Wasn't sure if it was legal when I did, so I left it blank then.
Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)
- Thread starter Prok
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Hyperborea
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
…Are you going to? You still haven't.
- Location
- Sweden
So, one question: When are we going to be coding Functions()? I'd assume there is some interest in at least the healing Function().
Well, I suppose that 1d100 progress per week is not a whole lot when finishing a function takes around 2000 points to complete, which makes it a pretty unrewarding way to spend a whole week.
@Prok is it intentional that completing a Function() takes about forty weeks? Even just finishing Slice() would take 10 weeks, half of this entire voting block. I can't quite remember when we last did Function() stuff, but wasn't it faster before?
Well, I suppose that 1d100 progress per week is not a whole lot when finishing a function takes around 2000 points to complete, which makes it a pretty unrewarding way to spend a whole week.
@Prok is it intentional that completing a Function() takes about forty weeks? Even just finishing Slice() would take 10 weeks, half of this entire voting block. I can't quite remember when we last did Function() stuff, but wasn't it faster before?
- Location
- Box of Granola bars
Goodness. Gonna bullet point this one-
1) Glad to see you back Prok! Here's hoping to your good health, I hate getting sick so much myself.
2) Meaty update, that one. Hope we get to hear the story of the Warrior on the Woods in full sometime. Mr Teach was pretty eventful too, and Ms Peach seems like a joy to hang out with.
3) Jesus fuck those votes. It's a touch too much, so I'm fine leaving it be for now. I do want to point out, tho, we have 19 weeks to fill out 15 actions of classes, so we've got some wiggle room for mandatory stuff.
Just gonna cast some hopes for hanging out with Weiss. Some for our team as well.
1) Glad to see you back Prok! Here's hoping to your good health, I hate getting sick so much myself.
2) Meaty update, that one. Hope we get to hear the story of the Warrior on the Woods in full sometime. Mr Teach was pretty eventful too, and Ms Peach seems like a joy to hang out with.
3) Jesus fuck those votes. It's a touch too much, so I'm fine leaving it be for now. I do want to point out, tho, we have 19 weeks to fill out 15 actions of classes, so we've got some wiggle room for mandatory stuff.
Just gonna cast some hopes for hanging out with Weiss. Some for our team as well.
- Location
- Estonia
Nah, we got 19 weeks now and another 20 in the next semester before summer break to finish all the mandatory classes.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Their
I mean, what time frame would you prefer the vote to cover? Considering that 'weeks' are the action point currency, this isn't that different than any of the various plan quests where each turn represents one week, month, year, or even multiple years. It's even possible that Prok presents us votes as part of the Interludes that do happen, in which case this helps him plot out events for the first semester (which was the time frame of RWBY Season 1) while still leaving room for development throughout it.
Also, if I recall, Prok had also said that this sort of time shift would be happening once we got into Beacon and not every week was going to be action packed to the point of needing micromanagement within a given day or even week.
Dragonmaster150
Firstborn of Dragonkind
- Location
- Dragendolan: Land of the Dragon Kings
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I feel ya, I got Pneumonia + Bronchitis back when I was in grade 6 and now if I run to hard I end up hacking for a good amount of time afterwards.
Also, Edward Teach huh? I almost mistook him for a certain Fullmetal Alchemist for a moment there. But Blackbeard, as it's been pointed out, makes more sense
Here's my vote, though it's unfortunate there's no Glyphcraft included in this plan.
[X]Plan: Addressing Trauma, the Unknown, and Social Settings
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
Having thought about it, and justifying that physically mixing Dust is not the same as Processing it, I honestly can't think of a reason not to, besides the possibility of turning 'em into little suicide bombers.
That little conversation went through about 5 iterations, actually- first was them talking politics vis à vis Vacuo and stuff happening down there, which I then expanded to include Rashmi- I threw all that in the idea dungeon for later. The second was Lumen critiquing the Ninjas Of Love series, which I scrapped because, while funny, I couldn't actually justify him finding out and also I wanted to keep it civil, then we got to Stranger In A Strange Land, which was the first thing I could think of for The Boy Who Fell From The Sky, which is a canon piece of literature to RWBY, mind!
Immediately afterwards, I realised that I could have done it for The Man Who Fell To Earth, the sci-fi novel which was eventually turned into one of David Bowie's finest appearances on film, so I started going through stuff to try and remember that- and then I looked outside and the sun was rising.
I think leaving it as is was the safest option.
Basically, yeah. It's been done piecemeal over the course of several decades, and once it has been wired up, repairing and replacing it is pretty easy. On top of that, Beacon has an arse-ton of redundancies in its structures. It's kind of necessary when working with, you know, kids and soldiers with super strength who inevitably get into fights with each other.
Glynda's actually on the payroll twice; once as a combat and Glyphcraft professor, the other as an in-house repair woman. Ozpin finds it hilarious how she's entirely incapable of justifying why she shouldn't be on the payroll twice for what she does to keep this place from falling apart.
It depends, really; some will happen during term time, with the necessary interludes- A Case Of The Mondays is a good example- and others will happen outside of that, when things just go sideways for no reason other than me thinking you fuckers have had it too good for too long.
... I fucked the maths up-
So, I may have slightly forgotten how much work went into a Function normally, since it's been so long since you've had the opportunity to code them, and not accounted for the fact that it's 2000 points.
That- I'll fix that, one way or the other, in the next vote. I'll probably just turn it into a weeks requirement per stage, to remove the random chance from it.
Ehh... Yeah. Well, no, in the sense that it was a storyline that was kind of, designed to be dropped, by the nature of Jaune's job as a freelancer rather than an actual hire. But overall, it would have involved Jaune doing more debugging, interacting with the other employees, slowly convincing them to actually create something, rather than just pushing out shovelware.
Eventually, you would have come across the big boss lady, someone who, hand to Christ, had more in common with Elon Musk now than I ever could have predicted then; overworking her workers to underdeliver utter crap to their customers, pushing for predatory practices and generally just not caring about her business as anything other than a vehicle to scam rubes out of their money.
