You Say Overkill, I Say Due Diligence [open post]

[summerdude]

Magnus copies the sign onto seven different pieces of paper. It reads:

WANT TO LEARN NEW SKILLS? ME FREAKING TOO. I (Magnus Chase) Will Trade Lessons In Any Of The Following For Something You Know:

• ASL (Alf/American Sign Language)


• Camping (pitching tents, campfire safety, celestial navigation)


• What To Do If You Find Yourself Lost In The World Tree Yggdrasil


• Pickpocketing (But only if you promise to use it for good (stealing ONLY from dickhead rich people) and ONLY if you have to!)


• Swordfighting for Beginners (I am intermediate but Jack is advanced and he can help!)


• What It REALLY Feels Like To Die (NOT ADVICE!!!)


• (Trans)Gender Identity and Fluidity (from the perspective of a cis guy) (Alex-approved content only)


• What To Do If The God You're Talking To Is Super Obnoxious Particular


• Why Falafel is the Best Food in the World

All skills welcome! But if you know any of the following I am especially interested: Cooking, Geometry, How To Declare Your Love To Your Partner, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Balancing a Budget, Writing Poetry, Social Studies, Codebreaking.

(Sorry but I will not learn pottery from anyone but ♥Alex Fierro♥. I hope you understand.)

PS if there's enough interest we can maybe do full classes where everybody gets to take turns teaching and learning?

He adds a note about the areas where he can most frequently be found and then posts one sign in each of the two kitchens he's encountered, one by the welcome table, one on the door to the greenhouses, one in the library, one on his bedroom door, and one by what he believes to be the most-populated lounge. Then, with a great deal of eager anticipation, he goes about his day.


[A note from Magnus's typist: Open indefinitely!]

Comments

[agula]

Qi Yan sees the pamphlet in the library. Despite her despondent mood, the enthusiasm shining through it makes her smile. She liked Magnus when she met him; he had a directness and charm not unlike Nangong Jingnu when she was around Magnus' age. It saddens her to think of how circumspect and careful Nangong Jingnu has become, now that her life depends on Wei kingdom politics. She would like to see Magnus' youthful simplicity preserved.

She finds him near the greenhouse, and gives him a bow that speaks more to her respect for him than any actual need for etiquette. "Young master Magnus. What is falafel?"

[summerdude]

"Qi Yan!" Magnus says, happily. He bows back, because it feels like the thing to do^*. "How's it going, buddy? Falafel is like. The best food in the world. Do you know what a chickpea is? Some people call them garbanzo beans. And chana, I think."

*He is not adhering to any sort of known etiquette beyond those of The Vibes

[agula]

His delight at seeing her genuinely makes her smile. She's never thought of herself as someone who enjoys spending time with younger people, but perhaps it's because nearly all the young people she meets in the Wei palace are uncomfortably complicit in the crimes of the empire. She has a great deal of fondness for Yuxiao and Jinwushu, as she does for Xiao-Die—who is now well past twenty, but still a child in need of protection in Qi Yan's heart. She feels her guard somewhat soften around Magnus.

"I don't think so. I don't have any skill with cooking at all. I am also curious to know—what is 'gender identity'?" Qi Yan has a gender, and an identity, and both are private. She can't imagine what Magnus could have to teach her about either of them. "Allow me to give you an accounting of my skills, as you did so comprehensively. I can teach poetry. I also have some meager¹ skill in calligraphy, weiqi, tactical planning, and the xiao."

¹Exceptional.

[summerdude]

"I don't know how to cook at all, but I do know how to eat," Magnus says with a self-deprecating sort of grin. "Falafel is basically spiced fried mashed chickpeas but it's sooooo good. The fridges here sometimes have it, so we should definitely go to the kitchens and embark on an outstanding culinary journey together sometime."

