"... Jaune," she says carefully. "I know you said you didn't want to talk about what happened, but… does it have anything to do with me having 13 missed calls from Creme, and about 200 texts I can't read?"
Ah, beans, you were hoping you'd get another 20 minutes before this bit you in the ass.
"What do you mean you can't read them?"
"I mean I can't read them, they don't make any sense. Look-"
Yang turns the Scroll towards you, and you see the ramblings of an absolutely inconsolable woman. Well, you think that's the case, none of the possible words in front of you are in the Valish dictionary.
I'm having trouble imagining what motivated Creme to send 200 messages of gibberish to Yang. That's some serious time and dedication to nonsense.
You appreciate not being kicked out of Beacon!
{Jaune, they have an entire class dedicated to the subject! How do you think they learn?!}
That-
…
Shit, that's actually a good question, with a very uncomfortable answer.
{Exaaaactly.}
You hate that this is convincing you. You hate that you're this easy to convince into crime. You've spent 7 years specifically not being convinced about using your Semblance or your sword for evil.
Jaune recognizing his AI partner is convincing him to break the rules successfully and he's annoyed by that fact.
"... Γειά σου? Μπορώ να σε βοηθήσω?" he says, and for once you recognise the language- Southern Mistrali.
"Oh, um- <sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, sir.>" you say, though your command of the language is somewhat lacking.
He just chuckles.
"Cha 'n e aghaidh neach a' dol seachad dìreach a tha sin."
Aaaaand we're back to one you don't know.
{Mountain Valish. Almost a dead language. Think he knows you're not just passing by.}
A very helpful phonetic translation of what you were about to say turns up.
"<I… am… just passing, by-"
Polyglot!Jaune is always a treat. Especially since it doesn't seem to be a bonus provided to him automatically by the Transistor beyond it being a helpful learning tool. He's just got a knack for languages for some reason.
"I… know… Valish… just… struggle… with… speaking. Se… Semblance."
Your eyebrows raise in shock.
"Your Semblance stops you from speaking Valish?"
He nods.
What kind of semblance makes a specific, common language a struggle to speak when you can speak every
other language with ease? I'm just...baffled. Also, what a horrible semblance to make
language so hard because you can't properly speak
any of them without unconsciously blurring into others mid-sentence.
{It's fascinating- first off, there were about 32 distinct languages in that rant alone, but beyond that it's like he doesn't even see the difference between them. It's all just one language to him.}
Except for speaking Valish.
{Except for speaking Valish.}
Poor guy.
"Th-this is my mother's recipe- how did you-" she stops, looking over at Tulip. Then, she laughs, taking another bite, before throwing her arms around you in a bone-crushing hug oh god-
Jaune I'm really sorry, is what Creme tries to say, but instead just shotguns the back of your neck with shortbread crumbs, before swallowing and trying again.
Creme remembering that she's teammates and friends with a guy who has multiple super-AIs for partners and that she carries an extension of one them around with her at all times. "Oh yeah, of course he knows the things my mom writes down" and brushes it off with zero hesitation.
If this were Worm, Jaune would be a paranoid control freak who takes over the civilian electronic and military manufacturer industries to spy on literally everyone and be able to kill anyone on a whim.
"Fuck off, Lumen," Creme says, then winces. "No, I'm sorry, that was-"
"That was fine. I'm being a dick for my own amusement, you're allowed to tell me to fuck off," Lumen says gently. "You don't need to step on eggshells around us and you know it."
Creme just stares at him for a moment, and you worry that she's about to cry again, before she just laughs, drying her eyes.
"Alright. Maybe you've got a point, so... fuck off, Lumen."
A heartwarming moment of Lumen being a kind asshole (which is a weird thing to say but there it is).
"He makes people madder at them," Lumen says, fist against his mouth in thought. "... And makes people like him more every time they meet him. Do you think Cardin-"
"{We don't think it could have completely changed his mind. Dove would have had to be some level of agreeable for it to work like that to begin with. But, whatever kind of racist he was before, Dove definitely made it worse, even with Jaune trying to work against it.}"
I don't know what's more horrifying, the subtle mind control or having
that as your semblance.
