(no subject)

[cbucsrule]

No time like the present to do a little planning. There's only so much frakking navel-gazing a guy can do and there is nothing, he decides, nothing at all wrong with running a godsdamn pyramid league here. As long as he's stuck, he has to be doing something and this isn't hurting a godsdamn soul. It's helping -- people were excited, at least at first -- and he's got his initial scouting report out to his team on the other players. He can't help but do things the way he always has. Team 3's got a sixth man now, so they're equal in size to the rest of the teams, and he's good to go.

Tonight he's sitting at a table with a bunch of plays sketched out. Yeah, yeah, they're not playing positions, but the game's gonna happen the same way whether they call someone a forward guard or rear guard or center or just hey you. When they get to the point where they're ready to finesse their play by way of positions and the associated expectations that go with those positions, he'll assign them to people. In his mind he already has. He's seen some of his teammates' strengths and weaknesses, and he knows just what to do with a bunch of rookies.

Train them.

That's why he's got rudimentary game plays in the works. Learning to work together, that's what makes a team a team. If they can do that, they can do anything. He's got a bottle of ambrosia, two shot glasses, a regular glass, and a pitcher of water. And that sketch pad and a marker, and if the shit on all those pages looks incomprehensible, well, that's part of the plan.

It's supposed to, especially to prying eyes. But he promised anyone from any team that he'd help them with their game, and he meant it. He'll teach anyone how the game works or how to strategize or how to create a good workable play or how to do an end run around the other team. He just won't teach them to do it as well as he can, that's all.

Comments

[boston_bruiser]

That's okay, Sam.

The SEAL up in the rafters spying on you with a pair of binoculars figures he'll learn more through observation anyway.

[cbucsrule]

Yeah, they can probably start out with some of the plays they run in training camp for the rookies. Marker in hand, he draws out the basics: the positions, the distances, the arcs and angles and direction of play, the direction the ball's gotta be passed. This is... it's like kindergarten for ball players, the most fundamental of plays. Blocker to guard to center, with the backcourt on defense. He's not sure why it always gets labeled a 3-19, but that's what they've always called it and he never bothered to question it before.

What play you gonna run, Sam?

A 3-19, man. No one will expect it, it's too easy.

It used to work every frakking time. The memory puts a nostalgic little smile on his face; he pours a shot of ambrosia. Might as well get the stuff while he can. Nothing lasts forever.

[boston_bruiser]

...okay, so his penmanship isn't total shit. (Unlike some people he knows.) That's good. That's good.

Except he's a lefty, so that tilt to the left his letters take on makes deciphering his writing that much more difficult.

He copies the diagrams picture for picture on a notepad by his side. When he's done, he puts the pencil in a pocket and shifts his weight ever-so-slightly, hoping the rafters don't creak.

They do.

Shit.

[cbucsrule]

The creaking catches his attention. Puts an amused smirk on his face, too.

"Voodoo, man, the frak are you doing up there?" He sets the marker aside, doesn't try to so much as cover up the crap on the table. That's not his style and not his intention. Why would he keep the secret of toddling along from any of the other teams? Especially Team 1, where they have the disadvantage of no pro or almost-pro players?

"Get your ass down here and have a godsdamn drink."

[boston_bruiser]

Well, shit. He kinda has to now, doesn't he?

"Got a fuckin' ladder?" he says, sleight-of-handing his notebook and binos into a back pants pocket. "Ain't gonna end well, me jumpin' this shit."

[cbucsrule]

"Right in my back pocket. Frak no, I don't have a frakking ladder. You got up there. Were you planning on staying?"

The guy's a pro. Voodoo's gotta have an escape route all planned out. In the meantime, he raises his shot glass and downs the ambrosia.

A little friendly competition never hurt anyone.

[boston_bruiser]

Voodoo sees your shot glass and raises you one middle finger, Sam.

Then, re: ladder: "Fuck no. Waitrats musta took mine. Wait one."

And with some finagling, Voodoo grabs a rafter, swings his lower body out, and inches along the beam, making his way to a suitably high table to cushion his landing.

(Hey, it's his lower body that's fucked up, not his upper.)

[cbucsrule]

Hey, he's got a middle finger too and knows how to use it.

So he does, and watches Voodoo maneuver. It's a pretty good landing, too, and if his hand wasn't occupied by a shot glass, he'd probably applaud it.

"Not bad, man."

[boston_bruiser]

And if Voodoo wasn't busy curling up and massaging his legs, he'd probably take a bow.

As it stands, he rolls onto the floor, taking a few salt and pepper shakers with him.

(A dignified landing it is not.)

"I'm just so fucking graceful."

[makesthings]

Sameth doesn't know if he wants to head back out to his work or try and do things here, waiting probably won't make a letter from Kait appear.

After spending most of the day outside by the water, he comes in with his sleeves rolled up and spots Sam, "Hello."

[cbucsrule]

"Hey, Other Sam. How the hell have you been?"

Not fighting robots with brains on Ellen's world, and he's starting to realize that's not something he's gonna wish on anyone. Ever. End of story.

"You wanna join me?" There's plenty of room at the table, and he's always been a pretty sociable guy. The more the merrier and all that.