He takes a step or two closer, leaving behind the blades of grass he'd been playing around with, seeing how long he could grow them. Latching his hands together behind his back, he rests easily, most of his weight on one foot, head tilted as he considers everything Qi Yan has told him. "I don't know what weiqi or the xiao are, but I want to learn everything anyway. Especially the poetry and tactical planning. Do you know much about siege warfare? I'm so bad at siege warfare. I always die so fast on those days." Without pausing for Qi Yan to calibrate what he's said -- why would they need to! It's not like he's revealed anything particularly surprising! -- he adds, "Gender identity is like, what you know your gender to be. It might be the same thing as the body you were born into but it might not be? I mostly put that on the list because my girlfriend is transgender and genderqueer, which means sometimes she's a girl and sometimes he's a guy. When I told Sagramore about it -- do you know Sagramore? Have you met him? He's great -- he said he didn't know what transgender meant but when I explained it he realized he did. So I thought it might be useful for more people to also learn about. I'm not, like, an expert or anything, but I do know a bunch."

Mostly, he believes that it is useful for everyone to be brought up to speed, like in general, but now that he's getting a sense for just how many people have others from their worlds arriving at the Mansion regularly, he kinda hopes Alex will show up one day, too, and he doesn't want anyone with a different frame of reference to be a dick.

"Um, to be clear, neither of these things were the lesson. They're just, like... the course description," he jokes.

[futaille]

Grantaire happens to catch the sign by the lounge and is terribly amused upon reading it. However, it does spur an idle thought. He then happens to catch Magnus later, near one of the kitchens.

"So, what to do if the god you're talking to is super particular?"

[summerdude]

Magnus swallows the huge bite he'd just taken off the enormous wrap he's constructed from odds and ends in the fridge and clears his throat. "Well, it depends on the god but the first step is to say something polite and, like, ego-stroking or otherwise useful so they don't decide to kill you right then and there."

He turns around as he says it, and he brightens at the sight of Grantaire. "Hey dude! Long time no see, how have you been settling in? Which god have you been dealing with? Not Rosmerta, right?" This last is said with a laugh at his own earlier mistake.

[futaille]

Grantaire chuckles. "Well, good advice to have anyway, yes? Wouldn't want to be left wishing I had gotten the lesson if it turns out I need it." He takes a seat. "I've been settling in well enough, I think."

[summerdude]

"Yeah?" Magnus says. He starts arranging his mental notes on dealing with gods so he can start the lesson in earnest, but pauses as something occurs to him. "Hey, did you ever find your friend?"

[wickedwit]

Claudius recognizes the name on the sign, Magnus, as the name of a man he'd like to meet -- a man who helped Galahad at his lowest, which makes him a more precious ally than any Claudius would cultivate for his own ends¹. And though he's no longer seeking distractions from a broken heart, Claudius enjoys learning skills for learning's sake. He dwells on the first skill, which has little enough explanation. But Claudius recalls the single handsign he agreed on with Galahad. Galahad has other wants, Claudius knows, that he struggles to voice. Even if he learns to voice them with time, Claudius has seen how distress steals Galahad's ability to speak clearly or at all. A language of signs, even a rudimentary grasp for it, would be most useful.

The trouble is, though he'd like to meet the man, Claudius hasn't the first notion of what Magnus looks like. So he memorizes the areas on the sign, and adds them to his daily circuit of the mansion, keeping an eye out for anyone he doesn't recognize.

¹ Yes, that means Shen Qingqiu is also a precious ally. Claudius isn't going to stop gossiping about him or making fun of him or looking appreciative when Lan Wangji coldly disdains him, but their alliance isn't contingent on such things, surely.

[summerdude]

Magnus's hair is getting long again, since Alex is no longer around to drag him aside and forcibly cut it to the length he prefers. It's weird, actually? He's gotten used to it not falling in his face all the time. It feels weirder to have anyone who isn't Alex cut it, though, so today he's thrown it back into a messy little something with a glittery scrunchie he found in his room. The scrunchie is too bright and colorful for his taste, but at least he doesn't have to look at it.