"You should have told a professor about it the second you realise he was probably using it on Cardin," Lumen says, unusually seriously. "It's one of the few hard rules Beacon has to get someone fully expelled- hell, it's on the same list as 'actively trying to harm a fellow student who cannot defend themselves.'"
Yeah, mind controlling your fellow students outside of combat practice is crossing
just a few red lines.
"Well okay, she told me a lot of stuff, but… one of them always stuck with me. 'Even if they don't show you love, you show love back to them. Nobody hates us because they've got all their ducks in a row.' I always, took that advice to heart, as best I could, and, I know I get pretty angry sometimes, but I never, ever got mad at people for their opinion of me because I always knew it would just- validate their opinion of me, you know? It just…"
An interesting notion, but being nice to bigoted assholes because you don't want them to think less of you is kind of circular. They
already think less of you.
"{You experienced the natural progression of your relationship with Dove over several months in 35 minutes,}" Blue says. "{Without being able to be talked down, or cool off, or think of a better way to deal with him. Getting angry with a racist dipshit is not your fault.}"
It's a wonder it doesn't fuck with your brain
more.
"A… friend, taught me how to do it," you say, immediately hating calling Qrow a friend even if he is. Feels disrespectfpffffthahahaha yeah no that's not your issue and you know it.
Qrow could use a Cell sidekick who can nag at him to not drink all the time.
Hope you're feeling better,
Ed
Giving Jaune a panic attack in his first class with you as a teacher is an experience, but having it happen
twice has got to make him feel like shit.
Or Dove doesn't even know he has a Semblance.
… Shit.
Okay, that's even more horrifying: you're mind controlling people around you
and you don't even realize that you're doing it. It's scary to think that there are probably people like this in the world that either know about their semblance and just abuse the shit out of it or have no idea that they're mind controlling people.
The Process called it 'refinement of parameters.' A human might call it 'scraping the bottom of the barrel.'
When you've got almost arbitrary amounts of processing power, scraping the bottom of the barrel looks overwhelmingly different, huh?
{What the fuck are you doing?}
Baby AI with arbitrary processing power doing baby AI things. Come to think of it, how did Jaune create the Transistor AI (with two pretty distinct personality forks), with it being as mature and emotionally intelligent as it is, when he was so young? And why is the Process so different?
Why 70 beats a minute? Why always 70 beats per minute, without variation?
Is that an IRL thing? That's weird. I assume it's basically a pre-programmed routine from DNA, sort of like starting a computer for the first time. Does it differ between humans and faunus?
… All in favour of approaching PoI 108 with supplementary questions?
Is that Penny or Ozpin? I can't remember who PoI 108 is. "Talks about the soul" suggests Ozpin, I think. Either one should be a fun time.
Ozpin: "Oh, that's cute. I have a baby god as a student.
Oh my god, I have a baby god as a student and it's asking about
souls."
Blue, what happens on- you check the date- the 13th of August?
{Savour the surprise for once, will you?}
The Transistor insists on not spoiling the surprise at every class there's a surprise to be had, so Blue's not being fair, here.
"Lumen!" the boy gasps, a scandalised laugh escaping him even as a blush floods his cheeks. "Not in class!"
"Lucky you- apparently we're getting out early," Lumen says. "Imagine what we're going to do with all that free time."
{Oh, gag me with a spoon.}
Well, I think it's sweet that they're so happy with each other.
How did Lumen and Sky get this lovey-dovey this quickly? Did they know each other from Signal or something?
"IF THE WIND CHANGES, YOUR FACES WILL STAY LIKE THAT! COME ON, LAST ONE DOWN IS GETTING PELTED WITH AN EGG!"
"... DON'T YOU MEAN IS A ROTTEN EGG?" Ruby shouts down to the Professor.
"NO."
The real question is how Port has intact eggs on him after the stunt he pulled. Then again, breaking your fall with a shotgun blast gives you some pretty strong bluffing power, I bet.
or simply Port refusing to let something as basic as physics get in the way of his fun
He broke the fall with the force of a shotgun blast pointed at the ground. This means that the force of the impact is more or less equal to the force of the recoil he just slammed into his arms/hands/torso. So either he somehow has the power to make physics go cry in a corner with his semblance, or he wasted aura and a shotgun shell to break his fall with identical force to just...landing on his feet and using aura to help absorb the impact.