Jaune butts heads with her a little, then it would be a matter of whether you wanted to resolve the situation peacefully- trying to convince her to give you all one chance to make an actually good game without stealing the crowdfunding money, by pointing out that games can be good and make money without cutting corners- or violently, by just saying fuck it and going on strike.
See, neat thing about Hyper Arcade- it is a radioactive brand. Absolutely nobody there would get a job anywhere else in the industry. At the same time, nobody in the industry would get a job there. Boss lady needs Basil, and Dandy, and MAbel, as much as they need her. Note, mind, that neither of these options would lead to any kind of reconciliation, or admission of wrongdoing- she was... entirely incapable of introspection on even the most basic level.
After that, spread over a few months, maybe a year, you would be putting in the time between Beacon's classes to help work on a new game- one actually worth playing. Depending on how well things went, how you reacted to whatever setbacks occurred, it would go from being a moderate success- which was already a step up for these fellas- to outright winning awards.
That's a fair concern, but you're going to be voting during those same interludes, don't worry. The only time you don't get to vote on something is when I split a post in two, because it was becoming a behemoth, or because it had a pretty good endpoint in the middle and I knew I wasn't going to be able to finish it that night, so I might as well get something out.
But yes, this was planned from the moment you entered Beacon; not everything can keep happening on a day-to-day basis, that's just not a feasible timescale for a quest which involves building your own company, and teaching an artificial intelligence with hyperadvanced assimilation and creation abilities how not to eat the world.
I get it, this feels like a lot to consider all at once, but I'm not trying to take agency away from you all by doing this. I just need a way to kick the can down the road a little bit further, because while RWBY's timeline is in quite a bit of flux, in terms of how long goes between major events, I think everyone can agree that having the entire first season happen on a Persona timescale would either be so packed full of nonsense that it would just be overstimulating, or so long between major events that it would just be boring.
There's another reference in there that nobody's gotten yet.
Oh, yes, and before I forget; vote tally!
Voting will close tomorrow at 8pm, and the update will be up... you know, I think I can actually manage next Sunday, so long as I don't do something stupid like forget to-
my networking assignment
fuck
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Protodermis
Hope is an ugly feeling
- Location
- Dirac Sea
[X] Exploring Essentials
Because I want to hang out with the team
Because I want to hang out with the team
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Maybe desgin it with a an ejection button so they can purge the chamber at any moment.
The main reason I thought about it is that in the feild a hunter with a Cell buddy could just give them the component dusts and let them mix it while the hunter focuses on other things.
[X]Plan: Addressing Trauma, the Unknown, and Social Settings
CONSOLIDATION GANG!
Jesus. That would be a nightmare.
Can we just do some cyber hacking and just... steal the company and employees out from under her? Bribe the employees to walk out and sign up under our label?
I know they may not even be canon anymore, or worth the wordcount to interact with them, but I've still got some sense of morals, man, and they cry out for justice, Justice, For The Overworked Code Slaves!!!
J-Man()
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
… I have rewritten this no less than 5 times.
I have, rewritten this, this single author's note, no less than ten. More.
I don't know anymore.
All I know is that nothing I could put on this update will be worth waiting 6 months for. That's not a jab at my talents as a creator- this just… was never going to be that kind of update, and by February, my internal standards had risen so high in some fucked up desire to compensate people for the wait that there were only a few people on Earth, living or dead, that could have done it justice.
That was in February. Imagine how high they must have been yesterday. Two minutes ago.
I'm out of college, I'm, mostly not sick- I'm free. And, I'm fixing this, because I'm just too angry with it taunting me to not fix it. I wasted six months of my life drowning in phlegm and college work and other people's problems, and now that's all out of the way and I finally get to smush this thing's head like a lump of clay.
So, I'm doing what I wish I could have done all that time ago, which is writing this, publishing it, and moving on to the next one. Hopefully, somewhere along the way it'll stop feeling like something I have to avoid.
See the five of you that stuck it out this long next Sunday, you're real ones and I gotta give you that.
Your Saturday begins, blissfully, with a nice, long lie. Yes, you treat yourself to a whole fifteen minutes more in bed, today, just to celebrate the fact that your first class is after lunch.
{Gods, you are such an old man.}
Quiet, you.
You rise at the lazy hour of 6:15, mess about on the internet for a little while, and then quietly get up to go and get cleaned and dressed in some exercise clothes. Beacon, after all, has a gym fully stocked with Huntsman-grade equipment, and you would be a fool not to utilise it.
… You think, as you tiptoe out of your room, careful not to wake your still-sleeping teammates.
The gym's only ten minutes away from the dorms, part of the same block as the rocket locker room and the communal shower.
… You're still not sure what the point of the rocket lockers is. You need to be here to punch in the coordinates you want to send it to, and if you're here, and your stuff is here, why wouldn't you just-
{Jaune. It's a rocket locker.}
Yes?
{... It's a rocket locker.}
Yes!?
{What do rockets usually have?}
Fuel tanks, firing chamber, internal and external control surfaces-
{A PAYLOAD. YOU'RE THE PAYLOAD. YOU ARE THE THING THE LOCKER DISPENSES UPON ARRIVAL.}
Ohhhh-
Well, not you. You might be able to fit in there, but you and the Transistor would be a tight squeeze. One of you is riding on the outside, and considering what a whiny bastard Blue can be sometimes, it'd probably be you.
Beacon's gym is, not to put too fine a point on it, massive. There's something vaguely disconcerting about the size of it, honestly; half a football field of the same cheap faux-wood linoleum, the same off-white false ceiling panels, and the same large mirrored wall that you've seen in every gym you've ever been to. You also appear to be the first one here- this place is empty, which is perfect for you because you could never stop yourself from feeling a little self-conscious going through your warm-up exercises, mirroring the ghost in front of you.
