INTRO MINGLE

[whimsicalism]

WELCOME IN

ORIENTATION DAY

(CW: Slight undertones of experiences of unreality.)

It’s a bright Monday afternoon at the Academy. If the sun happened to be visible, it would certainly be shining. The new semester that everyone has been waiting for is about to begin!

All students wake up at exactly the same time–not that you’re aware of this. Even those who don’t normally sleep must have given into slumber at some point; they, too, will jolt awake with the strangest sensation that someone was just whispering in their ears. The beds that you’ll find yourself in are small and unfamiliar, and you wake up wearing a uniform that you don’t recognize even though it fits you like a glove. A red book with black cardstock lining the inner cover sits on each dorm nightstand. Opening the book reveals a strange code of conduct. The following pages list, in alphabetical order, all of the students.

Beyond the handbook and a change of familiar clothes in the closet, there’s little personalization to the rooms, and they lack most homey comforts. As unusual as these surroundings may seem, it’s impossible to shake the subtle, lingering excitement: It’s the first day of school! What a delightful occasion. Shouldn’t everyone want to make the most of the year? The subtle, unshakeable desire to achieve sits in the back of every mind like the story of a happy dream. Perhaps you brush your hair or wash your teeth before going on with your splendid day. Your reflection in your bathroom mirror looks a little off, did you forget to cut your hair before the big day? Perhaps you realize that your nails or claws have been trimmed recently. A little odd but you must have been excited for a brand new school year.

The world outside the dorm room holds a few more answers, but most things are still shrouded in mystery. Today, it seems that some rooms are still locked up tight from summer vacation. Beside the dormitory and hallways, only the cafeteria, kitchen, gym, playground, school store, and A/V room are accessible. Outside the cafeteria, a digital sign titled DAILY SCHEDULE offers little structure, save for one afternoon event: 5PM - PREFECT’S ORIENTATION - AUDITORIUM. There’s a lot of business to take care of on the first day of school, after all. No one can just be expected to start learning without the proper preparation.

With some time to kill before the promised orientation takes place–and, according to that rulebook, everyone is expected to attend–students have only each other and the various robot sheep for company. With such a small class, perhaps working together will bring you newfound and long-lasting partnerships. The robotic staff seem polite, at least, if a bit confused at the sudden flurry of non-scheduled activities.

How will you spend your first day before classes begin?

OOC NOTES

Welcome to the IC intro mingle for Round 2! Your characters have the afternoon to meet one another, get lunch at the school cafeteria, review their student handbooks, harass the Little Brother robots, and prepare for the upcoming school semester in this post. As promised, the Prefect will meet everyone in the auditorium at 5pm and will post their own introductory comment at that time (Eastern).

While we're sure that some people are dying to get a head start on investigating all of the mysteries of the school (we're excited to reveal them), please hold your investigation comment ideas until the weekly post goes up tomorrow. As all ground floor locations should be open for exploration at that time, we invite everyone to scratch all of your investigation itches on tomorrow's post at noon (also Eastern)! In lieu of investigation threads today, characters may speak to/question/accost the Little Brothers, who have an NPC thread down below.

Thank you, and have fun!

Comments

[britbrat]

[ The door to dorm room 17 slams open, and out storms Tiny McBritish, throughly pissed off. ]

This is outrageous! I demand to speak to whoever claims to be the headmaster of this - this sham academy! My parents will be furious! After all they've spent on my education...

[ Are you sure they didn't just transfer you here to get rid of you, V. Are you sure.

Lacking anything else to do, at least until orientation (however pointless that promises to be), Valmont can later be found making the rounds of the school - might as well get familiar with his surroundings. Most of the facilities he passes with a dismissive sniff, but the locked AV room actually seems to catch his interest. Standing on tiptoe, Valmont smushes his face against the window, eyes going huge. ]

I say - what in the world are those?

