fandomhighdorms | Meeting of all interested students

"But, An," Angelus said, "you were great on Saturday. Just the kind of guy I'd want fighting by my side."

Anakin turned a little green. "Um, thanks."

"Why are we even fighting about whether or not we can carry weapons? We should be worried about the next thing we eat or drink or smell turning us against each other or against ourselves, or into chickens or something." His eyes stared off into the distance. "Can't fight something inside ourselves. Not with guns, anyway."

"True," Angelus said. "But who says that has to be a losing battle? You know, whatever it is you're going through, I know you've got it in you to come out on top."

"I hope so," Anakin said with a sigh. "It's nice to find someone at school to talk to--my old teacher hasn't been the most understanding about Saturday's events. And my other mentor, Palpatine--you'd like him, he has a similar way of cutting straight to the heart of the matter--has been too busy with his duties in the Senate for me to bother with this kind of thing."

"I'm always happy to talk to you," Angelus said. "Heck, that's part of why I lobbied so hard to get you into JA. I knew we'd go far with the kind of skills you could bring to the team."

"What kind of skills do think would be needed to fix this weapons mess? I'd rather this not get spun into its most ridiculous conclusion where I have something like "Force-user" tatooed on my forehead if I can possibly avoid it." Anakin grinned at Angelus. "And you have a knack for making things sound so reasonable."

"Probably my calm and soothing voice," Angelus winked at him. He slumped down , stretching his legs out so he could rest his feet on a chair in front of him. "As for the weapons - item one would be more brains than I've seen out of anybody on the pro-weapon side so far. Honestly, it's like they don't want to get their shiny toys back."

"Yeah, they really are working hard to shoot themselves in the foot." Anakin winced. "Pun totally unintended. I'd certainly like> to keep my lightsaber on campus, but I'm afraid the idea of an armed being with superpowers would pop someone's head off around here."

"Plus they're coming at it all wrong," Angelus said. "Keep yammering about one side being dangerous so you need to be dangerous too and all you get out of that is everybody holding a nuke and hoping nobody's got an itchy trigger finger."

"Exactly." Anakin smiled. "They need to be approaching it differently. Cultural requirement. Personal responsibility. Mutual loathing of the squid in the basement, blah, blah, blah." He waved his arm aimlessly. "But this milling about and increasing lack of trust between students and faculty or students and other students? Not effective. Also, it's giving me a headache while it bores me at the same time," Anakin said. "There aren't many issues that can do that."

"I feel you," Angelus said, with geniune sympathy. "There's so many times you can watch the dog chase its tail before you realize you know how this is going to end."

"I've seen it in the Senate, I've seen it on a dozen different planets, and I'm seeing it here. You have to start trusting beings at some point to not kill each other or themselves, out of either goodness or a sense of intelligent self-preservation, or you might as well just blow the whole planet up and start over." Anakin looked over at Angelus. "Personally, I prefer the first option."

"Some days I really do not rule out the second," Angelus said, halfway to himself. He sat up more as he continued in a normal tone, "But yeah, the whole I have to get them before they get me thing is not going to go over well with the admin."

Anakin's eyebrows went up at Angelus's undetone. "Sometimes I'm not sure I'd rule out the second one either," he said. He looked around the room. "They need someone to argue their case in a reasonable way, without bringing in fear and hatred and ignorance, which is just guaranteed to end with all of us in plastic bubbles, whether we care about the ban or not." He smiled. "Is there such a being on this campus?"

Beka makes her way to the two men. "I have a temper. That's well known. I'm also a gunbunny. This is well known. What's not well-known, except perhaps to Angelus, who is, as ever, astute, is that I'm very much brighter than I look. I can make a rational argument. With your help. If you can accept that my reasons are different that yours. And me making it..." She smiles wryly. "With all of the attention I seem to attract from the radio station, the Administration, and John-frelling-Sheppard, I suspect it wouldn't go unheard."

"I'm in favor of someone taking control of this situation. What I don't want is a being that will approach the administration from the viewpoint that either weapons need to be brought back because it's unfair to not have them--because they don't care about fairness--or because the beings with supernatural powers already have their weapons and so you need the right to blow things up, too--because that's short-sighted. There are plenty of people who go to this school who manage to go through the day without superpowers or high-powered weapondry to make sure they don't get eaten by whatever's in Locker 327." Anakin looked over at her. "This is an incredibly complicated negotiation, and one where emotions will have absolutely no effect on anyone in power. It's a situation where one act of childish temper will put us all in an unpleasant situation that will not be looked at or re-examined until we've all graduated and headed back to whatever galaxies we originally hail from."

Anakin stared at her. "I don't give a good God damn what the radio says about you. I want to know why you think someone with a reputation of flying off the handle should be the person to be trusted to rationally argue this on behalf of everyone who'd like their weapons back."

Beka stares back. "It's a fair question, Anakin, is it? The answer is complicated." She shrugs. "First, it is unfair. But that's irrelevant. Second, arguments about rights were, as I understood it, how this world operated. I've learned that's mistaken, so I won't be making that argument again. Third, I don't want my weapons because I need to use them. I want my weapons because they are me."

She looks at Angelus. "There are incidents of me losing my temper. Yes. Let's recount. One, John Sheppard read a private note to Padme and made a major incident out of it. He attacked my relationship with Cameron in a way that led to the end of it. I pulled a weapon on him. He wasn't concerned, and both of us knew there was no way in hell I'd ever use it. It's the same damned thing as a rattlesnake shaking it's tail, in my book. Others don't see it that way. Noted. I haven't done it since."

"Two. With Kara Thrace and Aeryn Sun, I blew a hole in the door of our boyfriends -- er Kara's friend's and Aeryn and my boyfriends' -- room. No one was injured and the door was replaced. The incident was one of high spirits rather than temper, and I paid for the door to be fixed. Again, I've not damaged anything else since then and no one in Admin got involved."

"Three. I am notoriously vocal on the subject of the weapons ban. Nevertheless, I haven't lost my temper about it. I've made arguments that were turned aside and I've abandoned them in favor of better ones. That I have a temper is clear. But I've been working to bring students together to talk about this issue since the beginning. And I'm the one who got Connor to reconsider in the first place."

Her look takes in both men. "I am a handful. There's no question. However, alone amongst the speakers on this issue, I've engaged the non-weapons bearers in a discussion about what our weapons mean to us. Also alone, I've engaged the magic types," gestures at Angelus, "and Angelus here. I'm not afraid of anyone, and that's a good place to start."

Another shrug. "I can control my temper. And I'm exceptionally good at taking stage direction. Your call."

"It's going to be a sad day at this school if I have to do my impression of Ghandi," Angelus said. "Which doesn't mean I won't, just that it's going to be really pathetic on their parts."

[OOC: Oh dear god. That is not something I want to see. Really. ;)]

"Gandhi?" Anakin thought back to his religion classes, had a sudden mental image of Angelus in an loincloth, and broke into a fit of coughing.

"That would be something to see, yes," Anakin finally choked out. "So, wise leader, how would you go about arguing this? Hypothetically, of course."

"Hypothetically I wouldn't do jack since I don't care about the ban one way or another," Angelus said. "But if somebody was asking my advice the first thing I'd ask in return is what they think the weapons ban is really about."

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