Kumamimi Quest

[Usandru]

Picture source: a y u​

You are a polar bear girl.

You were born in Greenland along with your twin brother. Around when you turned two, your parents split up, and your mother took you with her to Denmark, while your father kept custody of your brother. Since that time you have grown up in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark.

You don't remember the first few years very well, except that they were full of new and slightly disconcerting things, but around when you enrolled in elementary school, you'd more or less gotten used to the whole thing, even the 'speaking Danish' part.

Your story from then on was pretty average as far as it goes. Nine years of elementary school, three years of high school, and now on to university.

As a polar bear girl, you of course didn't fit in exactly like everyone else. The pure white (actually transparent) hair, the fuzzy white-furred (well, transparent) bear ears, your somewhat sharper and pointier than human teeth and of course your ability to fairly casually crush the skull of a seal with your jaw. Well, actually not really with your jaw, it's not quite that big. You'd use your hands instead. These details set you somewhat apart during both elementary and high school, but all in all it wasn't a huge deal.

Back when you had just come to Denmark, your mother had a lot of trouble finding a good job. In the end she got a secretarial position at a small company that does business with Greenland, where her background became a significant asset.

Pick one (and one sub-option)
[ ] She later married a nice man, your new step-dad...
-[ ] after which you got two younger half-siblings.
-[ ] who brought his own children into the family.
-[ ] who wholeheartedly adopted you as his own child.
[ ] She stayed single, focusing on spending time with you, her dearest child…
-[ ] including a lot of time spent connecting with your polar bear roots.
-[ ] as well as making sure to keep in touch with your brother, despite the distance.

In the meantime, you enrolled in elementary school, one of the many public schools of Copenhagen, and began your first nine long years of education. Elementary school was…

Pick one (and one sub-option)
[ ] not a great experience…
-[ ] as you were bullied by the other children for how different you were.
-[ ] as you ended up isolated, unable to make any friends.
[ ] more or less alright since…
-[ ] you made your best friend there, [write-in friend]
-[ ] you made a couple of good friends there, who you still keep in touch with.
-[ ] one of your teachers really connected with you, which made studying that much more fun, at least when it was [write-in topic]
[ ] pretty great because…
-[ ] you got along great with most of the class and had a good time.
-[ ] you really enjoyed class in general, and felt like you learned a lot, with your teachers encouraging you to explore beyond the limits of the curriculum.

All things eventually come to an end though. For you, the end of elementary school became the start of high school. A much more serious environment in many ways, it is nonetheless also a time-honoured place to get completely plastered. At least in Denmark.

Before we get to that though, there are a few other things to flesh out.

After all, aside from your exciting life in the Danish educational system, you also have a number of other traits as a polar bear girl. There is, of course, your name…
[ ] write-in any Danish or Inuit name, and any Germanic or Inuit surname

But there are also things like your physique, your patience, your sneaking and your charm. Each is rated from 1 to 4, and you cannot rate two of them with the same numbers.

Physique
1: You are a physical paragon of polar bear girls, close to as large and powerful as any male polar bear. You could crush the skull of any human like overripe fruit, swim for well over a week without pause in the Arctic sea, or pick a fight with a walrus that you'd have at least even odds of winning.
2: You are a very large, strong and tough polar bear girl. You could crush a human skull with minor effort, swim in the Arctic sea for a week without pause or pick a fight with a walrus and probably come out of it no worse than you came in.
3: You are a pretty average polar bear girl. You could crush a human skull with a fair bit of strain and effort and swim for almost a week without pause, though you shouldn't pick fights with larger animals.
4: You are kind of small and weak by polar bear girl standards. You could probably crush a human skull, but you'd probably feel tired from the exertion, and you can only swim a couple of days without pause. You probably shouldn't try fighting anything larger than a seal.

Patience
1: You could sit still for ages, just waiting for your prey… or your concert tickets. People never want to play hide or seek with you. Especially not in winter. After all, you've hardly ever lost.
2: A full day might be stretching it, but you can sit still and wait for many, many hours.
3: You're fairly average in polar bear girl patience. Your limit is about six hours of sitting completely still in the snow, waiting.
4: You're a little impatient! You can hardly sit still, simply waiting, for more than two hours, then you start getting antsy, and at least want to shift position.

Sneaking
1: You once got so close to a seal while vacationing in Greenland with your mom that it didn't notice you before you were already in the middle of crushing it's skull. A few times during high school, you managed to sneak into the middle of class despite coming too late, and the teacher completely failed to realize you hadn't been there from the start.
2: You can creep forwards, step by tiny step, and not be noticed until you are close enough to reach out and touch your target. You can disappear in a crowd, and join a group you don't belong to without anyone noticing.
3: You're fairly average in sneaking, as polar bear girl go. You can creep forwards until in range of your target if you leap, and you can do a pretty good job leaving a party without anyone realizing, or sneaking around a place you're not supposed to be.
4: You're not terribly stealthy. You usually get noticed fast enough you have to chase your prey down, and you normally have trouble sneaking without appropriate excuses, or terrain advantages to help cover you.

Charm
1: You are the cutest polar bear girl. When you were tiny and adorable, you graced the pages of National Geographic, and even now, big and adult, you are great and big and fluffy and adorable and sexy. People tend to love you on sight, and you know exactly how to make them love you even more.
2: You are very cute. People tend to like you, and you are very good at being charming and personable.
3: You are pretty average in cuteness. You used to be cuter when you were tiny and adorable, but it's not so bad as an adult, really. Some people start off a little scared of you, but you're still large and huggable, and you're generally OK at talking to people.
4: You are sadly more scary than cute, and a little shy besides. Most people have a hard time forgetting that you can crush their skulls with some degree of effort, and you're not really all that good at talking to them.

Please rate the four categories (again, only one of each number)
Physique:
Patience:
Sneaking:
Charm:

***​

After this vote has been decided, there will be another vote on polar bear girl's high school experience, and then one on what she's about to enroll to study at Uni, along with a final vote to pick what kind of genre this trainwreck is going to have.

I'm somewhat loosely thinking that I'm going to call the vote once at least ten people have voted, or when I wake up tomorrow.

All education details are as real as I can make them, but I only got to pick one path through the system, so I'm going to be guessing and extrapolating on a lot of things!

Additionally, I apologize for everything, and I would like to note that this Quest is principally the fault of @Kei and @MightyDwarf who both really should have stopped me, instead of encouraging me. Please hold them, not me, responsible for any damages incurred.

Finally, please be warned that this is a stupid quest that I've started on a lark, and it might spontaneously stop, pause or otherwise cease to be active the moment my current courses get busy, because I would really like to not fail any of the classes of my final term of my bachelor's degree.

 

[Usandru]

Main character
Annelise Armbrecht, polar bear girl

Picture source: aりな​

Annelise had a good time in elementary school. She was very fond of her classes and of learning. She studied art after school at a local studio. Her mother remarried, and she got two cute half-siblings.

She had a great time in high school, where she turned into a party girl and went on some wild drunken benders. She kissed an enormous amount of people of both genders. Her grades somewhat suffered due to this though. She studied music, English and social science and went on an infamous trip to Vienna.