[ It's not clear what exactly he's so entranced by. Overhead projectors, maybe? ]

AV Room

[hashtagwoof]

[ Oh, hey. Another British kid. After running into a bunch of talking animals plus one of your enemies, it's a breath of fresh air.

Sort of. ]

What are what? [ He's going over to see what the fuss is about. ]

[britbrat]

[ The voice at Valmont's shoulder snaps him out of his technology-based reverie. He turns, coming face to face with the most impressive head of hair he's ever seen on a boy his age - or, possibly, anyone. A stab of jealousy passes through him, and his eyes narrow, but even Valmont isn't greedy enough to try to steal the actual hair off someone's head. Hunter's safe... for now. ]

Those, obviously.

[ He gestures past the window into the AV room itself, in the direction of what appears to be a set of audio mixers, flanked by speakers and monitors on each side. All pretty standard for a decent-sized school, really. ]

All those lights and buttons! What do you suppose it's all for?

[hashtagwoof]

[ He presses his face to the window and squints... ]

Oh! [ Pulling away to chat with this kid. ] That's just your standard audio mixing setup. Kinda cheap looking to me, but I guess it's good enough for this school's AV Room.

[ Shrug. ]

[britbrat]

[ Cheap...? A futuristic contraption like this? Please don't let this kid be richer than him, please don't let this kid be richer than him ]

Ah, yes, well, if it's the standard, of course. I don't typically concern myself with the minutiae of, er, audio mixing. You're familiar with this sort of thing, then? Some sort of... stereo enthusiast?

[ His school definitely does not have an AV room, put it that way. ]

[hashtagwoof]

[ I mean, if you account for any inflation that happened between the 1970's and the 2010's... ]

Not really. I'm more of a social media influencer type... As a hobby, personally.

[ So, yeah. Technology is with this one most of the time. ]

[britbrat]

[ ........... ]

A social what?

[ That's not "what?" as in "I don't understand what you said", but "what?" as in "you are speaking nonsense and this offends me, personally". For the record. ]

[hashtagwoof]

[ Either way, it got a mix of both emotions in that look Hunter's giving you. ]

You know... Social media! Facebook! Twitter! TikTok! Instagram! Everybody knows about those websites, right?

[britbrat]

"Tick tock"? "Instant gram"? Typical. I meet someone in this madhouse with what seems like an ounce of style, and it turns out he's utterly bonkers.

[ Yes, that might have been a compliment in there. Maybe. Somewhere. ]

[hashtagwoof]

. . .

Dude. What year are you from?

[britbrat]

...

[ A light dawns slowly. Prior to about a week ago, Valmont would probably have dismissed that question as rhetorical, and probably insulting. But now that the existence of time travel has been unquestionably proven to him... ]

Nineteen seventy-six. And... you?

[hashtagwoof]

[ .... HOO BOY. That's something Hunter had not expected. An actual response. And the kid just said he was from the 70's?! ]

... It's... It was 2019 last time I checked! No wonder you don't know anything about modern technology that literally everyone else has heard of!

[britbrat]

Another time traveler! Outstanding!

[ Valmont's eyes light up, any prior annoyance with Hunter giving way to sheer kiddish enthusiasm. If he's going to have to spend any length of time in this dump that calls itself a school, at least he can pick this kid's brains about magic while he does it! ]

I don't employ you, do I?

[hashtagwoof]

[ Woah, someone's happy to be in the future.

Also, it looks like that question was taken as an insult. ]

Uh. No. Pretty sure you'd be breaking child labour laws or something.

Besides, I've already got a trust fund in the family business, so unless you grow up to be a designer for Haus of DeVil I doubt we've actually met before.

[britbrat]

[ Look, eventually, magic will become just kind of a basic fact of life for Valmont. But right now he's still in the honeymoon phase - and if you can't get hype about doing time travel for real, what can you get hype about? ]

No, I suppose we wouldn't have. What with me being... [ quick finger calculation ] in my fifties, eurgh, by the time you're around. But you can't blame me for asking, given prior experience. Your family's in the fashion industry, then?

