PersonS {A Rejected Title and a False Explanation}

> Sure, sounds great.

"I'll audit it, then," you decide. Dr. Shoseki nods, and rolls over a bit on his desk to his computer.
"All right. I just need to get all that in the system. Has anyone told you how the schedule works here yet?"
You shake your head no, and he goes on to explain.

"Well, like I said before," he says, while still working on the computer, "there are seven slots for classes. We have four periods that are on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and three that are on Tuesday and Thursday, but they're longer. They say it's supposed to help prepare you for college, since college schedules tend to be divided up by days that way, but to be perfectly honest I don't feel it helps too much. Either way, they've been doing it like that since before I started out here." Before long he finishes typing, and a nearby printer you didn't exactly notice before now spits out a piece of paper.

He pulls it out, looks it over, and hands it to you. "Here's your schedule, then. It wasn't too hard to fit things together since a couple of the classes you picked can be anytime. You have a map?" You nod. "Well, classrooms are numbered pretty sensibly; the first number's the floor it's on. Your first class is with Mr. English, I'll drop him an email so he knows to expect you."
"Thank you." You get up to go, and he stands up as well, offering you a hand to shake.
"Don't be a stranger, all right? I stick around about an hour after school lets out, and I do want to know how things are going now and then." You shake his hand and nod. "Actually, you probably should come by this afternoon since I'll have your books for the semster together by then. Or, I suppose you could come pick them up on Monday morning if you'd like." You head off to your first class.

On the way, you have a closer look at your schedule. Your Monday classes are, in order: Programming, Physics (your science course), Psychology, and Piano. Did he do that on purpose or is it just a coincidence? Tuesday and Thursday have English, Precalculus (the math course), and then Archery, which is outside rather than in a class room for reasons you have no trouble guessing at.
It seems like the buildings are arranged roughly by subject. The building your programming class is in obviously has a bunch of math and science courses in it. Mr. English is expecting you by the time you get there; the programming class just has a few rows of desktops. There are only three or four other kids here, including the strange guy who was walking backwards earlier. They all seem busy typing, however, and barely notice you come in. Mr. English quietly gives you an introduction to the course, gives you a few handouts to start with, and tells you to pick a computer. This doesn't seem too hard to you. You manage to get a basic "Hello World" program working in the remainder of the first period.

The physics class is a little behind where you were before, so today's lesson is a bit redundant for you. Orion is also in this class, but nobody else you're too familiar with. You don't really understand what's going on in the Psychology lesson, so you start reading the in-class book from the beginning instead. The teacher doesn't seem to care that you're not exactly paying attention.

After that, you head to the cafeteria for lunch. There are two different lunches; it looks like you have the same lunch as Orion, Nene, and the weird guy. You could try to sit with one of them, or find somewhere to sit by yourself and hope nobody bugs you.

>

SpoilerShow

I forgot that History class is normally a required thing, derp. Let's just pretend Al somehow already has all but one of his required history credits and I'll deal with it next semester.

> Try and find someone new to sit with. Let's make friends!

SpoilerShow

Hey, I had Psych as a "history" class. Why did it count as a history class? I have no clue whatsoever, and I don't care.

SpoilerShow

"Actually, you probably should come by this afternoon since I'll have your books for the semster together by then. Or, I suppose you could pick them up on Monday morning." You shake his hand and nod. "Actually, you probably should come by this afternoon since I'll have your books for the semster together by then. Or, I suppose you could come pick them up on Monday morning if you'd like." You head off to your first class.

Doubled up there.

> Pick a friendly looking group and sit with them.

> Try and find someone new to sit with. Let's make friends!

> Pick a friendly looking group and sit with them.

You decide to try and find someone new to sit with. The easiest way to identify someone particularly friendly is to pretend you have no idea where you should sit. This strategy is even more effective here than usual; within a minute of getting your tray of food someone waves to get your attention, and you walk over.
There's a small group of three here, two guys and a girl. The girl is the one who waved you over. She says, "Hiya. You need a seat?" Her voice is flat, low, nearly monotone; only the tiniest change in inflection indicates the difference between a statement and a question. She has pitch black hair in a short style with small spikes at the bangs, and her clothes are the same color aside from a big skull on her oversized shirt. Standing up, you can see a few completely unnecessary chains built into her pants. The other two are a somewhat tall but otherwise very average-looking white guy with light brown hair in unremarkable clothes, and...the weird kid from before. Seems like you've managed to run into him anyway.

"Are you offering one?" you ask, looking at the other two. The weird kid shrugs.
"C'mon if you want," says the other guy in what you think is supposed to be a friendly way but has a slight undercurrent of annoyance. So you take a seat.
"You're the new guy, right," says the girl; thanks to her monotone it doesn't quite register as a question.
"Alvin," you say, rather than answering directly.
She nods. "Cool. I'm Topaz, he's Pitch" (pointing at the taller guy), "and that's Sam" (pointing at the pale guy). "Sam doesn't talk."