Annelise is enormously cute. People easily come to like her, and she can easily draw attention onto herself. She rarely frightens people, and has a natural talent for smiling without showing off her teeth. She is also very strong and tough, standing at about 196 centimetres tall, and weighing in at a little above 100 kg of almost pure muscle and another 40 or so of thick insulating blubber. She could pretty easily do a lot of damage to something, and would be capable of swimming without reaching land for probably at least a week in the Arctic sea. She is averagely patient, by polar bear girl standards anyway, and tends to need to do something after a couple of hours of lying motionless in the snow, waiting for a seal to show up. She is sadly not very sneaky, and really only good at sneaking around when it snows or she otherwise has an opportunity to camouflage herself.

Annelise speaks several languages, including a little-known dialect of Inuit and Danish at native speaker level. She also speaks English with broad competence and limited academic competence. She is capable of simple conversation in French. She had about five hours of Latin in high school which she can no longer recall properly.

She is a skilled artist with her specialty in drawn art. She has a small portfolio of well-made works, though she is still very new to the professional art scene.

She is a good tuba player who could manage to play in orchestra but is still very new to the professional music scene.

She is a pretty good fencer if you ignore that she almost always wins due to being a polar bear girl. She is also pretty good at skiing, however her technique is a little poor.

She is a very loving older sister, who really enjoys spending time with her siblings.

Her group of friends got together in elementary school, and she hasn't gotten as close to anyone else in comparison since.

She has a mother, and a step-father, and two disgustingly cute little half-siblings.


Dramatis Personae
Cecilie - childhood friend, ojou-sama type, generous, fashionable
Signe - childhood friend, ojou-sama type, wrestler, large tracts of land, sneeringly superior
Kåre - childhood friend, manservice, does HEMA, probably a kuudere

Astrid - disgustingly adorable little sister, half polar bear, currently around 12 years old
Markus - disgustingly adorable little brother, half polar bear, currently around 10 years old

Ida - tutor, Indo-European student
Torbjørn - tutor, linguistics student
Erik - tutor, pretty boy, cute
Jens - linguistics student, nerd
Katrine - Indo-European student, mousy
Emilie - linguistics student, sporty, does parkour, shy, cute
Karl - linguistics student, plays football, likes police procedurals, kind of average?
Melis - Indo-European student, from Turkey, sexy-cute
Christian - linguistics student, speaks German fluently, looks a little rugged, cute-ish, a little funny?

Maja - rabbit girl, 1st year Danish student, cute, blushes easily, probably into you
Maja's brother - rabbit boy, 1st year student, likes teasing?

 

[Usandru]

You had a pretty good run through elementary school. You ended up reading a lot, and you worked hard enough on your writing so you could make fewer mistakes, both of which will serve you well in high school. You also got pretty good at English, and you had no problems with mathematics or the natural sciences. When you had your final examinations you got mostly 12s and 10s which was honestly pretty great. For the non-Danes here, 12 corresponds to A in the Danish grading system, 10 to B, 7 to C, 4 to D, 2 to E and 00 to F. 7 is generally considered "fairly good" and is a respectable grade, while 10 and 12 are the very good ones.

In your seventh year, you also picked up your fourth language, though you're arguably not very good at it yet. Danish elementary schools after all have a third language as a mandatory subject in grades seven through nine. Of the two languages offered at your school you picked...
[ ] German
[ ] French

Of course, you didn't spend all your time during elementary school on schoolwork. Aside from spending time with your family and your weekly art lesson, you...

Pick up to four
[ ] had more art lessons!
[ ] learn to play an instrument (write-in instrument)
[ ] played a sport non-competitively (write-in sport)
[ ] spent time with your friends
[ ] spent time with your younger siblings
[ ] write-in

On graduation, you decided to go straight to high school. Perhaps not the best choice in hindsight, you were still very happy with studying, and hadn't really gotten tired of school yet. You therefore decided to go to...

Pick one
[ ] STX, the "general purpose" high school, most suited for the humanities, social science, but also often with decent natural science tracks. (For optional reference, the Ministry of Education on STX in English)
[ ] HTX, a technical high school, somewhat on rails towards the natural sciences, but more as a strong suggestion than anything else. (For optional reference, the Ministry of Education on HTX in English)
[ ] HHX, a business-oriented high school. They're apparently somewhat popular or something but I literally know nothing about them. (For optional reference, the Ministry of Education on HHX in English)

The track you picked focused on…
[ ] write-in one to three subjects (ex. mathematics, english, spanish, social science, physics)
(actual list of subjects for STX, HTX and HHX, all in Danish. Attempting to use these is optional, don't worry about it unless you want to. I'll just adjust things so they match. Everyone gets Danish as a by default subject, and STX students also get History as a subject, while HHX get English and HTX get a technical subject)

If you chose STX…
[ ] write-in your choice of Fine Arts, Media or Music

Thus began three years of teenagers, written assignments, excessive drinking and drama. They're thankfully over now. Your experience was…

Pick one (and one sub-option)
[ ] not that great, since you…
-[ ] got involved in a lot of drama, turning the whole thing into a social nightmare.
-[ ] kept drinking too much and spending too much time out in town, more than you really liked to.
-[ ] kind of hated everything to do with the schoolwork.
[ ] decent enough, you…
-[ ] had some ups and downs with your classmates, but you came out with more friends than you came in.
-[ ] met your (new?) best friend there [write-in friend].
-[ ] really enjoyed a couple of your classes [write-in which subjects].
[ ] pretty great, you're genuinely going to miss it…
-[ ] since you had the time of your life with your classmates.
-[ ] since you really enjoyed all the classes.

As cute as you are, you also got a lot of interest from your fellow teenagers. In terms of boys...

You may pick multiple options if they make logical sense together
[ ] Nobody ever dared confess, the wimps!
[ ] Ew. Boy cooties. You avoided them all.
[ ] You kissed a boy! He was kind of nice! For a few months at least.
[ ] You've kissed several boys! They were kind of nice! For a few months each, at least.
[ ] You've kissed a number of boys you don't really feel comfortable disclosing!
[ ] You were in a longer relationship with a boy, though it didn't really work out in the end [write-in ex-boyfriend]
[ ] You are in a longer relationship with a boy, even after high school. Wow. Well, it does happen sometimes [write-in boyfriend]
[ ] You had a huge unrequited crush and spent a lot of time sighing soulfully while listening to music that really got to you, and you may possibly have facebook stalked him a bit, but that's okay because nobody ever found out!

Of course, it's a wonderful and modern age, so a young polar bear girl shouldn't be considered restricted to merely boys, if she happens to think that girls are cute too. In terms of girls...

You may pick multiple options if they make logical sense together
[ ] Nobody ever dared confess, the wimps!
[ ] Ew. Girl cooties. You avoided them all.
[ ] You kissed a girl! She was kind of nice! For a few months at least.
[ ] You've kissed several girls! They were kind of nice! For a few months each, at least.
[ ] You've kissed a number of girls you don't really feel comfortable disclosing!
[ ] You were in a longer relationship with a girl, though it didn't really work out in the end [write-in ex-girlfriend]
[ ] You are in a longer relationship with a girl, even after high school. Wow. Well, it does happen sometimes [write-in girlfriend]
[ ] You had a huge unrequited crush and spent a lot of time sighing soulfully while listening to music that really got to you, and you may possibly have facebook stalked her a bit, but that's okay because nobody ever found out!

You are discouraged from ending up with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend who you are still in a relationships with after high school, because that will probably not end well. Vote with wisdom!

***​

And this is probably plenty stuff for now. If you have any questions, do tell! And remember, I'll make sure to parse things into the actual framework, so you should only look through the linked materials if you actually enjoy that sort of thing.