{Jaune, your classmates are a bunch of college students, and it's 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday. If anyone else turns up for the next hour, I'll be shocked.}
"Maybe. Bracket, what are we starting with?" you ask the quieter of your friends.
It feels like a leg day to me. Treadmill, warm-up lap, then I want 30 miles in 30 minutes. Then we'll move on to weights.
"Slave-driver," you grumble as you feel the heat slowly working its way through your body, blood flowing into sleepy muscles and shaking them awake.
Once you're fully limber, you move onto the curved treadmill, the kind that's entirely powered by your own motions, and get up to speed in a few seconds. You use the speedometer on the crossbar to watch your speed rise, and then try your best to maintain it. Some people might call 60 miles an hour excessive, even for a Huntsman, but you've seen Grimm that move faster than that as a matter of course.
You've seen videos of Huntsmen who were just a little too slow, and the mistake cost them their head- often, literally.
"Speed is survival," a memory of Qrow's lectures pipes up. "When you're up against the Grimm, it doesn't matter how strong or smart you are, only whether you can get the first hit off, or be tough enough to get the second one off. In 25 years of being a Huntsman, I've met one man who could pull off the latter. So get faster, or get dead."
Tch. You still can't quite believe Qrow is part of Ozpin's… conspiracy? Do you feel comfortable calling it a conspiracy, when you're part of it now? Regardless, you can't quite imagine a more diametrically opposed pair. Ozpin is, calm, composed, and probably hasn't driven a van directly into someone's ice cream parlour, and Qrow is…
Qrow is cool! Don't get yourself wrong! The man was like, your third coolest uncle, behind Janus and Janus, but… you're not sure you'd trust him to do… whatever it is that Ozpin has him do. He's a beer uncle, not a puppy uncle, in your mind.
What's the point of this line of thought again? Oh, right- it surprised you to see him again in the elevator, is all. Especially when you had to start explaining the Process, and dealing with the whole, idea of Salem, you guess you hope that he… didn't…
Blagh. Blaaagh. Weird emotions. Into words. No. Not happening.
You realise your speed has dipped to 55 miles per hour, and quickly rectify that.
"Blue? Anything come up I should be aware of?"
{Always. Few emails, some spam, an offer for 20% off that 3D printing service you used to use a bunch, ha, and one from Juniper to everyone on the Arc mailing list, looks like it's just a confirmation she's alive with no great detail, a selfie in a village… tch. She was smart enough to scrub the metadata. Looks like Vale, though, time of day is roughly 7:10 am, I'd put her… well, closer to the City than she was last check-in.}
An overlay of your sister's smiling face appears in the corner of your vision, in what could be a town square, flashing you a peace sign. Despite yourself, you do feel a little, unchecked mote of tension drain away. She must have been busy if it took this long for the check-in email to appear. Even out in the boonies, most villages had a good enough connection to the CCTS that a picture as large as this one wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds to go through at worst.
You look at the display and see you're about 15 miles into your run. A swig of blissfully icy-cold water later, you feel like you could run another 50 without stopping.
"Nothing about Lee?" you ask your friend-cum-secretary.
{Nope. Nothing in the picture, nothing in the text- she's keeping mum.}
Good, you suppose. It would be a shame for her to lose a job she loves over breaking opsec.
It continues like that, Blue reading off your emails, and a couple of the funny spam ones. One actually got your name and bank right, which prompted an entire rabbit hole discussion where you found out that the First Bank Of Vale had been keeping a decently sized data breach under wraps, so you suppose you'll be spending most of the time between now and music class trying to clear out your account before anything that could cost you money goes wrong.
Eventually, another 15 miles pass by, and you finish up your run, wiping your brow off with a towel as you slow down for the cooldown phase.
I keep telling you to get a headband.
It isn't the 120s anymore. Headbands weren't cool when your parents were in Beacon/Atlas Academy.
{When have you ever given a damn about cool?}
When it involves wearing gym equipment, apparently. You step off the treadmill, stumbling a little as your legs don't so much protest as form a complete strike and embargo against being forced to work and stumble your way to a seat. Fuck, leg day sucks.
Hey, you went off-rep. I wanted to start you off light, but nooooo-
You can sense the joking warmth in Bracket's words, even over text, which helps dull your tinge of shame down to an embarrassed chuckle.
The door to the gym opens just as you lower yourself into the seat like an old man, and adding to the surprise of literally anyone else coming here at this time of day, it's Cardin.
… Wait, why does that surprise you, the man is built like a brick shithouse- of course he lifts. A fact made very apparent by the tank top and baggy shorts he's wearing, both with significantly less give than they should have, just because of the sheer amount of muscle coiled around his frame.
He turns and sees you, surprise halting him in his tracks. The pair of you spend a second staring at each other, the same way a black bear and a dog might stare at each other- surprise, followed by careful measurement, more than outright hostility.
"... Morning," Cardin says after a moment. "Taking a break?"
"Yeah. Just off the treadmill," you reply.
{This is somehow more awkward than your talk with Pyrrha.}
Cardin, however, just smiles and claps his hands.
"Cool, cool, cool, uh, leg day or cardio?" he asks, walking over to the array of dumbbells against one wall.
"Leg day, today- I've been neglecting it, apparently."
Cardin chuckles sympathetically, then pulls a pair of small dumbbells off of their racks, each side weighted with a ball barely large enough to fit in the boy's hand. He places them on the metal plate next to the rack. He punches in his desired weight, a synthetic female voice announcing the numbers as he does.
"One, hundred, kilogrammes, total."
A flash of purple envelopes the pair of dumbbells as the plate sends a calculated pulse of electricity through the metal, activating the Gravity Dust inside.
"It's arms and back for me today, maybe some body rows later to keep my core warmed up," he tells you as if you're interested.
