WEEK 0

[whimsicalism]

Week Zero

Despite everything that made yesterday feel like a particularly spectacular dream, everyone will wake up today back in their dorm rooms and their academy pajamas (providing they changed before bed). The artificial light is still bright and happy, but the reality of the school year is truly beginning to set in. This is the true first day of classes.

This week, the ground floor of the Academy is open to explore. All of the rooms that were inaccessible on Monday are open for the rest of the week, though students will still be kept firmly on the ground floor while remodeling continues on the upper levels.

Classes are also in session, with a basic schedule advertised on the board outside the cafeteria. In addition to basic academic subjects, the courses offered have a slight bent towards soft skills: home economics, etiquette, and public conduct are peppered in with math and science. The textbooks available for classes are handed out at the beginning of every sheep-taught lesson, and they encompass several levels of learning on the same subject to account for the different levels of students in attendance, as if someone created a series of textbooks in the nature of this video series. Strangely enough, there usually seems to be one fewer book than there are students, as if someone wasn't accounted for when books were ordered. The Lady Prefect can often be found in attendance at these classes, though she tends to disappear right after each session for her office hours. All in all, she's a distracted, even daydreamy student, and she may occasionally ask for someone else's notes. But she's quick to take roll and remind others of deadlines.

Regardless, classes only last a few hours a day, and students are otherwise encouraged to pursue their own extracurriculars and self-improvement, including via gym and music room activities. There's time to eat and train on your own schedule...or maybe you want to try making a dent in the large collection of Zoobooks in the reception area, feeding the strange vending machine in the school store some of your red coins, or convincing a Little Brother robot to tell you what really happened when one of them started getting mouthy yesterday at orientation.

Two future dates linger on the horizon, both fresh from the discussions on Monday: The Little Brother that was behaving so strangely promised a game of hide-and-seek on Wednesday, and the first main school event, the spelling bee and dance, is slated to take place on Saturday.

How will you prepare?

Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday

OOC Notes

Welcome to Week 0 proper! Events will unlock on the relevant day. Effective immediately, students are able to explore the week's locations for some more information about the school. If you'd like mod input on an investigation, please tag in the mods by writing (INVESTIGATION) in the subject line of your comment. If you'd like to speak with a Little Brother, please put (SHEEP) in your comment header. They're pretty wary of talking to students in secluded places, unfortunately, so while you can talk to them one-on-one, they don't offer a private contact post of their own.

The Prefect, however, will be available for her office hours. Nanami herself can be contacted in private via screened threads there. Given the general off-the-rails beginning of the semester, she is a bit distracted this week, but there's never any harm in reaching out!

Don't forget your regains!

Comments

Saturday

[whimsicalism]

EVENT - SPELLING BE RESULTS AND SCHOOL DANCE

[whimsicalism]

[As the Principal isn’t due to introduce himself until the dance itself kicks off, the spelling bee presented little opportunity for notable shenanigans. With the disparate education levels (despite all efforts to give level-appropriate words to each participant), boundary pushers, and participants invested in throwing the game for some ulterior motive, the results of the spelling bee may not be exactly what the students predicted:

Both Yasu and Koishi scored perfectly in the competition, leading to an unexpected dual winner team. Dylan, scoring one point below them, is the runner-up. The Little Brothers, pleasantly surprised at the talent of the students, have presented the two first-place winners with… a single trophy, engraved with both names. They weren’t expecting this! Each girl also gets a prize ribbon, however, with the words “Spelling Champion” etched on a shiny button in the middle. Recognizing their achievements for the class is important!

After spelling bee concludes, students will be directed to the gymnasium, which has been set up less like a(n American middle school) dance and more like a birthday party–something accessible across the full range of student demographics.