I know I do, but I'm also the one that posted Kumamimi Quest!

As a slightly more serious note, aside from character creation, this stuff is also part of how I figure out what the Quest proper will be about. I mean, it will obviously be about Annelise, but a plot doesn't really exist yet. I know for sure it's going to be pretty light-hearted, but there's a lot of space within that! Including varying degrees of "down to earth-ness" and the like.

 

[Usandru]

Aside from practicing art, something you've ended up being almost decent at, you spent a lot of time with your friends and with your adorable younger siblings. Your siblings, of course, being your six years younger sister Astrid, and and your eight years younger brother Markus. They are adorable with their fuzzy little ears, white hair and tiny sharp teeth. Though they're only half polar bear, you've been showing them a lot of things that your mother taught you while you were young and tiny, and your mother has even allowed you to be the one to teach them various things on your vacations to Greenland.

Though they're both sneakier than you, somewhat to your embarrassment. You not infrequently came home from school or art lessons and automatically walked to your room, upon which a tiny white bundle of compact violence would crash into you from where it'd been hiding for the past two or three hours, waiting for you to return.

Fortunately you're ridiculously much stronger than both of them so you just tend to catch the little ones and start wrestling them.

A few times your mother joins in, then nothing much gets done until your dad breaks it up. With words. He has a very impressive stern tone when he needs to, which you admire. Sadly he can't really wrestle with anyone but your younger siblings. Or at least not if you and mom don't sandbag enormously.

Speaking of sandbagging enormously, you picked up sports fencing as another hobby. You went with one of your friends to a trial practice day, and found that you enjoyed it. Sadly, you can't really participate in real tournaments, and you could probably throw the blunted metal stick away and be more dangerous, but you've been having a lot of fun learning how to fence, and how to control your movements and your strength. You are a decent fencer considering that you are inherently cheating.

You also enjoy skiing when you get the chance, usually a trip to Norway or Sweden during winter vacation, and you can often get at least a little time in when going to Greenland in the summer or autumn. You are a not that great in terms of technique but you can still go skiing pretty much everywhere.

Finally, you've picked up an instrument. You've been at it for long enough to be at least competent, to the point you can actually show off a little with it. Specifically you play the...
[ ] write-in instrument

After finishing elementary school, you decided to enroll in one of the many STX high schools of Copenhagen. The prospect of not having a proper history class rather ruined the other two options for you. You picked a track with English, Social Science and...
[ ] nothing more, since you didn't want to bite off more than you could chew. Uh, metaphorically speaking.
[ ] Music as a full-length subject (supplants your original vote of "Music", therefore please write-in Fine Arts or Media)
[ ] Mathematics, because mathematics is always useful!
[ ] write-in subject

Three years of high school was certainly exciting, but at the end of the day, school wasn't the only place you did things. You still had enough time to...

You can change the four things you did outside school to something else during high school. Please pick one subvote for each of the following
[ ] go to your art lessons...
-[ ] which you kept doing all throughout high school.
-[ ] however you felt like you wanted to do something different, so you started (write-in)
[ ] practice your fencing...
-[ ] which you kept doing all throughout high school.
-[ ] however you felt like you wanted to do something different, so you started (write-in)
[ ] play with your siblings...
-[ ] which you kept doing all throughout high school.
-[ ] however they didn't quite need you as much and you wanted more time to yourself, so you started (write-in)
[ ] spend time with your friends from elementary school...
-[ ] which you kept doing all throughout high school.
-[ ] however you ended up drifting apart once you began high school, so you started (write-in)

(some suggestions if you switch things up: get a part-time job, spend time with high school friends, learn to cook, read more, try your hand at writing...)

In your second year, your high school class went on a school trip. You ended up travelling to...
[ ] write-in major city in Europe

Now, Danish high school trips are somewhat infamous for being, well, a little drunk. Make that very drunk. In your case...
[ ] you actually kept completely sober, even if it made you a little distant from the festivities.
[ ] you drank with moderation and had a decent enough time.
[ ] you might've drunk a bit too much. It got... wild.
[ ] there are blank spots in your memory, and asking your friends about them they just start giggling uncontrollably.
[ ] you drank so much you ended up missing the bus home, and had to tearfully call your mom to get help.

This experience was...
[ ] representative of your partying habits during high school.
[ ] not much like what you normally did during high school.
[ ] completely different from what you normally did during high school.

Rounding out your high school experience, you had a pair of electives, and one subject from the natural sciences to finish off your coursework. You picked...
[ ] write-in two elective subjects in anything, and one natural science subject such as physics, biology or chemistry.
(the actual list of electives for Danish high schools is here, and still optional)

You may also still vote for how Annelise found high school in general, and her romantic entanglements. I'm copying the voting options to the spoilerblock here:

Spoiler: Votes still active from last time

High school life:
Pick one (and one sub-option)
[ ] not that great, since you…
-[ ] got involved in a lot of drama, turning the whole thing into a social nightmare.
-[ ] kept drinking too much and spending too much time out in town, more than you really liked to.
-[ ] kind of hated everything to do with the schoolwork.
[ ] decent enough, you…
-[ ] had some ups and downs with your classmates, but you came out with more friends than you came in.
-[ ] met your (new?) best friend there [write-in friend].
-[ ] really enjoyed a couple of your classes [write-in which subjects].
[ ] pretty great, you're genuinely going to miss it…
-[ ] since you had the time of your life with your classmates.
-[ ] since you really enjoyed all the classes.

Kissing boys:
You may pick multiple options if they make logical sense together
[ ] Nobody ever dared confess, the wimps!
[ ] Ew. Boy cooties. You avoided them all.
[ ] You kissed a boy! He was kind of nice! For a few months at least.
[ ] You've kissed several boys! They were kind of nice! For a few months each, at least.
[ ] You've kissed a number of boys you don't really feel comfortable disclosing!
[ ] You were in a longer relationship with a boy, though it didn't really work out in the end [write-in ex-boyfriend]
[ ] You are in a longer relationship with a boy, even after high school. Wow. Well, it does happen sometimes [write-in boyfriend]
[ ] You had a huge unrequited crush and spent a lot of time sighing soulfully while listening to music that really got to you, and you may possibly have facebook stalked him a bit, but that's okay because nobody ever found out!

Kissing girls:
You may pick multiple options if they make logical sense together
[ ] Nobody ever dared confess, the wimps!
[ ] Ew. Girl cooties. You avoided them all.
[ ] You kissed a girl! She was kind of nice! For a few months at least.
[ ] You've kissed several girls! They were kind of nice! For a few months each, at least.
[ ] You've kissed a number of girls you don't really feel comfortable disclosing!
[ ] You were in a longer relationship with a girl, though it didn't really work out in the end [write-in ex-girlfriend]
[ ] You are in a longer relationship with a girl, even after high school. Wow. Well, it does happen sometimes [write-in girlfriend]
[ ] You had a huge unrequited crush and spent a lot of time sighing soulfully while listening to music that really got to you, and you may possibly have facebook stalked her a bit, but that's okay because nobody ever found out!

***​

The end of character creation is in sight! This definitely wasn't the polar bear girl I was expecting, but she's turning out pretty cute anyway!

I'm going over some thoughts on how to play things once the Quest-proper begins, and I invite you to comment if you like. I'll set up a proper vote to get some ideas - though that vote may not be followed exactly - around when we finish character creation, but no reason not to tell you about this immediately.