… That was mean, you kind of are. Cardin knows his stuff, that much is obvious. A moment later, Cardin hefts them off the plate with a grunt, muscles bulging slightly as he takes them over to the bench, starting on a set of biceps curls. You leave him to it, though you do make a mental note to offer to spot if he starts bench presses, and instead move on to your next exercise- well, whatever Bracket thinks your next exercise should be.
I want some leg curls. 10 reps of 10.
Haaaaaaa your thighs are burning already-
Once you've adjusted the seat, you set the weights for a cool 300 kilogrammes and start your reps. Even with Aura, you feel the way your muscles protest at being treated like this after such a long run, but hey, it's for the best.
{Oh, hello- you've got mail from Ozpin,} Blue says, mercifully giving you a distraction in the middle rep 5.
"What's it say?" you ask quietly, before sneaking a glance at Cardin to see what he's doing/if he noticed you saying anything.
What you see instead is a man who is in the zone- earphones in, left arm pumping almost mechanically to an unheard rhythm, nothing short of an angry Beringel bursting through that wall would unfocus Cardin from his reps. Meanwhile, every pull of your legs now brings with it the threat of a cramp- not enough to actually debilitate you, just enough to remind you that you're going to pay for this later.
{It's not long,} Blue says, bringing it up for you to read.
Dear Jaune,
I hope you found our conversation a few nights ago as enlightening as I did. After some consideration and a few phone calls, I've managed to get in touch with people I believe might be able to help with a few problems of yours- namely, putting Cloudbank Solutions to work, and subsequently assuaging your fears about the social consequences of the Process. They're curious to meet you, but I promise you there's no rush to get ready to meet them. Their schedules are filled until just before Candlemas; you can put it from your mind until then. I suggest you your time and try to enjoy the rest of your semester.
Regards,
Headmaster Ozpin
… Huh. Any idea who it is he's found?
No. However, at a guess, someone with enough power to turn Ozpin's head regarding the Process, and the kind of flexible personality required to be open to talking to you on your terms. The first criterion covers exactly 637 people. The second drops it to about 20.
You let the weights drop with a clang, your muscles burning with exertion. Bracket's words wash over you with very little information breaking through the haze, as you focus on taking deep, steadying breaths.
Brothers, you hate leg day.
Seven reps down. Three more.
HeeuuurrRRRRGH-
"Yo, come on, J-Man! You got this!" Cardin yells, prompting you to look back and see him watching you.
Cardin is wearing a wild, vicious grin on his face, tempered with nothing less than utter determination to see you finish what you started. It radiates off him for a moment, washing over you and pulling some hidden resolve that makes those last three reps the easiest you've ever done. Even the last press comes down smooth, feeling zero urge to rush yourself and get sloppy.
"HELL YEAH!" the other boy crows as you extract yourself from the machine, coming up and clapping you on the shoulder. "You got some legs on you, man!"
… Not the weirdest compliment you've received.
"I-it was just 10 repetitions, it's not that impressive," you say, for some reason feeling the need to deflect Cardin's praise. Something feels distinctly off about this interaction, and you can't quite figure it out.
"Sure, but I heard you on that treadmill while I was getting ready. What speed were you at, 40 miles an hour?"
"... Sixty," you admit.
Cardin's eyes widen just as you realise exactly what it is. He's being… entirely sincere.
"Sixt- dude! I can't hit sixty miles an hour on a treadmill! Then you hit 10 reps with over 600 pounds? That's like, almost my 1-rep-max!"
Cardin Winchester, the leader of the team with your best friend's boyfriend; a probable member of the Human Defense League; and someone who- despite having a functionally photographic memory, courtesy of the Transistor- you don't really remember the name or face of; is complimenting you with such honesty that it's getting your chest a little tight.
That's… odd. To say the lea- wait a minute.
You stare at Cardin for a long moment, some long-forgotten memory itching its way to the surface as you try to place Cardin in a different context. He blinks, staring back confused.
Is he- Blue?
{Is he what? I've never seen the kid before we came here.}
… Right, upgrades. Unconscious during the process.
"`... Cardin. Weird question."
"Uh… shoot?" he asks, sounding incredibly uncertain about where this is all going.
"Did you buy a drawing tablet a few weeks ago?"
Cardin draws back, the question unsettling him for a moment, before something clicks. He stares at the Transistor for a moment. He stares at you.
You nod.
He stares at the Transistor again, his mouth slowly turning into a little gleeful O, then back to you, you nod a little more insistently.
His eyes flick back to the Transistor, bringing a finger up to point at it, then back to-
YOU NOD
|||
That interaction has lived rent-free in your head all day. It just… boggles the mind that someone as chill as Cardin could be okay being on a team with, Dove. You had the good sense to not bring it up, of course, that would be… gauche. At the same time, it is a pertinent question.
{Jaune. I'm going to suggest something highly experimental, and possibly dangerous.}
Go on.
{Have you considered… that Cardin may have been cool with you… because you are a human?}
… You walk in silence to your next elective class and try not to consider the implications of that too hard.
Music, with Professor Port of all people, is held on the basement level, along with Dust Alchemy, and the Weapon Maintenance classes. You're beginning to think Ozpin just keeps anything big, loud, dangerous, or annoying down here. You walk into the classroom, finding yourself there with only Port and Haru. It makes sense, the gym is closest to the basement stairs, and also you woke up 2 hours earlier than most people reasonably do on a Saturday.
The classroom is small, by Beacon's standards- not one of the lecture halls, but a large, rectangular room, dominated by a ring of tables and chairs, with a few computer terminals at the back. At the front of the room, two instruments join Professor Port- a large cello, which he is currently tuning, and a steel-strung bass.
That doesn't seem like a lot of instruments for a music class.
"Jaune! Welcome, my boy!" Port says jovially, gesturing at you to take a seat at the ring of tables.
Haru gives you a nod of greeting, and you reciprocate, before turning back to the professor.
"How… many should we be expecting?" you ask.