Except it would be accessible, if it didn’t seem at every turn to have taken on the stuffy, white-picket blandness of a purely neutral garden party. Whoever organized it (and everyone should know who, by now; it’s preoccupied the entirety of her focus since you met her) did her best, but there’s a general element of…blandness. Vegetable trays that don’t have enough condiments to go around, fruit cut into various “fun” shapes like stars and crescent moons… the snacks lean mostly to the inoffensive and often to healthy–or what masquerades as healthy. The punch bowl, which is set up like it holds some ambrosia-level concoction… has a plain, bright red beverage akin to iced Hawaiian Punch. It’s kind of sad, how the cocktail wiener puffs have been assembled meticulously, like they were buttered escargot over crusts. The music that plays on the speakers is instrumental only, a mix of big band swing and stuffily classical, and the room itself? Very well-lit.

Nanami approaches the raised platform in the back of the room that’s serving as a stage for the dance, but just as she’s about to pull herself up for some sort of speech or proclamation, a Little Brother comes and tugs her away by the sleeve. She bends down to listen to it briefly, then trots out of the gymnasium after it, leaving the dancefloor and the students unsupervised…for now.

Students should have a little time to enjoy the party before their leader(?) returns. ICly, though students don’t know exactly when the Prefect will back, she’ll return in around 15 minutes. OOCly, the next mod input on this event will come in around 30 minutes.]

[holyironmade]

Yasu has earned a ribbon! It is exactly what she deserves! Congratulations to Koishi as well!

[Princess-like applause erupts from Jeanne. Also, since there is no class today, for the first time she is wearing her outfit instead of the uniform. The fact that I can't find a clean 2021 anime official art design for this outfit slays me because it's a pretty darn large part of her screentime. There is a silver pin with L A W S arranged around a big X.]

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm... hmmm hmmm hmmm.

[She doesn't seem to be looking down at the dance going by her face, bopping along to the music, including with Reika. Hi, Reika! However she's sort of hovering around the table where she has set aside a "Sadani" screw-top water bottle and her white handkerchief, never quite letting it out of her sight. She is also not taking any punch or food yet.]

[hashtagwoof]

[ This. Party. Blows.

Hunter goes to seek out Yuuta after the prefect is pulled away, practically running over in his haste. ]

She's gone. This is our chance to set the trap if we're still on for that.

Re: EVENT - SPELLING BE RESULTS AND SCHOOL DANCE

[lets_dewey_it]

Congrats, you are small potatoes and you did the thing... _{[He says to the winners and Dylan as he clapped, but he was incredibly disinterested in the spelling bee as a whole.]}

[And then there came the party, where Dewey will desperately whisper to the closest person to him at the moment.

This party sucks but I can't turn down punch. Or tiny hot dogs. _{[He is going to shovel as many cocktail weiner puff onto a plate as he can without looking like he's stealing all of them.]}

[curdle]

[ Thomasin, still miserable from the spelling bee and incredibly worried from the moment Nanami leaves, has been taught that dancing is a sin and singing is for hymns! So she does what any awkward middle schooler at a dance would -- she goes over to the snacks and just kind of hovers there for the next fifteen minutes. Highlights include her staring into the depths of the punch bowl like it's full of blood, asking people what half of the fruit is, and tentatively taking a moon-shaped piece of pineapple with deep mistrust, taking a little bite of it...

And then immediately eating the rest of the piece and going in for more. But, like, in a stealthy way where she's worried about being seen as gluttonous. She looks about as happy as anyone here's ever seen her! ]

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat doesn't look the slightest bit sad given how low she placed. She had a lot of fun doing it! She goes up to the winners and Dylan to personally congratulate them.

After that, she can be seen dancing in the middle of the room. Not breakdancing, just normal dancing to the music, occasionally air guitaring. Just look at how much fun she's having!]

Looking for the music origin

[canreallymove]

[Ok, TIME TO LOOK FOR THE CD PLAYER OR WHATEVER. He's got the Linkin Park CD on him, so.

Where is it?]

[keyringwitness]

[Although Yasu's literary inclinations are apparent to anyone who glances at her whenever she's reading a scavenged book or scribbling away a story in her grimoire (thanks for the idea, Reika), it's easy to imagine the timid girl choking up and dropping out in the first round of the spelling bee. Her stutter, lack of confidence, and generally shy nature seems like it's the perfect losing combination, and when Yasu is first called up, she indeed visibly blanks, stuttering out some "ums" and "uhs."