[ DeVil. DeVil. It's not ringing a bell, but this is a boy whose closet is full of identical copies of the same green suit. He's not really that up on the latest trends. ]

[hashtagwoof]

[ For Valmont, it's cool. For Hunter, it's weird and unexpected. Magic and time travel are things that should only happen in TV shows!

But yeah, he's nodding at Valmont. ] Yeah. Pretty sure the company started up in the 70's sometime, so... I dunno, maybe you hadn't heard of it because it was getting off the ground at that point?

[shinedsobright]

[Fret has been loitering in the halls ever since he woke up and went through all of that weird trippy stuff with the mirror. And considering where he was before, fighting for his life in the Reaper's Game, this is basically the weirdest jump cut ever. He's pretty sure he must have forgotten something, unless Rindo just messed with the timeline in a severely unexpected way, somehow? But for now he's just going to take stuff in. And Valmont is currently the Stuffiest thing around and the first human he's seen.]

Dude, what? Is this ENGLAND? Jeez, now I'm even more lost. Literally!

[He's talking to himself like Valmont can't hear him. Because, truth be told, he is still not 100% that anyone else could, even with all the creepy stuff tailored to his specifications.]

[britbrat]

Look at me when you talk, you boor.

[ Just because this boy is so much (mumble grumble) taller than Valmont doesn't mean he can get away with not even looking him in the eye. It's not so much "common courtesy" as it is "courtesy that Valmont, specifically, deserves because he's more important than you". ]

And no, last I checked, it was California. Though I can't be certain; I'm told kidnappers are fond of crossing state lines.

[shinedsobright]

Oh, alright! Hi down there. [Surprise at being heard is fleeting, and now he is sassing Valmont cause he called him a boor]

But, state lines? Try countries and oceans. I'm supposed to be in Shibuya. [The impatience is starting to rub off on him, or maybe it was secretly there already.]

I got a feeling there's more to this than just kidnapping. I mean, did you see the detail these profiles have? Some of em' are practically blackmail material.

[Here's lookin' at you, Chloroform Boy]

[britbrat]

Spare me the cheap jabs. Just because you've never learnt how to talk to your social superiors. And wherever this backwater is you've come from, if it's across the ocean, I suppose you'd better get started swimming.

[ Valmont's eyes light up for a second when Fret busts out "blackmail", though. There's an idea! ]

No, I didn't, I've been a tad preoccupied, as it happens. Which one were you again?

[ He begins flipping through the pages of his handbook. Mmm, probably not the five-year-old, but you never know. ]

[shinedsobright]

What, can't take what you dish out? [Not that the rest of that is worth addressing, it really doesn't bother him.]

I'm Fret. They called me the Reminder. But you... Well, you'll see it.

[He thought Valmont's title was pretty funny!!]

AV room

[weirdlymagical]

[On the hunt for windows to the outside world, Luz has happened here, only to find this kid with his face up against the glass.]

Uhhh, the projectors? AV equipment?

[Hm.] That's not very magical.

[britbrat]

Magical?

[ Valmont pivots to face the older girl, his face shining for a second before he schools it into a more appropriately sober expression. Right. She said not magical. Darn. ]

Is it meant to be?

[weirdlymagical]

No. It's not. It's just... dumb human technology.

[... She perks up suddenly, as though yanking herself out of her trance.]

Oh. Uh - I mean, it's a lot of complicated tech. You've never seen it? I'd think all of this was pretty common in school.

[britbrat]

Well, I don't happen to be particularly versed in the field of audiovisual equipment, but - human technology?

[ Yeah, Valmont caught that. And having not yet come into contact with the animal people who comprise a worrying percentage of the student body... ]

As opposed to what other sort of technology, precisely?

[ he's not saying it's aliens but... is it aliens ]