This is a cute, dumb Quest about kemonomimi, polar bears and Denmark. At the end of the day that's not going to change much. There's not going to be any great threats, almost completely certainly nobody is going to die, and probably the worst that might happen to the characters will be a bad breakup, failing a class or having a screaming row with a friend.

But there's still a lot of leeway within those limits.

At the moment my approach has been basically pure slice of life in a completely normal alternate Denmark that just happens to host a bit of the polar bear girl diaspora, a fact which will remain totally unremarked upon. However I could do things like, say, add more kemonomimis of varying sorts, or other monster girls, or more classic non-humans. I could introduce a bit of quirky magic, or play on some of the older magical girl series that are less about fighting, and more about a girl with strange powers who helps people... or gets into trouble because of her strange powers.

It could turn more into something like a sports tournament. I mean, if Ninomiya Tomoko can make a compelling story out of competitive overclocking, I think anything is in theory possible! Though of course, I'm not as good as Ninomiya Tomoko.

Basically, there are a lot of options. I'd like to hear if anyone has any thoughts on them!

 

[Usandru]

High school turned out to be a... thing. A wild, uninhibited, crazy thing.

You picked a track that seemed to fit with your preferences, music, English and a bit of social science. While you were hardly a slouch at the natural sciences on leaving elementary school, this track appealed to your artistic side.

It started off a little slow. You met your classmates, began the introductory courses, attended the first real party where beer seemed less a slightly forbidden thing and more something that you just did and... well, something clicked for you. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was just the atmosphere. Maybe it was all the attention. Maybe all of the above, but whatever it was, you loved it.

You still went to your classes of course, and you still did your work as best you could, but on entering high school, you essentially transformed from slightly bookish girl to the life of the party.

You dated wildly and with a sort of almost reckless abandon. You discovered pretty early on that you liked kissing and cuddling and dancing, so you sought it out. You didn't mind who it was, as long as they could catch your fleeting interest. Sometimes, you'd be with someone for an evening, and never see them again. Sometimes you would kiss half a dozen people during the same party. The longest you dated someone was two months.

On reflection, you left quite the wake of broken hearts. Not the thing you're proudest of in your life, but not something that really bothers you that much either.

There's a culture, to high school. It's not the culture you'd seen in the movies or the like, those mostly being American, but it's a culture all its own nonetheless. Specifically, it's a culture of parties, of drinking, of being free to do what you want, and of trying to remember to keep others in mind even so.

Denmark is not a dry country by any means, but few places do alcohol flow as freely as high school. In this, you were no exception. Though you had little money to pay for it, living off your allowance and the grace of your parents, you drank heavily, mostly in cheap beer, for lack of much else you could afford. In the end, you found you had to supplement what you could bring yourself with what others would give you to catch your attention.

On reflection, you have slightly mixed feelings about all that, but in the end it was part of what made high school the place that it was.

The climax of your wildest days came on the trip in your second year. Vienna was a wonderful city to visit, especially with a class full of people who loved music, and you will doubtlessly remember it fondly even many years from now. However it was the evenings, the time you were let loose upon the city, that you had been anticipating.

You don't remember much from those evenings. There is a gap between arriving at a bar, and waking up with a thundering headache, lying half on your bed, half on the floor, with two of your classmates piled on top of you, everything sticking of alcohol, that sticks out to you as the moment.

The moment where you resolved to maybe moderate how much you drank.

Your mom cut your allowance to ensure you kept... drier. You got pretty drunk a few times during third year too.

For all these things though, for all that you had a blast almost every day, for all that high school was to you everything it was supposed to be... you didn't, in the end, make a lot of friends. Maybe you just weren't trying. You have a ton of people on your facebook, and you're friendly with everyone, you went to all the parties, but...

Your friends were different people. They are different people. They're the people you've known for twelve years, who you've grown up with from when you were tiny (and in your case not so tiny) kids playing with lego and running around playing tag. They're the people you've stuck with for more than half your life.

For a lot of your high school life, you saw them in the gaps. The days you didn't have a date, the days you didn't need to crunch an assignment, the days you weren't going on a party, those were the days you spent with your friends.

There are four of you in total. You and...
[ ] write-in three friends, make it three keywords for each of them

The rest of your time, somewhat to your surprise, often went to your siblings.

There was kind of a vague sense, when you started high school, that your life was going to change somehow, and that what you spent time on was going to be different. That was true, but not in the ways you thought. The niggling expectation that you and your younger siblings would drift a little... it didn't happen.

Astrid was ten when you started high school, well into elementary school herself, a proud new fourth-grader, while Markus was eight, and had just entered second grade. Your parents were both working full-time, and sometimes they had a hard time picking up your siblings early. On the other hand, you had several days that ended around two, though plenty enough that ran to four as well. Often, you were thus the one to find them and take them home... or take them elsewhere. It turned into something you just did, bring them to parks, playgrounds, museums, the movies. You'd play with them and carry them around and show them all you knew of Copenhagen. Sometimes you'd even take them with you while meeting your friends, and you'd go out somewhere, all six of you.

Likewise, the old artist you'd started taking lessons with was someone you just stuck with. Sometimes you came in, hungover and feeling like death warmed over, or worse still, like kiviak in the spring. But you never skipped a lesson, and though you've never worked yourself to the bone on your art, you've managed in the end to be actually good. Maybe not good enough to make a living off it, but then, who can?

Your music, likewise, gained a lot. Taking a musically-oriented track taught you a bunch, including a lot of formal and academic things which has given you a new perspective. You're a pretty skilled tuba-player, and you're not actually bad at composing either. You've also picked up passable basics in a wide assortment of instruments.

But of course, high school doesn't last forever. And for you, time is up. The third year finals have come and gone, biting down on your life, chewing it up and spitting it out in a mess of exams, stress and horror at the idea you might mess up too badly to get into your chosen field at university.

Well, unless you pick one of those easy ones that have more spots than applicants, in which case they'll let bloody anyone at all with a graduation in.

In your case, the results ended up being...
Pick one
[ ] abysmal. Fortunately there are courses that will take literally anyone.
[ ] bad. You're not getting in most competitive places.
[ ] average. As long as you're not going for something very prestigious you should get in.
[ ] good. There are still some fields that are denied to you, but they're pretty few.
[ ] great! You can probably even get in and study medicine!
[ ] better than straight As. You can do literally whatever you want, you disgusting overachiever, exploiting the system!
(Top grades kind of need some focus on school work. Who knew, eh? )

Lacking a completely clear direction for your life, you decided to at the very least get a bachelor's degree in something. You thus applied for…
[ ] IT Universitetet (ITU)
[ ] Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU)
[ ] Copenhagen Business School (CBS)
[ ] Roskilde Universitet (RUC)
[X] Københavns Universitet (KU), look, this is the one I know, okay?

And attempted to get into the field of…
[ ] write-in field or pick from: Bacheloruddannelser – Københavns Universitet
(If grades are worse than the minimum required to get into the chosen field, I will adjust them until they're valid. Except for ones that Annelise just can't get into, because she didn't dedicate her high school life to ensuring she'd get in. There are also certain fields that have prerequisites. The relevant ones are mostly the natural science ones)

After a final drunken bender after graduation - if you don't see a wagon full of high school students drinking cans of beer and making noise again for the rest of your life, you shall consider it a blessing from the heavens - and then a long, relaxing trip to Greenland, you've more or less recuperated from the entire three years.

