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Tweak says, "THE prom, it's THE prom!"

Sam Winchester (tallerthanthou) wrote in marinanova,
@ 2013-05-12 13:43:00

Entry tags:

:class, :mingle, artemis crock, bonnie bennett, buffy summers, dawn summers, elena gilbert, jack harkness, kitty pryde (aoa), klara guildsen, laura kinney, martha jones, peggy carter, piper halliwell, puck, saitou yakumo, sam winchester, spencer reid, tear grants, xander harris, yuuki kuran, zero kiryuu

Class 002 : Day 218 : Wendigo [action]
Welcome or welcome back to Paranormal Studies.

[Sam starts off with another disclaimer-type comment for the new students as he did at the beginning of his last class about how this isn't a class on hunting.]

Topic: Wendigo

Today, we're talking about wendigos. The name means "evil that devours" and it's a pretty good description. They were actually human once, but something happened to them. Something extreme. Maybe long, cold winters without enough supplies. Whatever the case, they find themselves turning to cannibalism to survive. Obviously, not every cannibal becomes a wendigo, but some do. It changes them. The get taller, leaner, faster, stronger, vicious and always hungry. [Sometimes this class sounds like a scary story, doesn't it? He should teach around a campfire.]

They often hibernate for long periods of time, storing live food. Meaning they abduct and hold people, eating them slowly, stripping off pieces of skin and keeping them alive as they do it as long as possible.

It's the perfect hunter. It has all the power it needs for any prey and the intelligence too. It can stalk you without you knowing it's there, biding it's time to take out a full traveling party. It can also imitate human voices to lure you out.

[ WENDIGO ]

Case Study: Black Water Ridge, Colorado

We—Dean and I—were sent coordinates to Black Water Ridge, Colorado, where we discovered a Tommy Collins had gone missing on a hike. With some research I found people had been going missing in that area in 23-year cycles. We needed better information of what we were up against, so we found a survivor of a "bear" attack. [He actually uses the finger quotes, yes.] It's not unusual for people to come up with neat labels for things that don't make any sense to them, so it's important to look through all records for anything that doesn't seem to fit. Sometimes it's swamp gas or unusual diseases or animal attacks. This time it was a bear attack.

The survivor was able to tell us the thing that killed his family was smart and fast and didn't sound like a man or an animal. With a little more research we were able to figure out we were up against the Wendigo.

Knowing that didn't exactly make things easy from there. We ended up out in the forest with a guide, and Tommy Collin's sister and younger brother. We had to keep all of them safe while finding and rescuing Tommy and not getting ourselves killed in the process. The guide didn't make it. [He clears his throat a little. It's one of those moments where the weight of turning hunting into a class topic catches up to him. He's talking about some pretty strong subjects here even if this was a pretty easy case compared to a lot of what he faced. There was always a body count.]

We did recover Tommy. The Wendigo had been storing people in an abandoned mine. Dean also managed to kill the Wendigo.

[ BLACK WATER RIDGE, COLORADO ]

Practical: Defense of Wendigo

So, how did we do it? Fire. They are vulnerable to it. He was shot once in the chest with a flare gun. There are also some protection symbols from the Anasazi. If they're drawn correctly and you stay in their area of protection they'll act as a ward, keeping a wendigo at bay. A lot of taking them on is knowledge, skill, and luck. There is no conventional fighting with them, but it's also possible silver-tipped arrows can take them down.

[ ANASAZI SYMBOLS ]

Questions & Discussion

Okay, I think that's everything I had. Has anyone else ever heard of or encountered a Wendigo or something similar? Or are there any questions?

(OOC: Backdated to late afternoon. Mingle style. Notifs are off so tag Sam during class with questions or catch him before or after. Use your discretion with the links provided. Sam didn't necessarily cover every detail, but feel free to bring more into it. Warnings for talk of cannibalism and torture.)