>

SpoilerShow

Original description of Topaz's outfit and general look: "muted goth". Decided to try and give something slightly more detailed. Speaking of, I found out that "lightblue" is too bright so I came up with a specific hex for her text color. Let me know if it's still too bright to easily read.

Kíeros: My best guess is that it just counted as "social studies"? Since psychology technically does involve studying social things...

Doubled up there.

Derp, good catch. Is fixed now, thank you.

>Mute, by choice, or just quiet?
>Just be you. Make your first impression be the truth.

>Mute, by choice, or just quiet?
>Just be you. Make your first impression be the truth.

"He's just quiet, or he's mute by choice?" you ask; Sam actually shakes his head and then nods while you're speaking.
"The second one," says Topaz. "I'm surprised, most people don't get what I mean by that on the first try."
"Yeah, we've known him two years and never heard his voice," says Pitch.
"I heard him laugh once." Sam looks toward her and shakes his head. "Well, I guess it was more of a snort."
"So, you've known each other that long?" you ask, to give them something to say while you're busy eating.

Sam nods again, and then briefly pantomimes singing.
"Pitch and I met in choir," says Topaz at the same time, not currently looking at him. "Sam heard us talking about trying to start a band and offered to play the drums."
"We don't. Have a name," adds Pitch before you can ask. "There's a list. One of us hates every name the other two like."

>

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Hoped-for suggestions: Questions to ask/statements to make/etc.

Okay, so, I feel like there are less suggestions lately, and I'm concerned that that might be because it's hard to come up with things to say in a conversation? If that's what it is, it may be a problem, since a lot of this adventure is going to be conversations. But I had an idea for a solution: I can change the way that the command prompting works.

Basically, instead of a blank ">" demanding readers come up with everything, I can give a list of options. You don't have to pick one of the options (so you can still suggest whatever you want), and in picking an option you can also suggest something more specific. For example, in conversations the options will be topics to talk about, and a more specific suggestion could be the wording to use in bringing up said topic. The options will be semi-mutually-exclusive depending on the situation. For example, if it's a list of places to spend the afternoon you can only go to one of them at a time. Or if it's a conversation, there's only so much time for each conversation and there's a flow to a conversation so each update would only use the most favored topic options. I'm thinking I'll handle voting as "most people wanted" followed by "first suggested comes first".

So, for the last update, instead of just ">" I would have maybe the following list of options to pick from, things Alvin would think to ask about:
>kind of music the band plays
>Topaz and Pitch are strange names
>reason for Sam's vow of silence
>

How does anyone still reading this adventure feel about this idea?

Sorry, I've forgotten all about this adventure.

> Come up with the perfect band name.

I really want to write an update for this adventure, which obliges me to beg for at least a couple more suggestions and/or maybe someone could actually express an opinion on the idea I put two posts up? I don't really know what to do with the current suggestion just by itself; Alvin doesn't know these three well enough to come up with a potentially fitting name, and anyway using that suggestion alone would be an irritatingly short update especially after such a long time.

Is anyone besides OA even still reading this? Even just an accurate headcount would be nice, and I thought at first I'd get one in possibly just simple yes's and no's to the idea two posts up.

> Sam's vow of silence

> Come up with the perfect band name.

> Sam's vow of silence

You try and think up a name for them. It shouldn't be too hard, right? You think through a few bites of food and say, "What about...'Accidentally Perverse Classwork'?"
"It's on the list," says Topaz almost instantly. "Pitch doesn't like it."
"I don't really like 'perverse'," he adds.

"..Do either of you know why Sam won't talk?"
Pitch shakes his head. "Nope."
Meanwhile, Topaz asks Sam: "Uh, do you want me to--?" He shrugs, and she ducks to get something out of his backpack.
"He has a stack of sticky notes he hands people when they ask that. Each one says something different, as far as I can tell."
She comes back up and hands you a note which has handwritten on it:
I have sworn not to say what I know, knowing how many there are who would willingly misuse it.

A little later, Sam looks around the cafeteria briefly (you notice he focuses in Nene's direction for slightly longer) and makes a hand motion at Pitch resembling the letter P.
"Oh..she's, at home again today," he says, "But she's fine. I'm pretty sure she was just faking it this time."
Sam just nods. Topaz takes it upon herself to explain: "His sister, Pelo, gets...sick a lot. Sometimes she just uses it as an excuse to get out of school, though."


>Topaz, Pelo and Pitch are strange names
>sick with what?
>what classes they take
>

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Well, since nobody at all voiced an opinion I guess I'll do it. It doesn't really subtract anything from the suggesting experience as far as I can tell.

(Authorbump)

>Topaz, Pelo and Pitch are strange names
-> why is your sister named hair