But then she looks back toward where she'd been sitting, where a satchel she purchased yesterday rests, takes a deep breath, and spells the word without another moment of hesitation. The next time she's called up, there's only a small pause to breathe before she starts. And all the times after that...

It's impossible to see her eyes beneath those bangs, but everyone present gets the feeling that those invisible baby blues are on fire. Yasu strides up with confidence each time, perfectly recites each letter, and returns, fidgeting happily in her seat as opposed to her normal anxious fidgeting. When it's just down to her and Koishi, she gets downright competitive, and Koishi can almost feel Yasu glaring at her somehow... until they tie.

It doesn't feel real, being handed that double trophy and ribbon, and Yasu just stands there in the crowd of students stock still with all the nerves flooding back into her system.]

A- A- Ah, um...

[She blushes, looking down at her feet as one hand sneaks into her satchel.]

Thank you.

[Yasu would've loved to be a wallflower at the party, but her performance at the spelling bee made that impossible for the most part. She clusters in the middle of the dance floor, heavily encouraged by the Little Brothers to socialize and too dazed to blow off anyone that wants to talk or congratulate her. But after a few minutes, Yasu takes a deep breath and peels off to the side, bobbing up and down, side to side, like she's awkwardly dancing. The top of her satchel is now open, and inside there's a small, porcelain doll with long, blond hair like hers, that she's... holding the hand of? And smiling slightly while doing it. Huh.

Eventually, Yasu finds an opening to retreat from the dance floor, and sits off to the side with her grimoire, reading and scribbling away with it as her smile grows slightly wider. The doll now hangs out over the satchel's edge and onto Yasu's arm, as if looking inside herself.]

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

[Usually Dylan would be upset that someone (technically) younger than him beat him in something he was skilled in, but honestly? After hearing the deductions Yasu had on the first day, he's more surprised that he was beaten by the girl who's name he keeps forgetting. And even then it's more an embarrassment thing than a jealousy thing.

But hey! Runner-up is great! He should at least be able to ride that pride through the party, right? Well...]

This stinks.

[He'll be standing off to the side for most of this, willing to talk, but not exactly eager to dance. He is NOT making a fool of himself tonight!]

[noblesnow]

[Reika is dressed up in the pants version of the school uniform, and has her hair tied up in a low ponytail. Why? It's anyone's guess. She was like this while she was helping out with the spelling bee, too.

She also... appears to be unironically enjoying the party, happily dancing with people and helping herself to the food. One might get the impression that she's never actually been to a dance before.]

[temmapathy]

[Emma applauds deaf-style for the winners, doing a jazz hands gesture slightly above her shoulders, before heading to investigate the snack table. She ends up mostly picking out fruit and vegetables, although she does sneak a bit more dip. She also has Polly the pig with her, and sits at the edge of the stage feeding a few treats to the pig. She's generally content to watch, but if some of the younger students approach her for a dance she might accept.]

[cellpreservation]

[He'll be standing off to the side as a wallflower, you can't make him dance!!

He's not touching any of the food, either.]

[britbrat]

[ Valmont's here and ready to party!! By which I mean ready to stand over by the tables and poke through the food offerings, quietly horrified. ]

Is this what you people eat at your idea of a proper event? Where's the quail? Where's the caviar?

[ He's just grumpy because he got out on "corduroy". When is he ever going to need to know how to spell that? He's never even worn corduroy. Anyway, note him pointedly not extending his congratulations to the winners. :| ]

EVENT PART 2 (1/2)

[imprefect]

((posted as a new sub-comment because otherwise trying to keep this event organized would kill me.))

[ A few minutes later, Nanami makes her return to the gymnasium, arms crossed over her chest. She’s frowning, which isn’t totally unusual, but she seems too focused to really notice anything anyone's been getting up to while she was gone. With the aid of a few Little Brother units, who form a short wooly escalator for her, she’s boosted onto the raised platform of the stage. Clutching her elbow, she approaches the unplugged microphone that was set up on the platform. One of the other Little Brothers must find the outlet shortly after this, because the mic buzzes to life with an ear-splitting screech of feedback. She swallows. ]

Even if some of you had your doubts, the class spelling bee was a su- breakout success, as expected from someone in my position. Several of you even exceeded my expectations!

