Aww, were you working on that golden tan? Too bad, buddy. You're gonna have to wait until tomorrow.

8/5: A herd of Towtow show up at the school overnight and stop to rest. They'll be there, napping all day with that peaceful look adorned on their faces. How cute! But you wouldn't want to see them angry... Maybe that's why you should be careful not to wake them up.

For reference, here are the rooming arrangements.

Comments

[for_truth]

Hilda was not a heavy reader but she was, however, eager to become stronger. "Some of it, yeah. I borrowed a few from the library and I've been reading 'em." At the rate she was going they'd probably be overdue soon, though...

[jonny_talbain]

"Brilliant!" Jon replied, flashing her a rare smile. Nice to know she was someone who got to work quickly.

The stadium loomed in front of them and he opened the door for her, leaning in to flick on the lights. It was unoccupied, luckily enough. And they could just use the most basic functions so as to not trigger a malfunction. There were possibly still shadow bugs kicking around in the wiring. No sense inviting calamity.

"Have you done much physical fighting?"

[for_truth]

"Uh..." Her? Fight for real? Outside of the rare slap, punch, or kick, Hilda wasn't much of a fighter on her own. After all, watching a fight on television or in a movie was way different than the real thing.

"Nnnnno," She answered with a brief frown. "But hey, ain't no time like the present, right?"

[jonny_talbain]

"Complete novice, eh?" Jon said, stretching his back and cracking his knuckles. "Perfect. Blank canvas for me to work my magic on."

He walked out to the center of the stadium, blank as it was.

"Alright, let's start with the basics." he said, holding up his hands at her, palm out. "Show me what you've got, right? Left and right punches, into my corresponding hands. Don't hold back, you'll not hurt me."

[for_truth]

"R-right now!?" Hilda squeaked. No exercises or training dummies or anything? It seemed kind of sudden to her, but as long as he was willing to teach her...

He knew what he was doing, probably. Better than she did, at least. "Okay..." She nodded and tried to sock Jon's hands as hard as she could, but even then she wasn't hitting too hard.

[jonny_talbain]

"Come on. Give it a little bit more, eh? I'm sure you can hit harder than that!"

Jon liked to see what his students could do up close and personal before he let them loose on the equipment. You had kind of a mixed bag in this school. Some folk who looked small and frail but who could wallop the dummy across the room, and some who looked weighty and slow who could change places in the time it took to blink. A vast range of abilities and skill levels and you could never tell just by looking. For all he knew she could chuck him through the stadium roof if she had a mind to do so.

"Move your right foot back a bit and your left forward - imagine your legs are making a triangle." he demonstrated with his own feet, still holding his hands out for her to punch. "And use your entire torso to hit with. Not just your arms - roll the shoulders into the hit. Same way you do throwing a Pokéball."

[for_truth]

Dropkick the teacher across the room? Man, she wished! Hilda probably needed more practice before she tried that, though.

She stared down at Jon's feet for a moment and then nodded. "Gotcha," Hilda said and shuffled her feet around as she tried to copy his stance. With a thoughtful frown she took a few more moments to slowly go through the motions of throwing a Poke Ball, then try to adapt them to actually punching something. Maybe a tumbleweed rolled by before Hilda swung-- Nah, it wasn't that long, but she did take a minute to try punching his hands again.

[jonny_talbain]

"Better. Feel how much harder the impact is when you do it that way?" Jon asked. There was an improvement gained by virtue of her stability alone and the weight of her torso transferred into the punch.

"Right, now, follow me. Step forward and keep your stance, same left-right punches you've been doing, but concentrate on where your feet are and keeping your stance stable. It's very rare that any attacker will stand still when you need to punch them."

He started taking steps backward, hands still held up with the palms facing her.

[for_truth]

"Wow," She replied -- it wasn't a night and day difference, but it was progress, and that was good enough for her. Hilda paused for a second so she could try and make a mental note of how this position felt in order to practice it later.

She listened to Jon intently and nodded, "All right, uh, yeah. That makes sense." Hilda began trying to follow after him and keep punching, but with every step she took she had to look down and adjust her feet first.

[jonny_talbain]

"You need to be faster than that." Jon said, continuing to move backwards. Not too fast, but the distance was widening every time she looked down to check her feet. "Try doing it without looking. Know where your feet are by feeling where they are. Make your stance, take a moment to note how your legs and feet feel, then start forward again. If your eyes are on your feet, they aren't on me, and I'm the one you're supposed to be worried about."

[for_truth]

Shoot, he was getting away! And everything he was saying was definitely true -- it was also taking her a long time to figure this out. "You're right," She said and hurried to catch up a little, "Dang, this is already rough."

She glanced down at her feet again to make sure she was standing right, and then tried to take Jon's advice to heart. It was a lot to remember and keep track of without slowing or looking down so she was still kind of on the slow side, but at least she wasn't staring at her feet the whole time! Whether her stance was correct every time she moved forward or not was still up for debate, though. Probably close, but not perfect.

[jonny_talbain]

"Better. That's better - keep it coming. Get comfortable with the motion. We'll do a couple of laps around the floor this way."