There really is something special about the old homeland, even if you wouldn't want to live there all the time anymore. Maybe when you get old.

Now you've been back in Denmark for about two weeks, catching up with your friends and getting your course material for your first term. You haven't drunk a drop of alcohol in several weeks and as it happens Greenland is not particularly conducive to dating, especially when you're running around the middle of nowhere, sleeping in the outside and hunting seals. You also haven't really had a good chance for a party since coming back.

That might be changing though. There's a big introductory party for all the new students at your chosen faculty. There'll be a meet 'n greet of the others beginning in the same field, and you'll get to meet with the tutors that are going to help you settle in during the first term, and who'll arrange freshmen's short trip. All in all it sounds pretty neat. On the other hand...

Pick one
[ ] It's a party! Of course you're going! All aboard for High School Life: II - the Return of Bad Decisions!
[ ] Yeah, you want to go, definitely! Though, you're going to be a bit more... mature. And not drink too much. And maybe kiss at most one person.
[ ] A party sounds like a challenge. You're going, sure, but... you're not going to drink and all! And you're not going to seduce anyone! Wow. That's kind of scary to think about. You've never been to a party where you didn't do those!
[ ] Actually, screw parties. You have an entire week before classes start that are going to be introduction arrangements and stuff to get people to know each other. The party is just extra. You're going to go out with your friends instead.
[ ] Honestly you just want to stay home and play with Astrid and Markus. Your siblings are better than parties anyway.

(going to the party means focus will be on university and meeting new people, going with your friends means they will be introduced and focus will be on them, staying home means a focus on what is going on at home. The focus will switch later, but this determines what the first "real" update will be about!)

***​

The following is not a "real" vote. It's more a public poll. I'd appreciate if you "voted" anyway though. It'll help me figure out expectations and the like.

Would you prefer...
[ ] Full realism except for all the not-quite-human people around
[ ] The world plays by subtly different rules, encouraging odd situations and maybe with a few real mysteries
[ ] There's a world of small mysteries and gentle magic that meshes with the mundane life of Annelise and her friends
[ ] There's a separate world of mysteries and gentle magic which sometimes connects with the mundane life of Annelise and her friends for more startling events

Would you prefer...
[ ] Polar bears are the only weird species
[ ] General kemonomimi among the populace
[ ] There are also weirder things, like centaurs and naga and harpies and driders
[ ] The world could be the prelude to Shadowrun except for the lack of moustache twirlingly evil megacorps and all the "people dying" stuff.

Would you prefer...
[ ] A focus on slice of life
[ ] A focus on small mysteries and investigation
[ ] A focus on solving problems for other people and being a good influence on your surroundings
[ ] A focus on competition and on trying to become a popular artist or musician

Or would you prefer something totally different such as...
[ ] write-in

***​

Alright! This is it! The end of the beginning. Hopefully I won't make this many choices again for a while.

Class reunions must be awkward.

Or her elementary friends for the matter, since they're all likely to have dated once upon a time.

Click to shrink...

High school reunions could definitely get awkward! However Annelise was kind of a bookish teacher's pet during elementary school, and had yet to awake to the joy of parties and kissing, and besides she was literally taller and stronger than anyone else in her class, which kind of put the boys off, and liberation in sexual norms aside, most girls take a bit more than the end of elementary school to figure out that they'd like to kiss other girls, I believe. Even if the girl in question is the cutest polar bear girl.

So my conclusion was that her friends have ended up being kind of bemused by the frenzy of dating that Annelise suddenly began, but if any of them secretly wanted - or want! - to date her, then they haven't spoken up about it, because they presumably were or are a bit more serious about the idea than "last for two months tops".

Now her high school friends...

But then, all those friendships ended up a little more casual. You'll have chances to connect with them later on if you want, I suppose, but right now they're set to drift out of her life.

 

[Usandru]

You were, despite everything, a pretty decent student. You could've been one of the best, perhaps, but as it happened you were merely pretty good.

The joke about you being "superhuman" went around class a few times, but, well, wasn't that pretty much true? Of course, outside your physical abilities the difference was minor at best…

Picking a major for university was both easy and hard. You'd spent a lot of time and effort on both your music and your art, and there was something compelling about continuing with either of those into your adult, professional life.

On the other hand, the job prospects were kind of crap, especially after the recession. Five years of "so what can you actually use that for?" questions by extended family at whatever gatherings you had to attend followed by probably at least a few years of unemployment…

Yeah. No. Thanks but no thanks.

Eliminating those choices didn't exactly make it easy to find an alternative, even just the degrees available from the university of Copenhagen allowed for a lot of choice, but it didn't take long to stumble over something that seemed to fit your interests pretty well.

Linguistics is a slightly odd field, especially at the Faculty of Humanities, but from digging around a little, it seemed to suit you pretty well. And the job prospects were a lot more diverse as well.

With your grades you were pretty sure of your acceptance, but getting the letter was pretty sweet even so. After all, it could've been that this year was the year that thirty super geniuses wanted to start studying the mysteries of language.

Obviously that didn't happen because that would be crazy, but nobody said worries had to be sensible.

***​

​

The Faculty of Humanities of the University of Copenhagen is a pretty neat place. Contained entirely on what is now the university's largest campus area, Amager Campus, also known as "Københavns Universitet Amager", it serves just a little more than ten thousand university students, or a little more than a fourth of the entire student population of the university.

Considering that the university has been around since 1479, and some of its buildings go almost that far back, KUA is also shockingly new, with most of its buildings not much more than twenty years old, and more to come. With convenient access by either bus or metro, as well as reasonable options for biking, it's even located pretty well. Certainly, you have no cause to complain.

It is also the place where you're going to spend quite a few hours per week over the next three to five years of your life.

Today though, you're just here for the party.

Term starts in September. For one week before term, you have an optional introductory week. And about a week before that introductory week, the Faculty has decided to hold a party solely for new students (and the Tutors that are going to show them around) to bid them welcome. It's about six in the evening when you arrive at Islands Brygge metro station. The sun is still hanging bright in the sky, though it's slowly starting to fade into the more mellow evening light.

You'd have biked, but you're not sure how much you're going to end up drinking yet, so better safe than sorry.

Even if on average you're more afraid for who you might collide with than for yourself.

It's a short walk from the station to the building where things are going to happen. As you go, you notice that you're turning quite a few heads. Not exactly unusual, given you are just an inherently exciting person, and also easily twenty centimetres taller than the majority of people on the street with a head full of incredibly white hair.

You gave up on telling most people that it's actually transparent partway through third grade.

Still, the attention makes you feel good. It's nice to be appreciated.

Your outfit today is…

Pick one
[ ] casual, just jeans and t-shirt. No, you don't need more. Not even in the evening. You're not getting cold in Copenhagen.
[ ] a little dressed up, [write-in]
[ ] in your own style, [write-in]
[ ] dressed down a little, slightly blander and baggier clothes than you're used to. You want to reduce the amount of attention you get.
[ ] formal wear. Ahahaha, no, nobody wears that to these kinds of things.
(you are immune to the cold, but if it gets too warm you risk overheating)

As for your hair…
[ ] write-in style and length.

Checking yourself over a final time in one of the windows, you prepare to enter the building where it's going down. Starting out in the reception of KUA2, apparently. KUA2 being the newest of the building complexes constructed on the campus.

You walk in through the doors…

​

It's a pretty neat place. And wow, there's a lot of people. Like, a lot of people.