He's walking out of the library with a stack of books on Newtonian physics, agriculture in the Sahel, three different magic systems that sound equally unfamiliar to him, and a collection of Western Apache oral myths -- the latest in his attempts to make productive use of his time here by learning things -- when he sees the unfamiliar man. "Hey, dude," he says, shifting all his books to one hand so he can wave. "Are you new, or have I just not run into you yet? I'm Magnus."

[wickedwit]

"I'm Claudius," he answers with a quick and ready smile, "I've been here the longest, whatever that dubious distinction is worth, and I believe you're just the man I wanted to find. Magnus Chase? Do you need a hand?" Claudius gestures up and down the tower of books.

[summerdude]

"Oh, I'm good, thanks," Magnus says, cheerfully. "I'm a lot stronger than I look, and the stack isn't that wobbly. You were looking for me?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is primarily interested in finding Magnus for the sake of finding him, and the note about areas to look is helpful. He has his sketchbook with him and, because it's not Friday, a bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red.

[summerdude]

Magnus is in his favorite lounge, engrossed in a book on how to create filigree. He looks up when Galahad comes in. "Hey!" he says, standing up and opening his arms for a hug, only belatedly realizing that Galahad might not think them on hugging-hello terms. Oh well, if it's rejected he can pretend he was just stretching. "What's up, my dude?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He always likes a hello-hug, and since Magnus is asking for it it's not, he decides, wrong of him to accept it. He hugs back, taking a moment to observe all the things Magnus smells of -- clay and fried chickpeas and summer grass.

"Would you like to go outside?" Overformal, but he's not sure how else to ask.

[summerdude]

"Gods, yeah," Magnus says, releasing Galahad a little reluctantly. Dude gives a good hug. He's not going to learn filigree anytime soon -- it seems really hard. "I could really use some fresh air."

[wwx_isdead]

As soon as he sees the sign, Wei Wuxian is interested in the person behind it as much as the lessons on offer. He sets off in search of this Magnus and when he thinks he has found him says, "Hello! Are you the one who wants to learn to cook?"

[summerdude]

"I sure am!" Magnus says, setting down his comic book and standing up. This guy looks like he's probably one of the residents who prefers bowing to shaking hands, so Magnus bobs a little half-bow, half-curtsy. "I don't think we've met. I'm Magnus."

[wwx_isdead]

Magnus. Out loud, the name finally sparks something in Wei Wuxian's mind, making a connection. "Ah, wait, but you must be the young man Hanguang-jun is so fond of! I should have known."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina has seen Magnus's signs around - and she is particularly interested in What It REALLY Feels Like To Die, just from a Corpsewitch perspective, as well as perhaps (Trans)Gender Identity and Fluidity, which sounds interesting, but mostly she promised Magnus that she would swing by at some point.

"Hi Magnus," she says with a little wave, "what's up?¹"

¹Something Nina didn't previously say, but she picks up on languages and lingo very quickly.

[summerdude]

"Nina!" Magnus puts down his latest experiment -- adventures in trying to teach himself to knit; it's going terribly but he's having a great time, and the lake is beautiful today -- on a nearby rock and stands, dusting himself off. "How's it going?"

[ravkanwitch]

Nina's been in a pretty good mood lately, after letting things lie with The Darkling-- or should she call him Aleksander? --and seeing him help against the undead in the uprising also cemented that it was the correct decision.

"Honestly, really great," she says, slightly surprised by herself. "How about you?"

[timebethine]

Laertes finds Magnus in his mossy clearing. Here, it feels as though summer lingers on amidst the golden leaves of autumn; Laertes sheds his sweater as he steps out from beneath the trees. "Hallo," he calls. "Art thou still trading lesson for lesson?"

[summerdude]

"Laertes!" Magnus says, bounding up from where he's been flipping idly through the book Galahad had lent him. "What's up, dude? I sure am!"

[timebethine]

"Galahad saith thou canst speak with thy hands," he says, and signs Galahad, friend. "There's nothing I like better than learning a new language. I'll happily teach thee to cook, an thou wouldst teach me."