During the future course of the comic, I imagine I will have other montages in order to move story forward, but before I get to those, I thought I would have a little fun with the trope.

People with ADD/ADHD don’t have bad memory, in fact most of us can recite the entire works of Monty Python by heart. The issue is when we’re not focusing on something, it never gets passed to long term memory before we’re wondering why Star Fleet didn’t use a replicator to make more Datas. Ok, arguably the transporter accident that made another Riker would be difficult and nebulously ethical to try and recreate, but Data is just parts. If they can replicate a phaser then they could replicate Data. Even if Data wasn’t copacetic with it, didn’t he have Lor in a bin in his room for like 3 seasons? Couldn’t Section 31 have snuck into his room and swapped out the parts with reasonable facsimiles while they made a master replica? Wait, what was I doing? Oh, re-reading a paragraph from this history textbook for the 6th time because I don’t remember a single thing from it.

Honestly I don’t know how I made it through school. Book learning is not how I roll, for the exact reason above.

There were all sorts of things I was considering putting in the classroom dialog bubbles, including an excerpt from “Lurking on Rooftops 101” about hiding in the shadows of gargoyles and bringing your own inflatable gargoyle in case you’re not lurking in Gotham, but I thought I’d keep it a little more vanilla as whoever is teaching the courses is probably not a prime motivator for humor.

I recently went to a gun range just to get the experience of actually firing a gun, plus it was something new to do with the wife. I’ve shot a shotgun before at skeet, but this was my first time with pistols. I definitely learned a few things. One, man those things kick. I mean, obviously they do, we’ve all seen videos of people whacking themselves in the face with the butt or barrel of their gun, I was just surprised at how much, even on the small caliber guns. I never lost control of any of the pistols I fired, but by the time the evening was done, my 1st dorsal interosseus was sore. That’s the meaty bit between the thumb and palm. Two, I has always wondered why in crime procedurals, bad guys didn’t always police their brass, assuming they’re not doing a drive by or something. Well it turns out when the case gets ejected, it goes fucking flying. It can wind up like 50 feet away if you’re on a smooth floor, and ladies, if you’re at a firing range, don’t wear a V-neck. There’s a better than zero chance it will bounce off the partition and you’ll wind up with hot brass down your top. It happened twice in the class I took. Three, I learned that after a very short class, I am pretty terrible shot. My problem comes from anticipating the kick so I squeeze down on the gun right before I fire to counteract it, so 2/3 of my shots wind up South West of where I was aiming, which is what’s happening to Sydney there on the range. Peggy will help her correct that eventually. Also the bit where she squeaks every time she fires.

I remember a long time ago reading some list written by Schwarzenegger about how to act tough. The only thing I remember from it was “don’t blink when you fire a gun.” That’s stuck with me ever since, and to this day I watch for it in TV shows and movies. Most people blink or flinch significantly, even people playing stone killers. It’s a tough reflex to fight, but I found at the firing range, when I tried to not flinch and keeping both eyes open, my aim improved considerably. Probably cause I was concentrating on that and not clamping down on the gun.

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