Among the crowd, you spot people in green t-shirts, some of them holding signs over the heads of the crowd. They seem to correspond to the various degrees offered by the faculty, and the crowd is split partly into small islands clustered around each of those signs.

A bit towards the back, you spot one that reads "Finsk, Indoeuropæisk og Lingvistik". Only one of those is linguistics, but that's the one you need!

You glide between the islands and catch the attention of a few of the green t-shirts among the linguists-and-others group, who you give a quick wave and smile as you approach. Two of them returns it, and some of the other people that you figure are also new students look at you and smile slightly awkwardly and wide-eyed in greeting.

"Hey there. Welcome to the party. I'm Ida, one of the tutors from Indo-european." The girl, who doesn't come up much higher than your chest, looks up and beams at you. So cheerful! She's got dirty blonde, shoulder-length hair bound up in a ponytail, and a cute, rounded face. The male green t-shirt next to her smiles a little wryly at you, but doesn't interject.

"Hey Ida. I'm Annelise. I'm starting linguistics this term." You reply with an easy smile of your own, stepping a bit closer and joining what you presume are your fellows.

"Cool! Torbjørn here is with linguistics. We're all with the same institute, but we're all so small that it doesn't make much sense to try and do our own thing at events like these." Ida says, and the guy who is apparently Torbjørn nods.

"Linguistics is the biggest, and we accept thirty new people each year. Indo-european takes, like, between ten and twenty, and Finnish gets somewhere between one and five new students each year. Compare Danish, who get somewhere around two hundred new students each year." He says, gesturing across the hall to a pretty massive island clustering around several signs, each with "Dansk" written on them.

"Anyway, right now we're mostly just waiting for the last people to show up, then the current leader of the Student Council and the Dean of the faculty each have a speech or something, then the various groups split up for a little while for some quick 'get to know each other' stuff, and we'll then come back here around eight, which is when the party proper starts." Ida continues explaining. You glance over at the door, enjoying your superior vantage point once again, and do indeed spot the steady trickle of more new students. Call it ten, fifteen minutes before the last stragglers arrive.

"So until then, just mingle here?" You ask. Ida nods.

"Pretty much. Go say hi to the others, or talk more with us, or whatever you like. We've got the whole evening, and the intro week besides, so just go your own pace."

You nod, and give the others in your cluster a brief glance. Mmh. You figure that you're going to…

Pick one and one sub-option if applicable, and if appropriate, write-in up to three topics you'd like to pursue
[ ] go over to one of the new students that don't appear to be talking to anyone right now, like…
-[ ] the dark-haired boy smiling a little awkwardly at no-one in particular.
-[ ] the slightly sporty-looking girl currently taking a sip out of a bottle of water.
-[ ] a boy with long hair tied back who's fiddling with a pack of cigarettes, seemingly considering going for a quick smoke outside.
[ ] go over to one of the groups like…
-[ ] the two girls chatting with one of the tutors. One of them is almost as tall as you.
-[ ] the middle-eastern looking boy chatting with a punkish looking boy and a rather heavy set girl.
-[ ] a boy wearing a t-shirt with some sort of cartoon character on it talking to a brown-haired, slightly mousy-looking girl.
[ ] just stay here with Ida and Torbjørn, they're interesting enough.
[ ] just keep quiet right now and soak in the atmosphere. You kind of want to try doing different things, like not talking to people immediately at parties! Chatting can wait for when you start the real introductions.

***​

Friends vote is still active! Currently only Lily and Signy have a majority, as Simon and Oscar/Hagen are currently tied.

As a reminder, the names are subject to change, because lol Hagen. In Danish, "hagen" is literally "the chin". Since you obviously can't know these things, just don't worry about it, I'll fix it up.

I want to show off neat things about Denmark anyway, so I'm going to aim for names that don't have as clear cognates in English where possible.

A friend also asked me if Annelise is "merely" a kumamimi or if she can actually transform into a full polar bear. I have not yet decided on this, nor am I putting it to vote just yet, but it struck me as a neat idea. My plan right now is to let it percolate for a bit, then maybe put it to vote. Or maybe I'll just unilaterally decide one way or another, as I go mad with QM power.

...also, why did i stay up this late to finish this thing, argh.​

 

[Usandru]

You smile at Ida and Torbjørn after a moment of deliberation.

"I think I'll go say hi to some of the others." You say, and both tutors smile and nod, letting you be on your way.

You're going to chat with the weird kids! Well, 'weird'. They're probably pretty normal, really. But they still seem like they could be interesting or amusing to talk to.

You make your way over to them, trying not to barge through any of the other groups and distracting them from their conversations. You're only partially successful, seeing as you are so inherently exciting as you are, and also one of the most visible people in the entire group.

The cartoon-shirt boy and the mousy girl both look up at you as you arrive. They look a little surprised, really. You smile cheerfully and give them a wave, settling in next to them.

"Hey there. I'm Annelise, new linguistics student."

They return the smile, and shift a little to welcome you into their tiny group.

"Hey Annelise, I'm Jens." The boy - Jens - responds, giving you a polite nod in greeting. His eyes briefly wander, first settling on your chest, then going up to your adorable fuzzy ears, before he refocuses his attention on your face with a slightly awkward smile in place.

"Hey there. I'm Katrine, good to meet you. I'm doing Indo-European, Jens is doing linguistics." She replies. Her eyes also drift a bit, widening as she spots your ears you're pretty sure.

They seem kind of cute, both of them.

"Neat." You respond. "So, what've you been talking about? Anything exciting happen?"

Katrine shrugs.

"We were just talking about what we've been doing before starting here, and why we decided to pick what we picked, really." She says, while Jens 'mmhms' and nods.

"I did half a year of English at Syddansk before dropping out. Then I managed to rent a place in Copenhagen with a friend of mine while I signed up for this. I'm from… well, let's just say Fyn." He says and smiles. Mmh, Syddansk would be the University of Southern Denmark. You do sort of recognize his accent as being… not from Copenhagen. All the countryside dialects are kind of the same to you to be honest. Your family hasn't done the 'vacation around the rest of Denmark' thing much, what with going to Greenland instead.

"I'm straight from high school myself." You reply, and both of their eyes sort of widen comically.

"I, uh, wow! I thought for sure you were a bit older than that. Looks can be deceiving, huh!" Katrine says and laughs.

"I'll say." Jens joins in with a chuckle. "You're… of polar bear descent?"

You nod. The polar bear person population is probably among the smallest of the demihuman groups, largely because the vast majority still lives within the arctic circle, with the largest sedentary grouping being maybe a few hundred living in a village in the northernmost part of Greenland. Aside from that there's more or less just the fairly small diaspora, mainly concentrated in the Nordic countries and Canada. At a guess, there's a thousand of you distributed across all of the Nordics and Canada. So you're kind of a rare sight!

"That certainly explains the size…" Katrine says. "Where'd you go to school? Nuuk?"

"Right here in Copenhagen, where I've lived since I was two." You reply, a tad dry. It's not that the mistake isn't amusing… but it isn't as amusing after the first twenty times. Okay so it's not very amusing at all anymore, but sometimes you just have to live with that.

Katrine flushes and apologies for assuming. It's fine, really, but now both of them seem a little uncertain of how to continue. It's a good thing you're here to help them out!

Just have to pick a topic…

Pick one
[ ] So what did Katrine do before enrolling here?
[ ] Why'd you pick this degree? Degrees. Whatever.
[ ] So what's with that t-shirt, Jens?
[ ] Do either of you play an instrument?
[ ] write-in topic

***​

A bit shorter, to keep things rolling.

