I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

I've been thinking about those self-defence practices we've been doing and I had two thoughts.

One is, I was practicing a lengthening charm for clothes and I was thinking about all the charms that could be used as jinxes, either by themselves or in combination with something else and how this could be a brilliant way to take someone by surprise. For instance, a lengthening charm from one person and an entangling jinx from another could get someone all tangled in their robes. There's a charm that's supposed to make you more relaxed, if you're all tense, and it's actually very pleasant but if someone cast expelliarmus on you at the same time it might not just take your wand but completely knock you over. There's probably even a way to use a cheering charm offensively. (Well, maybe the cheering charm would just put the other person in such a good mood they wouldn't want to hex you anymore anyway? that wouldn't be so bad.)

The other thing I was wondering is whether it would make sense to work out some hand signals for some of the combinations we've practised. Like, three fingers in the air mean, 'I'm going to cast the jelly-legs jinx, you cast expelliarmus,' or whatever. Only I'm not sure if it would be any use, because I don't know if I'd remember them in the middle of a fight plus once I'm in a fight I'm going to be looking at my opponent to see where they're aiming hexes, not at my allies so much. But it might be worth trying. What do other people think?

Comments

[alt_ron]

I think yelling a code word would be better than hand signals in a fight.

I think it should be 'tunafish'!!

Could mean 'expelliarmus', if we decided that.

Or that hex that turns someone's ears into gills so they can't breath if they're not in water. That would probably stop them hexing you back for a while!

[alt_pansy]

I think that the more we drill, the better we'll be at making really quick decisions like that. We need to work in things like hand signals or words right from the start so we can make that part of the drilling.

And if it's a word that isn't a spell, or a word people usually say, it'll be easy enough to pick it out if lots of other people are shouting things -- but the tricky part is remembering what word goes with what strategy, which is why we'll just need to work on it a lot.

And yeah, if the word is part of the strategy or a clue about what it'll involve -- like one person makes them have gills, and another person shoots ice at their feet so they slip, that makes sense and makes it easier to sort out what you're trying to get the other person to do.

In other words, good on you, Ron, I think that's really a great idea.

[alt_ron]

So, right. Are we meeting this afternoon?

I don't have to be at rehearsal today after all. Not my scenes, I guess.

[alt_pansy]

Let's meet tonight. I might be a little late, because I have to be at all the rehearsals (lucky me), but it's worth it and, well, it's dead fun. I mean, sorting out who is doing what and all.