[makesthings]

"Good, busy, working on Charter Stones at home. Not a lot of doors out in the Old Kingdom. What are you working on?"

He smiles and moves to sit down.

[cbucsrule]

"Secret stuff. Nah." He shakes his head, slides the pieces of paper over to Sameth. "Pyramid plays. Trying to figure out which ones are the most viable to run with a bunch of rookies." Sameth plays sports out on his world, he'll get the next reference.

"Just like training camp. Gotta teach the basics, figure out where to start. Go ahead, look them over. I'll explain if you have questions." Frak yeah, he wants his team to win, but he also wants to have good teams to play against. It's no fun if his opponents can be rolled over just like that, and team play is way different from one-on-one.

"How's your team coming along?"

[makesthings]

"We seemed pretty good before I left. We need to have some practices which I mean to do,"

Work just pulled him in and he looks over the plays. They're a little different from what he knows but not too much.

[cbucsrule]

"Yeah, well, you better get going on those, or my team's gonna kick your team's sorry collective ass out there when we match up in the league."

Not that his team's done much in the way of practice, but they will. He was busy killing robots, that's his excuse, and everyone's got one. They're a bunch of pretty busy people.

Honestly, when push comes to shove, whoever's having a better day's gonna win. Knowing the game like the back of his hand's only of value if he's playing against other equally skilled and knowledgeable ball players. Until it comes to scoring. That's where his years of experience are gonna pay off.

[makesthings]

"We will. I heard that Scorpius is going to be playing, that should be good. So is this seems like an effective way to set up a number of quick scores?"

He turns the paper to see if he's reading it right.

[cbucsrule]

"Yeah, man, he's on my team. He's looking good." It's the truth, but he'd be saying it even if it was the biggest frakking lie he could come up with. Rule One: never badmouth your teammates to another team.

"This" -- he points to the paper with the 3-19 -- "is a basic setup. One of the first ways you learn to score when you play the game with a five-man team. You've got your backcourt here, your rear guard and blocker, on the D -- on the defense -- and your forward blocker inbound-passes to your forward guard, who passes to your center. Since your center's usually your tallest player, they can have a high percentage of shots made if they're in the right place at the right time. It's a good way to learn. Pisses off the backcourt after a while, especially when it's just a five-man squad practice, 'cause they don't get to do a lot. But up against another team, they'll keep busy enough."

Tackling and trash-talking, that's what the backcourt has to excel at.

[feminine_menace]

"We have a playbook now?" YT picks up one of the papers and studies it. It's pretty much incomprehensible. "Or a play pile-of-papers, anyway."

[cbucsrule]

He shrugs a professionally nonchalant shrug. "My team has a playbook. I don't know about yours." Just to be difficult, he gathers up the plays, holds them just out of her reach.

Maybe Kara will run plays for her team, maybe she won't. He'd like to be a fly on the wall for one of their practices, just to see what she comes up with. He kind of suspects she doesn't have the patience to coach, but she will whip her team into fighting shape, he knows that much.

"How's things going, YT?"

[feminine_menace]

"Got a guy to crash his Hummer into a jersey barrier today," YT says. "He was trying to run me over. So I 'pooned his ride, and then he tried to shake me off." So it was his own damn fault.

[cbucsrule]

"Hey, man. No one gets to run over any of our players, no matter what team they're on." Almost sadly, he shakes his head: she looks okay and that, that's good. No, that's great. "Glad to see you came out of it on top."

And 'cause he was only kidding about not sharing, he sets the plays back down. "If you don't know how to read these" (and why should she, she's not from a world where pyramid's the national sport) "I can go over them with you. Just so you know what you're in for with team play."

Maybe Kara's already done this with her team, he doesn't know, but in pyramid multiple perspectives on things are always good. Always, and he doesn't mind sharing. Not at all.

[feminine_menace]

"Okay." YT takes a seat. "So this looks a little like a football play, but honestly I don't know how to read those either."

[cbucsrule]

"All right, we'll start with the basic. We run a five-man team: forward guard, forward blocker. Center, rear blocker, rear guard. So the top three are your front court, and the rear two are your backcourt. In this play" -- he holds up the 3-19 -- "the forward blocker inbounds to the forward guard, who relays it to the center for a score. And the backcourt runs interference." He points to the paper like the little dots representing players are alive and moving around on the page. "Typically, your rear guard guards your forward blocker, and your rear blocker blocks for your forward guard. Cross-pattern. The center, everyone watches out for him or her. But there are varieties on every play... is this helping at all?"

[feminine_menace]

"It's helping make me more confused," YT says. "Okay. Basics. What's the difference between a guard and a blocker?"

[cbucsrule]

Yeah, good question. He nods to the paper. "A guard's gonna run the plays that'll guard his people against the other team. A blocker's gonna do whatever he or she can to take the other team out of contention: blocks, tackles, like that. And a center's usually your first go-to guy when it comes to scoring and to being imposing. I mean, anyone can do any of those things any time, but that's the difference in a nutshell. What happens probably 60, 65% of the time out there."

Personally, he always thought he had the game's best rear blocker in Sue-Shaun, and Barolay at rear guard ran the game's best backcourt. But he's a little bit biased.