Since there were no new votes on your friends, I'm calling it for Ojou-sama Combo. More Ojou-sama than any normal person can handle! THE DRILLS, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.

However we still have a tie between Simon and Oscar/"Hagen". Therefore, deathmatch.

Pick one
[ ] Team Simon (the nerd)
[ ] Team Oscar/"Hagen" (the abs)

Additionally, a vote on… just what exactly is it that Annelise has spent twelve years practicing?!

Pick one
[ ] Painting!
[ ] Drawing!
[ ] Sculptures?!
[ ] write-in!

Which is why everyone calls him that.

He does have an actual name, but not everyone remembers it right off.

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately, the nickname wouldn't work in Danish.

 

[Usandru]

You flash Katrine a smile and do your best to indicate that it's not a problem, and you can see that she visibly relaxes from her conversational misstep. She still seems to feel a bit bad about it, but you probably can't do anything about that. Instead, you move on.

"So yeah, Copenhagen girl through and through. What about you, Katrine? Where'd you go before coming here?" You ask, and for half a second you watch her mentally shift gears to catch up.

Well, if she's doing that she won't be feeling bad for her pretty trivial misstep, so you suppose that's a success.

"Ah, right, I'm from Sjælland, up towards the northern end. Call it two hours away from Copenhagen maybe." She says and wriggles her hand to silently add 'approximately'.

"Neat. I've heard it's pretty beautiful up there?" You ask. Katrine smiles wryly.

"It can be, yeah. The coast anyway. I'm from a bit further into the interior, which is mostly small villages and huge farms." She replies.

"I went to a pretty provincial elementary school, then I started commuting to one of the larger towns for high school. By the time that was done, I'd decided I really, really wanted out, so I moved into the cellar of one of my aunts in Copenhagen and got a job at a cafe while figuring out what I wanted to do." She continues, shrugging slightly as if to say 'you know how it is'. You don't really know how it is, but it's not too hard to imagine.

"In the end I figured I liked language and I liked history, so here I am."

Fair enough, you suppose.

"What about you? What got you interested in linguistics?" She asks.

"Well…"

Pick one
[ ] "...I think languages are really interesting, especially the way they can be so different."
[ ] "...my other plans for the future required me to win the lottery."
[ ] "...it seemed like it could be useful."
[ ] "...one of my friends can be super obnoxious about correct Danish, and linguistics seduced me while I was looking for ways to get back at her."
[ ] "...I actually kind of just picked it because it was suggested to me."
[ ] write-in

After that the conversation drifts a bit between various topics of small-talk, until the speeches begin.

***​

As speeches go they were pretty decent, you conclude to yourself. After they finished, the tutors tallied you up and counted about twenty-five people from your three degrees, and then started pulling you along to somewhere more private.



You leave the building and walk along the open area towards the canal. The tutors lead you across, and into the building there. One of them is talking as you go, explaining that you're on your way to buildings 22 through 24, which is where the majority of your classes will be held.

You're taken inside and up some stairs, and then you're shown into a classroom. It's got space for maybe forty people tops, probably suited for thirty, since that's the preferred maximum class size as far as you know. You kind of had the impression that universities mostly had huge lecture halls though.

Once inside and you've all settled into the seats, the tutors introduce themselves. There's quite a few them. Five from linguistics, three from Indo-European and one from Finnish. After introductions they go over some practical information and the like, and then they move on to that time-honoured 'first day at school' thing, having everyone introduce themselves!

You probably won't be able to remember the names of basically anyone from this, unless you actively try to pay attention to a few of them, but eh, nobody actually expects you to.

The tutor in charge has had ideas though, and wants everyone whose name starts with the letter he states to stand up, and then those people are the ones to introduce themselves going from left to right.

He's decided to start with 'A'. That'd be you.

You're going to introduce yourself as…
[ ] write-in introduction. Keep it short!


Then, for the duration of the introductions you're…

Pick one
[ ] ...just kind of going to tune them out and wait for the next event.
[ ] ...pay attention to see if anyone from Finnish is here.
[ ] ...look for the cutest boys.
[ ] ...look for the cutest girls.
[ ] ...look for some other category you want to pay attention to (write-in category)

Continuing vote:
Pick one
[ ] Asbjørn (1 vote)
[ ] Jarl
[ ] Kåre (1 vote)
[ ] Valdemar (1 vote)

***​

I'll probably end up with a list of all your fellow linguistics students, but nobody said I had to be quick about it!

Essentially, to preserve my sanity, I'm going to introduce them in a trickle of new people. The more people you try to make me describe, the lazier I'll be. I mean, half the linguistics people are probably going to drop out before the end of the first year.

There is no guarantee that any Finnish student is in attendance, by the way. They are rare creatures. I've only ever met the one that joined the tutor team for my year. None of the Finnish freshmen showed up, so she ended up just helping the others.

Kemonomimis are going to be rare enough that if one shows up I'm going to tell you, so no need to look for those. There might be one or two hiding their ears under a hat here, but you're always looking down on people, so kemonomimis are pretty obvious to you~

 

[Usandru]

Signe has always been a competitive individual, given to comparing herself to others, and often preferring to find a reason to come out on top of that comparison. She does genuinely put in the work, which is probably why you're actual friends, but she can still be kind of sneeringly self-satisfied about it.

When, during high school, she sat down and went through a brutal regimen to actually learn how to write technically correct, she ended up coming out of it with an impressive sense for how to write according to the rules, and a massive ego-trip about being able to do punctuation correctly.

In fairness, Danish punctuation is pretty bullshit, so being able to do it right is impressive, but there's no way you actually wanted to admit that. Researching the topic led you to linguistics, and the quiet consensus among most of the Danish ones that Danish punctuation is kind of fucked and somebody should probably do something to make it simpler.

Reading up on them, their approach to language just inherently appealed to you, and when you noticed that they also put serious effort into correctly and meaningfully describing languages far outside European norms - such as your mother tongue - you started falling in love.

You didn't actually say all that to Jens and Katrine though. The pithy one-liner more or less summed it up anyway.

***​

When you're called to stand up and introduce yourself, you know that this is it, this is your chance to burn a good first impression into the minds of your classmates.

You don't want to overdo it, but you do want to make just exactly enough of an impression that it actually sticks. Though really, a lot of it is just… how you act. You are naturally adorable after all.

Just standing up grabs attention in your case. While sitting, people can tell that you're tall, but just exactly how tall is another thing entirely. Brushing a strand of your white hair out of your face lets you draw attention to it, and to your adorable ears that are twitching cutely on the top of your head.

To cap it off, you smile cutely at everyone, by which you mainly mean 'smiling without showing your fangs'.

"Hey everyone. I'm Annelise and it's nice to meet you all. As you have gathered, I'm a polar bear. I was born in Greenland, but I grew up right here in Copenhagen. I'm really looking forward to university and hopefully getting to know you all better."

Yeah. Yeah that works. You hold it for a minute until the attention shifts towards the others and then you just fade a little into the background.

After that… well, you figure you might as well see if anyone cute is in your year. Dating classmates may not be the best idea ever, but nobody said you weren't allowed to act on bad ideas every once in a while! If they're cute enough, that justifies it, right?

Right?