"Oh, this is always a class on the smaller side- usually only 4 or 5 people take an interest in it, and that's how I like it!"
Professor Port gives you a wide, infectious smile at that, and before you can comment on it, the others decide to stream in.
"Welcome, welcome," he tells Weiss and Ada as they come in and sit down.
Ada ends up sitting next to you, and Weiss isn't much further away. It doesn't quite leave poor Haru all on his lonesome, but you do feel a little bad for the guy, sitting three chairs away from everyone else. You at least expected them to fill out the gap.
Are you overthinking this?
{You're overthinking this.}
"Now," Port says, clapping his hands, "to the front of the class, everyone. It's time to pick up your instrument for the day!"
Everyone gets up and approaches the desk to find… two instruments. A cello, and a bass guitar.
Between four people.
… Now, you're not a mathematician, but you're pretty sure two is less than four, and the other three students seem to have come to the same conclusion.
"Um, Professor Port, I only see two instruments," Weiss says hesitantly. "Are we… going to take turns?"
"Hm? Oh! My apologies, I thought I'd put the others out-" Port says, before, instead of rushing out to get more instruments, opening the various drawers on the desk, and starting to pile what you can only call crap onto it.
You know what you mean by crap- the stuff you don't need right now, but you keep a hold of just in case it ever comes in handy until one of the drawers in your bedroom is so full of crap that the bottom has popped out and you need to superglue it back in place. This exact event has definitely never happened to you, and you definitely didn't need Juniper's help to fix it and organise the drawer so it wasn't so full to bursting.
{Hey, Jaune- use your ears.}
What?
{Just do it! Trust me!}
Okay, Brothers above!
You do as the AI says and focus on your hearing, as Port drops a rosary on the table, forming staccato clacks as every bead impacts in concurrent pairs. A set of marbles bounce, then scroll across the table, the sound slowly rising in pitch as it gets closer to the edge, before being caught by the various filing implements on the desk.
It continues like this- little metal cups; jacks; pens; guitar picks; a paper fan; a moleskin diary; a deck of playing cards; a little brass cube full of gear mechanisms to keep someone's hands occupied; a plastic bag full of root vegetables, you can see potatoes, parsnips, carrots, radishes, all gently beaded with condensation as if they're fresh out of the refrigerator; and finally, of all things, a pair of sunglasses.
You, and the others, you're sure, look to the professor with expectant faces. No judgement, just… curiosity. Maybe confusion.
Mostly confusion. You all have no idea what's going on.
It's quite a gently enlightening experience, all told.
"Well- have at it," Port says.
You share a look with Weiss, Ada, and Haru, trying to figure out if Port's had a psychotic break between yesterday and today. That or this is some kind of prank.
… Then again, some of them did make some pretty sounds.
You guess you're taking the lead since the others seem… hesitant. So, you look out at the selection, and… let some kind of inner child run loose, you suppose.
Choose your instrument, you suppose, and, optionally, how you intend to play it. You can also make some suggestions for the others if you have a plan.
PREFERENCE VOTING IS IN EFFECT
[] The Cello (watch out for your foot, and your scrotum)
[] The Marbles. (Low and warm, glass and metal rolling across wood, scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-)
[] The Rosary. (Tiny little tandem staccato beats, tiktiktiktiktiktik-)
[] The Jacks. (Little metal snowflakes, tinkling away against the table and each other.)
[] The Little Metal Cup. (You should probably leave this to Weiss, she has better nails to tinktatinktatink against this thing.)
[] Moleskin Diary and Cards. (Deep layered thumps and scritches, the sound of 52 cards and 150 pages moving in tandem.)
[] Little Brass Gear Cube. (You genuinely have no idea what this is, but you know what sound gears make.)
[] Root Vegetables. (Snap! Crunch!! But you can only use each one once. Who ever heard of an instrument you can only use once?)
[] … Sunglasses? (You'd be better off just wearing them, honestly.)
[] The Bass (Any idiot can play the bass, but it takes a special kind of idiot to play it well.)
I have, rewritten this, this single author's note, no less than ten. More.
I don't know anymore.
All I know is that nothing I could put on this update will be worth waiting 6 months for. That's not a jab at my talents as a creator- this just… was never going to be that kind of update, and by February, my internal standards had risen so high in some fucked up desire to compensate people for the wait that there were only a few people on Earth, living or dead, that could have done it justice.
That was in February. Imagine how high they must have been yesterday. Two minutes ago.
I'm out of college, I'm, mostly not sick- I'm free. And, I'm fixing this, because I'm just too angry with it taunting me to not fix it. I wasted six months of my life drowning in phlegm and college work and other people's problems, and now that's all out of the way and I finally get to smush this thing's head like a lump of clay.
So, I'm doing what I wish I could have done all that time ago, which is writing this, publishing it, and moving on to the next one. Hopefully, somewhere along the way it'll stop feeling like something I have to avoid.
See the five of you that stuck it out this long next Sunday, you're real ones and I gotta give you that.
Your Saturday begins, blissfully, with a nice, long lie. Yes, you treat yourself to a whole fifteen minutes more in bed, today, just to celebrate the fact that your first class is after lunch.
{Gods, you are such an old man.}
Quiet, you.
You rise at the lazy hour of 6:15, mess about on the internet for a little while, and then quietly get up to go and get cleaned and dressed in some exercise clothes. Beacon, after all, has a gym fully stocked with Huntsman-grade equipment, and you would be a fool not to utilise it.
… You think, as you tiptoe out of your room, careful not to wake your still-sleeping teammates.
The gym's only ten minutes away from the dorms, part of the same block as the rocket locker room and the communal shower.
… You're still not sure what the point of the rocket lockers is. You need to be here to punch in the coordinates you want to send it to, and if you're here, and your stuff is here, why wouldn't you just-
{Jaune. It's a rocket locker.}
Yes?
{... It's a rocket locker.}
Yes!?