... As for what happened earlier this week, it can’t be allowed to continue. The Principal is… disappointed in some recent behavior, but he’s graciously decided to provide the class with a second chance. I’ll leave that to him, so…

The Principal would like to speak with you all now.

[ Whoever’s running tech brings down a projector screen behind her. The video lights up, bright and glaring, the white screen emblazoned with a stylized black logo of a ram’s head. ]

EVENT PART 2 (2/2)

[whimsicalism]

[Well, well, well, what do we have here? It seems that somebody has taken notice of your shenanigans throughout the week. A voice, loud and masculine booms out of various speakers. Captions flicker on the screen as the Principal speaks.]

Congratulations, my students. You’ve gotten my attention! I hope you’re proud of yourselves! I look away for five minutes and you’ve all decided to run amuck like a bunch of gremlins.

[There’s a low rumbling growl.]

As much as I like parties I think it’s time for us to discuss your future.

DID SOMEONE SAY.... MURDER?

[whimsicalism]

[It can't be said that the Principal was ever calm in this interaction but with the Forger lead rebellion, even if a few students left, his anger seems to be simmering in the air. A subtle change seems to shift through every part of the academy even those who left might be able to notice it.]

Fine! You want to play hardball? Alright. I tried giving you the carrot but obviously you don't want it. I'll use the stick instead. This whole project needs to be scrapped. It's time for... Plan B.

[The screen changes from the ram logo to a familiar yet different set of rules. He waits for those who can read to read them. The handbooks seem to change as well to this new set, if you go to look.]

If you want to act like rascals, then prove yourself! Prove that you deserve to leave!

[hashtagwoof]

[ He just stares blankly at the new rules. ]

. . .

[ Well. Guess he really is in Hell after all. ]

[imprefect]

[ The Prefect whips her own handbook out of her pocket, procuring it with astounding speed.

She's sheet-white. ]

This -

This definitely isn't necessary! After all, there are other ways to punish the students who are ruining things for everyone else!

Just leave it to me: any member of staff can rewrite the rules, so I'll change them back and -

Re: DID SOMEONE SAY.... MURDER?

[lets_dewey_it]

...

You...

Don't mean like...

Murder murder, right...?

[spychic]

[Anya looks down at her handbook--then up at the screen once more.]

...We won't kill each other to leave.

Anya won't do it. Anya has friends here.

So. Good luck, you dumb-dumb.

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat looks over the rules.

...]

Why'd you change rule 9?

[bellabellabella]

[He went back to his room, but can still hear what's going on faintly. When things seem beyond help, however, he turns from pacing inside his room to leaving it again, back to the auditorium. The new set of rules are still flickering on the screens.]

... Fine. If we are to be treated like criminals, I really see no reason not to act like one.

[Edward is gonna start destroying those televisions one by one, grabbing small articles and chucking them like a professional baseball pitcher if not faster, shattering screen after screen.]

[cellpreservation]

[Great! Just great!]

If someone completes the alternate graduation, do they still get re-educated?

[keyringwitness]

[Yasu recalls a conversation she had with Yuta, earlier in the week.

"You mean like a closed-circle murder mystery?"

She'd seen the setup right away. Noticed all the clues. Even joked about hoping that a mysterious letter wouldn't come to her doorstep.

But this really was just like one of Yasu's stories now, wasn't it?

Yasu feels numb, like she's out of step with her body, her classmates, the whole world. So much so that she's curiously lacking fear as she says,]

...you're lying.

N- Not about the rules.

But this was the plan from the beginning if we ever woke up, wasn't it?

You obviously, um, know that we're problem children. Know how we'd react. Knew that we'd never just quietly go back to our dorms at, at this point. You were just looking for an excuse. This was always Plan A.