The niggling sense of doubt you've gained towards your conviction that 'cuteness' will in all cases justify trying to date someone is a little frustrating. Admittedly, as Cecilie pointed out to you a while back, you consider both her and Signe cute, but you haven't really wanted to try dating them…

In any case though, uncomfortable reflection on your past decisions can wait until later. Just looking can't possibly be wrong.

Of the slightly more than thirty people in the room, counting the tutors, you figure there are four that are notably cute, one of them being a tutor.

The tutor, whose name you think is Erik, has a bit of a pretty boy look, with neatly styled hair and a charming face. He's on the tall side of average, which is still a lot shorter than you, and perhaps a bit lanky. He's one of the linguists, a second year student, and he apparently plays in a band as a hobby. You haven't had a chance to gauge his reaction to you.

The second you study is a girl - you noticed her when you first arrived - who looks pretty sporty. She introduces herself as Emilie, and as she stands up you get the chance to gauge her physique, which looks to be pretty good. You suspect your friends may have forever associated physical ability to cuteness. Still, it's not the only thing she has going for her, with her face being cute, and her shyness making her pretty adorable. Her introduction is nothing special, but it gets her blushing, which turns out to be pretty great. She's in linguistics too, so you'll definitely be seeing her a lot.

The third is a girl you haven't seen before. She looks vaguely… Turkish? From that area, definitely. Nicely tan, black hair, a sort of sharp look to her face that's maybe more 'sexy' than 'cute', but you're not picky about these things. She's probably a second or third generation immigrant at a guess. She's not wearing a hijab, which most of the female immigrant children in late elementary as well as high school did. She's wearing a fair amount of makeup, but she seems to really know how to work it. She introduces herself as Melis and is going to study Indo-European.

The fourth is a boy, apparently a Christian. A country boy, you suppose, seeing as he's from Jylland. He's from the Danish-German border, and apparently speaks German fluently. He has a kind of rough look, a little rugged. He doesn't seem to be terribly athletic though. He's also going to be studying linguistics. He cracks a minor joke in his introduction which was funny, but you can't remember it now, so it clearly wasn't that funny.

The rest kind of blur together, but hey, you actually know three names. Not bad!

Once you're all done, some representatives from the various student organizations show up. Specifically they represent Studenterrådet, the top level student council for all forty thousand students at KU. The two are more specifically members of HUMrådet, the subordinate organization which handles the faculty of the humanities, all ten thousand or so students there. One of them is also a member of your local, most-immediately-relevant-to-you organization, Fagrådet for lingvistik, which exists to discuss and deal with issues relevant to your degree and to your institute. They also briefly go over some more organizational details of the university, but you absolutely can't remember what they were.

Back in high school there was basically just a single student council… but then, you suppose that the university of Copenhagen is about a hundred times larger than your high school. That kind of puts the whole thing into perspective.

Then, the tutors take over again. You're almost done, apparently. You're going to walk over to Sprogkrogen, which is apparently a place specifically for your degrees to go hang out while on campus, and then you're going to just hang out there until the clock strikes eight, when the party proper starts.

Putting a final little spin on things, the tutors split you up into small groups so you can get to know each other a little as you walk.

You end up with one person you have no idea who is, and…

Pick one
[ ] Jens
[ ] Katrine
[ ] Emilie
[ ] Cristian
[ ] Melis
[ ] The tall girl
[ ] The heavyset girl
[ ] The middle-eastern boy
[ ] The awkward, dark-haired boy
[ ] The punkish boy
[ ] The long-haired boy

***​

If you want to help me populate the class, I'm also going to take suggestions in the form of three or so keywords or keyphrases per character. These won't be going to a vote, because I have like, thirty more characters that may in theory need at least basic details.

But to make it look all formal…
[ ] write-in three keywords to describe a new student (repeat until sick and tired of making up keywords)

Also, lol, I miscounted the votes for Mr. Abs' name. Asbjørn and Kåre are tied, which means unless new votes change the situation, Kåre will win. Valdemar and Jarl didn't get above one vote each, so as promised they're eliminated. Kei, wingstrike96, if you like, please make a new vote for one of the following

Pick one
[ ] Asbjørn
[ ] Kåre

 

[Usandru]

A large part of you is internally going 'lucky~' as you discover you are being paired with Emilie. The other person in your small group is one of the boys, one you haven't really had much of an impression of. At first glance there really isn't much remarkable about him. He's a bit taller than average perhaps, with blond hair and a clean-shaven face. Time will tell if he really is that unremarkable.

After you've come over and said hi to each other, a few of the tutors start leaving, inviting everyone to follow behind them. The pace as you follow them is deliberately unhurried, which amounts to a significant slowdown on your part, as you try to compensate with smaller steps than you're used to.

The first person to break the ice turns out to be the boy, who twists a little to look at you and Emilie properly.

"Alright, like I said in there, my name is Karl. Good to meet you guys." He says. He seems pretty relaxed

"You too. I'm Annelise." You respond. He grins at you.

"I don't think anyone is going to forget your name in a hurry." He says. You just smile pleasantly, before turning to show Emilie that it's now her turn. She flushes a little again - cute! - but smiles at both of you.

"Right, yes, Emilie." She says.

"So, we're supposed to get to know each other. I guess that means slightly more expansive introductions than we just did. Should I start?" Karl asks, to which both you and Emilie nod, giving him the go-ahead.

"Alright then. I'm Karl, as you know. I live in Copenhagen, but I'm originally from southern Sjælland. I have an older brother and sister. My hobbies are football, watching way too many shows on Netflix, and a bit of video gaming, I suppose. Aside from Danish and English, I also know a fair bit of Spanish. Hm. My favourite genre is the police procedural and online shooters, I guess."

Fair enough, you suppose. The turn goes to Emilie.

"Um, right. I'm Emilie. I also live in Copenhagen. I lived in Roskilde for a while, but I came to Copenhagen because my parents wanted a shorter commute. I have an older brother who just finished a degree in economics. Um, I play some sports, mainly, uh, parkour, I guess. If you count that as a sport. I also do some fitness stuff. I uh," her blush grows, but she also manages a slight smile, as if she's kind of happy to tell you, "I kind of like reading trashy novels. I'm not so good with parties, but not awful either, I guess. I speak a little German, and I'm pretty okay with Swedish."

So cute~

You restrain yourself from gobbling her up. Now is not the time. That aside, the Swedish thing is actually a little unusual. Most people your generation have a lot of trouble understanding spoken Swedish and Norwegian, since they just sound so different from Danish, even if a lot of the vocabulary is still the same. She must go there regularly, or know someone who speaks it, you suppose.

In any case, now it's your turn…

[ ] write-in what you want to tell them about yourself, keywords only is OK

And it seems like you still have a bit of time before you arrive. You could probably manage a few questions if you want…

[ ] write-in questions for Emilie and Karl, one or two for each should be fine. You can suggest more if you like, but if so, make them prioritized.

***​

Calling it for Kåre.

Your friends are thus Signe, Kåre and Cecilie. They've stuck by you for twelve years, and are more or less your best friends. Signe and Cecilie are the Ojou-sama Combo, or alternatively the Red and Blue Oni. Kåre is a man who has dedicated himself to making a polar bear cry uncle in a straight-up physical contest, and he has the abs to prove how seriously he takes this mission. He still won't succeed, because the only reason Annelise doesn't have as good or better abs is because her thick layer of insulating fat conceals it while allowing her to skinnydip in the Arctic sea with few to no adverse consequences even in the middle of winter.