{What do rockets usually have?}
Fuel tanks, firing chamber, internal and external control surfaces-
{A PAYLOAD. YOU'RE THE PAYLOAD. YOU ARE THE THING THE LOCKER DISPENSES UPON ARRIVAL.}
Ohhhh-
Well, not you. You might be able to fit in there, but you and the Transistor would be a tight squeeze. One of you is riding on the outside, and considering what a whiny bastard Blue can be sometimes, it'd probably be you.
Beacon's gym is, not to put too fine a point on it, massive. There's something vaguely disconcerting about the size of it, honestly; half a football field of the same cheap faux-wood linoleum, the same off-white false ceiling panels, and the same large mirrored wall that you've seen in every gym you've ever been to. You also appear to be the first one here- this place is empty, which is perfect for you because you could never stop yourself from feeling a little self-conscious going through your warm-up exercises, mirroring the ghost in front of you.
{Jaune, your classmates are a bunch of college students, and it's 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday. If anyone else turns up for the next hour, I'll be shocked.}
"Maybe. Bracket, what are we starting with?" you ask the quieter of your friends.
It feels like a leg day to me. Treadmill, warm-up lap, then I want 30 miles in 30 minutes. Then we'll move on to weights.
"Slave-driver," you grumble as you feel the heat slowly working its way through your body, blood flowing into sleepy muscles and shaking them awake.
Once you're fully limber, you move onto the curved treadmill, the kind that's entirely powered by your own motions, and get up to speed in a few seconds. You use the speedometer on the crossbar to watch your speed rise, and then try your best to maintain it. Some people might call 60 miles an hour excessive, even for a Huntsman, but you've seen Grimm that move faster than that as a matter of course.
You've seen videos of Huntsmen who were just a little too slow, and the mistake cost them their head- often, literally.
"Speed is survival," a memory of Qrow's lectures pipes up. "When you're up against the Grimm, it doesn't matter how strong or smart you are, only whether you can get the first hit off, or be tough enough to get the second one off. In 25 years of being a Huntsman, I've met one man who could pull off the latter. So get faster, or get dead."
Tch. You still can't quite believe Qrow is part of Ozpin's… conspiracy? Do you feel comfortable calling it a conspiracy, when you're part of it now? Regardless, you can't quite imagine a more diametrically opposed pair. Ozpin is, calm, composed, and probably hasn't driven a van directly into someone's ice cream parlour, and Qrow is…
Qrow is cool! Don't get yourself wrong! The man was like, your third coolest uncle, behind Janus and Janus, but… you're not sure you'd trust him to do… whatever it is that Ozpin has him do. He's a beer uncle, not a puppy uncle, in your mind.
What's the point of this line of thought again? Oh, right- it surprised you to see him again in the elevator, is all. Especially when you had to start explaining the Process, and dealing with the whole, idea of Salem, you guess you hope that he… didn't…
Blagh. Blaaagh. Weird emotions. Into words. No. Not happening.
You realise your speed has dipped to 55 miles per hour, and quickly rectify that.
"Blue? Anything come up I should be aware of?"
{Always. Few emails, some spam, an offer for 20% off that 3D printing service you used to use a bunch, ha, and one from Juniper to everyone on the Arc mailing list, looks like it's just a confirmation she's alive with no great detail, a selfie in a village… tch. She was smart enough to scrub the metadata. Looks like Vale, though, time of day is roughly 7:10 am, I'd put her… well, closer to the City than she was last check-in.}
An overlay of your sister's smiling face appears in the corner of your vision, in what could be a town square, flashing you a peace sign. Despite yourself, you do feel a little, unchecked mote of tension drain away. She must have been busy if it took this long for the check-in email to appear. Even out in the boonies, most villages had a good enough connection to the CCTS that a picture as large as this one wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds to go through at worst.
You look at the display and see you're about 15 miles into your run. A swig of blissfully icy-cold water later, you feel like you could run another 50 without stopping.
"Nothing about Lee?" you ask your friend-cum-secretary.
{Nope. Nothing in the picture, nothing in the text- she's keeping mum.}
Good, you suppose. It would be a shame for her to lose a job she loves over breaking opsec.
It continues like that, Blue reading off your emails, and a couple of the funny spam ones. One actually got your name and bank right, which prompted an entire rabbit hole discussion where you found out that the First Bank Of Vale had been keeping a decently sized data breach under wraps, so you suppose you'll be spending most of the time between now and music class trying to clear out your account before anything that could cost you money goes wrong.
Eventually, another 15 miles pass by, and you finish up your run, wiping your brow off with a towel as you slow down for the cooldown phase.
I keep telling you to get a headband.
It isn't the 120s anymore. Headbands weren't cool when your parents were in Beacon/Atlas Academy.
{When have you ever given a damn about cool?}
When it involves wearing gym equipment, apparently. You step off the treadmill, stumbling a little as your legs don't so much protest as form a complete strike and embargo against being forced to work and stumble your way to a seat. Fuck, leg day sucks.
Hey, you went off-rep. I wanted to start you off light, but nooooo-
You can sense the joking warmth in Bracket's words, even over text, which helps dull your tinge of shame down to an embarrassed chuckle.
The door to the gym opens just as you lower yourself into the seat like an old man, and adding to the surprise of literally anyone else coming here at this time of day, it's Cardin.
… Wait, why does that surprise you, the man is built like a brick shithouse- of course he lifts. A fact made very apparent by the tank top and baggy shorts he's wearing, both with significantly less give than they should have, just because of the sheer amount of muscle coiled around his frame.
He turns and sees you, surprise halting him in his tracks. The pair of you spend a second staring at each other, the same way a black bear and a dog might stare at each other- surprise, followed by careful measurement, more than outright hostility.
"... Morning," Cardin says after a moment. "Taking a break?"
"Yeah. Just off the treadmill," you reply.
{This is somehow more awkward than your talk with Pyrrha.}
Cardin, however, just smiles and claps his hands.