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	notrosesshadow 2013-05-15 03:10 am UTC (link)
	[Martha's eyes go wide at the comment.] I'm glad she's OK! My best friend wasn't eaten, but an alien did suck out some of his blood with a bendy straw. It was rather disgusting actually. I'm Martha by the way. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-17 02:14 am UTC (link)
	Seriously? A straw? That's a new one...also...aliens. New. I mean, not here. I get it. Aliens are real, but at home as a whole 'part of the job' thing. I'm Buffy. It's nice to meet you, Martha. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-17 07:48 pm UTC (link)
	Yes a straw! It was disgusting! [Martha smiled when Buffy gave her name, but she was more focused on the whole, 'part of the job' reference] You wouldn't happen to work for UNIT do you? Or at home at least? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-20 11:00 pm UTC (link)
	UNIT? Nope. Sounds way too official for what I do. It's sort of a freelance kind of group. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-22 03:24 am UTC (link)
	Maybe it doesn't exist in your world either. They're the alien people where I'm from. But freelance does sound nice. I started out freelance. [Kind of. Martha had only started working for UNIT because going back to a normal life was going to be near impossible. But if she found someone else to work with her...] (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-23 02:49 am UTC (link)
	As far as I know, we don't have any alien people and only one kind of alien. They're these bug things that Spike somehow ended up king of...or something like that. Freelance is a lot easier than anything organized. I tried the organized thing for a while. It worked, but I didn't like it much. So what made you switch to the UNIT thing? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-23 03:58 pm UTC (link)
	I had to stay home and help my family recover from an apocalypse. And I understood what caused it better than anyone at UNIT did. I helped them become better at their jobs. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-24 12:55 am UTC (link)
	Well when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense. [She smiles at Martha.] Everyone in your family okay? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-24 02:59 am UTC (link)
	They... were getting there. I don't know what it'll be like now with me gone. But things were getting better. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-25 12:21 am UTC (link)
	Maybe they're still getting better, or at least at a stale...thing. A thing that is no getting worse. It's kind of my hope for home too. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-27 09:07 pm UTC (link)
	Thing's not going so well there either? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-27 10:14 pm UTC (link)
	Not so much, which seems to be a common factor here. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-05-28 12:44 am UTC (link)
	[Martha rolls her eyes.] Seems the wardens tried to take us from absolutely critical moments in our lives. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-05-30 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah. I've been trying to figure out what the dealio with that is. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

notrosesshadow
2013-05-31 03:55 am UTC (link)

Well, it throws us off our game at first. Definitely confusing to find onesself pulled out of your timeline and your dimension only to be planted somewhere else. Adding prison to that is worse. And then we're all mad that we're gone, so it probably proves in their twisted minds that we really are the criminals we say we are...

[Martha trails off as she thinks about it.]

Or they're taking people who just do the sorts of things that involve crazy things in their lives. So far, I've yet to meet anyone who goes to work in an office where they push papers around.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-06-03 04:53 pm UTC (link)
	There's sort of a thin line between criminal and hero. Add to it that the Wardens seem to think that line is nonexistent. I think that they're taking people who make a difference in their world, good or bad. I'm still not sure why. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-06-05 03:23 am UTC (link)
	A difference on a grand scale you mean? [Because Martha knew lots of people who made differences, but ones that probably wouldn't change the world the way hers did.] Like the ones who tend to keep the world turning and people alive? That would leave a lot of people suddenly vulnerable. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	doesntdamsel 2013-06-05 06:43 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, exactly. I mean on a world wide scale or maybe bigger, maybe just a continent sized one. [Buffy had saved the world many times, but it had usually started on a smaller scale.] Yeah. Exactly. Vulnerable for whatever they're planning. The people who have us here, I mean. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	notrosesshadow 2013-06-07 02:09 pm UTC (link)
	And to make that even more worrying, we have people from different worlds and different universes. Which means whatever they're planning is multi-universal. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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