She was doing better than some of his students on their first day, and to be fair, this was a more challenging exercise than he generally started them out on. The difference being, his class had started during peaceful times. There were actual dangers out there right now, so, he didn't have the luxury of taking his time with her.

"Once we're done there, we're going to try some kicks."

[for_truth]

"Uh, okay," Hilda nodded and continued following him around with punches, maybe slowly getting a little better at keeping up the longer she went. She was going to sleep well tonight...

After one out of however many laps Jon wanted to make around the floor she absentmindedly asked, "Have you been givin' anyone else crash courses like this 'cuz of the, um, bug things?" Because self-defense seemed like a pretty essential skill to have in this time of weird trouble.

[jonny_talbain]

"Yeah. A few of the faculty have come to me for some training after I offered it on the network." he replied, continuing to move backwards. "We've academic sorts here who need a refresher, despite having at one time been accomplished fighters."

The next lap, he intended to push her a little, so his own footwork sped up and he was moving backwards a little more quickly.

"Even in times of peace, it pays to know this stuff. It sounds cliché, of course, but the best reason to learn any martial art is so that you never have to use it."

[for_truth]

That was great! She would have suggested it if he wasn't doing it already, but he was (and many others were) thankfully way ahead of her. "That's goo-OOD...!" Hilda half-shouted as Jon unexpectedly picked up the pace. She was trying her best to keep up, but the surprise gave her a stumble or three.

"Uh, it's..." Wow, yeah, okay, it was getting difficult to do this and talk at the same time. "Like a 'just in case' thing?"

[jonny_talbain]

"You can move your feet a little more quickly, I'm sure!" he taunted, just lightly. "One more lap at this speed, then we'll take a water break."

Jon seemed to have no problem chatting and working at the same time. But that was years worth of discipline at work. He certainly didn't begrudge her stumbling or remaining quiet. They'd only been doing this for a few minutes, after all.

"With the martial arts comes confidence and an ability to assess opponents before engaging them. Once you're done learning some basic attacks, we'll focus on defense and deflection, which are arguably more important than outright offensive moves."

[for_truth]

"Yikes..." Hilda made a determined frown as she tried her best to speed up, but success was far away. She thought it would be easier to move and talk at the same time, but the longer she did laps around the stadium the more difficult it got.

Wasn't the best defense a good offense? Or was that the other way around... Either way, the 'defense' part of 'self-defense' was what she was working towards and if she tried to confuse herself any more she'd fall behind. "'Kay."

[jonny_talbain]

....aaaaaand that was the end of the lap.

"Alright. Take a breather and I'll fetch us a bottle of water each, alright?" Jon offered, giving her a rare smile. "You're doing fine. We'll work on some kicks next, being as your legs are all limbered up from the walking."

[for_truth]

"Sure thing, man," She replied, a little winded. That was way more difficult than she thought it was going to be, but, uh, maybe kicking would be easier?

She bent over and put her hands on her knees, "Shoot, that's hard. Do I have to do this sorta stuff, like, every day?"

[jonny_talbain]

Jon handed her a cold bottle of water and smirked.

"Not this sort of stuff, no. Sometimes, you'll be without a partner. I do encourage you to make use of the sandbags in the Gym, and to spar wherever you can with folk who are your rough ability level."

He unscrewed his bottle and took a long drink.

"It gets easier over time. You'll probably be sore tomorrow morning. That just means your muscles are protesting and getting stronger in the process."

[for_truth]

"Thanks," Hilda replied before she took the bottle and opened it. While Jon was talking, she took a few big gulps from it and nodded to show she was still listening, even if it was sort of tempting to ignore him in favor of chugging an entire bottle of water.

She replaced the cap, "All right, cool, so practice every day..." After she trailed off she paused for a second -- yeah. Yeah, she would definitely not feel great tomorrow. "Hey, 'no pain, no gain,' right?"

[jonny_talbain]

"Exactly." he replied, bolstered by the fact that she Got It. No pain no gain was exactly right.

"Let me know when you're ready to start kicking." he said before draining his bottle in a few long gulps. "Or if you need more water. Hydration is important."

No good training if you were just going to faint from dehydration, Hilda.

[for_truth]

"You got it," She said with a smile, "I think I'mma be good to go in a minute or two."

Hilda took her sweet time finishing her water bottle (well, in comparison to how quickly she was drinking before) and tossed it into a garbage can. After a short pause to tie her shoes to make sure they weren't going to fly off, she did a couple of stretches and said, "All right, I'm ready."

[jonny_talbain]

Jon started with some stretches - no need to have her pull a ham string or something.

"Right, try and kick me in the thigh. Ah, outer thigh, just so we're clear."

He didn't THINK she was the kind of person to go for a cheap shot, but heck, misunderstandings were a possibility. He showed her the technique she was to use - a very simple side kick.

"Begin."

[for_truth]

She watched Jon's demonstration intently, but implementing it was a different story. Hilda's first kick was nice and slow, just so she could get the motions down. Her foot landed where it was supposed to, but instead of actually kicking him she just tapped his leg.

She straightened out, "Uh... Are you sure you want me to kick you? Like, for real?" The whole 'one wrong move and that man will never have children' thing was maybe making her a little bit nervous.