"Cool, cool, cool, uh, leg day or cardio?" he asks, walking over to the array of dumbbells against one wall.
"Leg day, today- I've been neglecting it, apparently."
Cardin chuckles sympathetically, then pulls a pair of small dumbbells off of their racks, each side weighted with a ball barely large enough to fit in the boy's hand. He places them on the metal plate next to the rack. He punches in his desired weight, a synthetic female voice announcing the numbers as he does.
"One, hundred, kilogrammes, total."
A flash of purple envelopes the pair of dumbbells as the plate sends a calculated pulse of electricity through the metal, activating the Gravity Dust inside.
"It's arms and back for me today, maybe some body rows later to keep my core warmed up," he tells you as if you're interested.
… That was mean, you kind of are. Cardin knows his stuff, that much is obvious. A moment later, Cardin hefts them off the plate with a grunt, muscles bulging slightly as he takes them over to the bench, starting on a set of biceps curls. You leave him to it, though you do make a mental note to offer to spot if he starts bench presses, and instead move on to your next exercise- well, whatever Bracket thinks your next exercise should be.
I want some leg curls. 10 reps of 10.
Haaaaaaa your thighs are burning already-
Once you've adjusted the seat, you set the weights for a cool 300 kilogrammes and start your reps. Even with Aura, you feel the way your muscles protest at being treated like this after such a long run, but hey, it's for the best.
{Oh, hello- you've got mail from Ozpin,} Blue says, mercifully giving you a distraction in the middle rep 5.
"What's it say?" you ask quietly, before sneaking a glance at Cardin to see what he's doing/if he noticed you saying anything.
What you see instead is a man who is in the zone- earphones in, left arm pumping almost mechanically to an unheard rhythm, nothing short of an angry Beringel bursting through that wall would unfocus Cardin from his reps. Meanwhile, every pull of your legs now brings with it the threat of a cramp- not enough to actually debilitate you, just enough to remind you that you're going to pay for this later.
{It's not long,} Blue says, bringing it up for you to read.
Dear Jaune,
I hope you found our conversation a few nights ago as enlightening as I did. After some consideration and a few phone calls, I've managed to get in touch with people I believe might be able to help with a few problems of yours- namely, putting Cloudbank Solutions to work, and subsequently assuaging your fears about the social consequences of the Process. They're curious to meet you, but I promise you there's no rush to get ready to meet them. Their schedules are filled until just before Candlemas; you can put it from your mind until then. I suggest you your time and try to enjoy the rest of your semester.
Regards,
Headmaster Ozpin
… Huh. Any idea who it is he's found?
No. However, at a guess, someone with enough power to turn Ozpin's head regarding the Process, and the kind of flexible personality required to be open to talking to you on your terms. The first criterion covers exactly 637 people. The second drops it to about 20.
You let the weights drop with a clang, your muscles burning with exertion. Bracket's words wash over you with very little information breaking through the haze, as you focus on taking deep, steadying breaths.
Brothers, you hate leg day.
Seven reps down. Three more.
HeeuuurrRRRRGH-
"Yo, come on, J-Man! You got this!" Cardin yells, prompting you to look back and see him watching you.
Cardin is wearing a wild, vicious grin on his face, tempered with nothing less than utter determination to see you finish what you started. It radiates off him for a moment, washing over you and pulling some hidden resolve that makes those last three reps the easiest you've ever done. Even the last press comes down smooth, feeling zero urge to rush yourself and get sloppy.
"HELL YEAH!" the other boy crows as you extract yourself from the machine, coming up and clapping you on the shoulder. "You got some legs on you, man!"
… Not the weirdest compliment you've received.
"I-it was just 10 repetitions, it's not that impressive," you say, for some reason feeling the need to deflect Cardin's praise. Something feels distinctly off about this interaction, and you can't quite figure it out.
"Sure, but I heard you on that treadmill while I was getting ready. What speed were you at, 40 miles an hour?"
"... Sixty," you admit.
Cardin's eyes widen just as you realise exactly what it is. He's being… entirely sincere.
"Sixt- dude! I can't hit sixty miles an hour on a treadmill! Then you hit 10 reps with over 600 pounds? That's like, almost my 1-rep-max!"
Cardin Winchester, the leader of the team with your best friend's boyfriend; a probable member of the Human Defense League; and someone who- despite having a functionally photographic memory, courtesy of the Transistor- you don't really remember the name or face of; is complimenting you with such honesty that it's getting your chest a little tight.
That's… odd. To say the lea- wait a minute.
You stare at Cardin for a long moment, some long-forgotten memory itching its way to the surface as you try to place Cardin in a different context. He blinks, staring back confused.
Is he- Blue?
{Is he what? I've never seen the kid before we came here.}
… Right, upgrades. Unconscious during the process.
"`... Cardin. Weird question."
"Uh… shoot?" he asks, sounding incredibly uncertain about where this is all going.
"Did you buy a drawing tablet a few weeks ago?"
Cardin draws back, the question unsettling him for a moment, before something clicks. He stares at the Transistor for a moment. He stares at you.
You nod.
He stares at the Transistor again, his mouth slowly turning into a little gleeful O, then back to you, you nod a little more insistently.
His eyes flick back to the Transistor, bringing a finger up to point at it, then back to-
YOU NOD
|||
That interaction has lived rent-free in your head all day. It just… boggles the mind that someone as chill as Cardin could be okay being on a team with, Dove. You had the good sense to not bring it up, of course, that would be… gauche. At the same time, it is a pertinent question.
{Jaune. I'm going to suggest something highly experimental, and possibly dangerous.}
Go on.
{Have you considered… that Cardin may have been cool with you… because you are a human?}
… You walk in silence to your next elective class and try not to consider the implications of that too hard.
Music, with Professor Port of all people, is held on the basement level, along with Dust Alchemy, and the Weapon Maintenance classes. You're beginning to think Ozpin just keeps anything big, loud, dangerous, or annoying down here. You walk into the classroom, finding yourself there with only Port and Haru. It makes sense, the gym is closest to the basement stairs, and also you woke up 2 hours earlier than most people reasonably do on a Saturday.
The classroom is small, by Beacon's standards- not one of the lecture halls, but a large, rectangular room, dominated by a ring of tables and chairs, with a few computer terminals at the back. At the front of the room, two instruments join Professor Port- a large cello, which he is currently tuning, and a steel-strung bass.
That doesn't seem like a lot of instruments for a music class.
"Jaune! Welcome, my boy!" Port says jovially, gesturing at you to take a seat at the ring of tables.
Haru gives you a nod of greeting, and you reciprocate, before turning back to the professor.
"How… many should we be expecting?" you ask.
"Oh, this is always a class on the smaller side- usually only 4 or 5 people take an interest in it, and that's how I like it!"
Professor Port gives you a wide, infectious smile at that, and before you can comment on it, the others decide to stream in.
"Welcome, welcome," he tells Weiss and Ada as they come in and sit down.
Ada ends up sitting next to you, and Weiss isn't much further away. It doesn't quite leave poor Haru all on his lonesome, but you do feel a little bad for the guy, sitting three chairs away from everyone else. You at least expected them to fill out the gap.
Are you overthinking this?
{You're overthinking this.}
"Now," Port says, clapping his hands, "to the front of the class, everyone. It's time to pick up your instrument for the day!"
Everyone gets up and approaches the desk to find… two instruments. A cello, and a bass guitar.
Between four people.
… Now, you're not a mathematician, but you're pretty sure two is less than four, and the other three students seem to have come to the same conclusion.
"Um, Professor Port, I only see two instruments," Weiss says hesitantly. "Are we… going to take turns?"
"Hm? Oh! My apologies, I thought I'd put the others out-" Port says, before, instead of rushing out to get more instruments, opening the various drawers on the desk, and starting to pile what you can only call crap onto it.
You know what you mean by crap- the stuff you don't need right now, but you keep a hold of just in case it ever comes in handy until one of the drawers in your bedroom is so full of crap that the bottom has popped out and you need to superglue it back in place. This exact event has definitely never happened to you, and you definitely didn't need Juniper's help to fix it and organise the drawer so it wasn't so full to bursting.
{Hey, Jaune- use your ears.}
What?
{Just do it! Trust me!}
Okay, Brothers above!
You do as the AI says and focus on your hearing, as Port drops a rosary on the table, forming staccato clacks as every bead impacts in concurrent pairs. A set of marbles bounce, then scroll across the table, the sound slowly rising in pitch as it gets closer to the edge, before being caught by the various filing implements on the desk.
It continues like this- little metal cups; jacks; pens; guitar picks; a paper fan; a moleskin diary; a deck of playing cards; a little brass cube full of gear mechanisms to keep someone's hands occupied; a plastic bag full of root vegetables, you can see potatoes, parsnips, carrots, radishes, all gently beaded with condensation as if they're fresh out of the refrigerator; and finally, of all things, a pair of sunglasses.
You, and the others, you're sure, look to the professor with expectant faces. No judgement, just… curiosity. Maybe confusion.
Mostly confusion. You all have no idea what's going on.
It's quite a gently enlightening experience, all told.
"Well- have at it," Port says.
You share a look with Weiss, Ada, and Haru, trying to figure out if Port's had a psychotic break between yesterday and today. That or this is some kind of prank.
… Then again, some of them did make some pretty sounds.
You guess you're taking the lead since the others seem… hesitant. So, you look out at the selection, and… let some kind of inner child run loose, you suppose.
Choose your instrument, you suppose, and, optionally, how you intend to play it. You can also make some suggestions for the others if you have a plan.
PREFERENCE VOTING IS IN EFFECT
[] The Cello (watch out for your foot, and your scrotum)
[] The Marbles. (Low and warm, glass and metal rolling across wood, scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-)
[] The Rosary. (Tiny little tandem staccato beats, tiktiktiktiktiktik-)
[] The Jacks. (Little metal snowflakes, tinkling away against the table and each other.)
[] The Little Metal Cup. (You should probably leave this to Weiss, she has better nails to tinktatinktatink against this thing.)
[] Moleskin Diary and Cards. (Deep layered thumps and scritches, the sound of 52 cards and 150 pages moving in tandem.)
[] Little Brass Gear Cube. (You genuinely have no idea what this is, but you know what sound gears make.)
[] Root Vegetables. (Snap! Crunch!! But you can only use each one once. Who ever heard of an instrument you can only use once?)
[] … Sunglasses? (You'd be better off just wearing them, honestly.)
[] The Bass (Any idiot can play the bass, but it takes a special kind of idiot to play it well.)
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Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
kilograms
- Location
- Texas
Thank you for all your hard work and it's always much appreciated when an update shows up even if it takes time.
So congrats on college and dealing with being sick which is never fun and I hope that the rest of the year treats you well.
So congrats on college and dealing with being sick which is never fun and I hope that the rest of the year treats you well.
doge
shadow cable management
- Location
- California!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The Bass
[X] The Marbles
There's a lot of utility in having existing songs already written. However I'm also an unrepentant fan of clacky noises and possibly seeing up elaborate marble tracks via process.
edit: someone's going to have to remind me how preference voting works again
[X] The Marbles
There's a lot of utility in having existing songs already written. However I'm also an unrepentant fan of clacky noises and possibly seeing up elaborate marble tracks via process.
edit: someone's going to have to remind me how preference voting works again
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Jam jar binks
Thing Futzer
- Location
- Maybe!
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO!
Glad to see you back, and that your doing better!
[X] Little Brass Gear Cube
[X] The Marbles
love the sound of gears. And clacky is great
Glad to see you back, and that your doing better!
[X] Little Brass Gear Cube
[X] The Marbles
love the sound of gears. And clacky is great
