01.50 - week one, saturday

[afflictionmods]

W1 SATURDAY

The first week of the Personal Enrichment Course draws to a close, which means it’s time for the first lesson. Hopefully by now you’ve gotten to know your classmates a bit better - but if you haven’t, that’s okay.

This first lesson is just going to be teamwork exercises, after all.

Bright and early Saturday morning, you wake up. Maybe you had a good night’s rest, or maybe you hardly got any sleep... Either way, the sun is shining, the day is beginning, and Lorelei's voice suddenly comes through everyone's tablets as well as the P.A. system on campus.

”Good morning. All students must report to the lecture hall by 8 o’clock for their first lesson. Lessons are mandatory. Please report to the classroom with its doors open.”

Which gives you about thirty minutes, so it’d be best to hurry. Do you want to be tardy? And if you think about bailing, well… you know what might happen if you fail the course.

When everyone gathers in the same hall they awoke in, Florence is there to greet you. They will gesture for everyone to take a seat, and once seated, the projector in the room turns on. Say hello to Lorelei and her usual cup of coffee.

“Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your first official exercise; today’s activities are designed to emphasize teamwork and cooperation so you are all more prepared for dealing with what’s yet to come. I have already split you into teams for the day, via raffle. There will be two activities total, and you will be completing them in the same teams. Regardless of whether you get along with your teammates or not, you’re going to have to figure out a way to finish each exercise successfully.”

She keeps that same calm, collected smile on her lips as she props up what appears to be a tablet of her own on her desk.

FULL NAV

(CODE)

Comments

TEAM ASSIGNMENTS

[afflictionmods]

[ Lorelei clears her throat before she begins reading off the following team assignments. (The team names are not game canon, purely for OOC purposes.) If there are any protests or complaints of any sort, she does not sound perturbed at all. ]

Go ahead and form your groups. Again, these were chosen via raffle, so if you'd like to blame anyone for your assignments, blame the algorithm. We will be sending you all to separate classrooms, one room per group, for our first exercise, but we will give you a few minutes to mingle first.

[ Best to get to know your teammates, if you don't know them at least a little already, right?

(We will start the first activity at 2:30pm EST! Please comment to this top level with pre-activity mingling for the sake of organization. o7) ]

[fabulation]

Oh would you look at that? What an interesting little group we've been all put into...

[ Xingqiu beams happily at Chongyun and his soon-to-be teammates. ]

[herlocksholmes]

Not a bad team, if I have to say so myself.

[Sholmes has no complaints]

[unsinksyourship]

Mmmmrbrhg.

[--is the enthusiastic reply from the guy with the extra-bedhead on his bedhead, making it worse by ruffling a hand through it and squinting beadily at the gathering through his one open eye. Why is he so dramatic. Tamamori is like, barely presentably dressed, though all the pieces of his clothing are there.

Somehow, though, he's managed to grab what looks like some bread from the convenience store. Just pops it out of his sleeve and starts munching away, scattering crumbs; it makes it even harder to understand what he might have been saying next.]

... I did not miss being up this early for class. Or class. Or being up. Are we done yet??

[undertakings]

[Well, he can see Sholmes here, and he recognizes both Chongyun and the Hashihimes even if he doesn't actually... know anyone else's name here except for who he's partnered with but whatever. He's not entirely sure what to expect from this activity to begin with, so the most he has to say is just.]

Mmm.

[hes great at this team thing already]

[festiverogue]

[HELLO TEAM IT'S ME YA BOY.

He's clapping everyone on the back and offering hi-5s.]

All right! Teamwork! Mama won't leave anyone behind!

[ignihidden]

[Idia is absolutely putting up his tablet to block the high five. It will text-to-speech a pre-written message.]

"Idia Shroud here. I'm interesting in us completing these classes and passing ASAP so I'll do my best. I'll be in your care."

[he's clearly so?? excited to be here??]

[partymagician]

[ Fai has a still sleeping Hien on his back, who he carried all the way here. After all, participation is mandatory. ]

Good morning, team! Are we ready?

[unenvying]

[ lazy wave to... whoever his teammates are, and then he's just going to put his head back down on top of his arms on the desktop because he doesn't understand how most of the people here are awake at such an ungodly hour.

pls feel free to poke him awake, teammates. ]

[unluckyday]

We're working together, then? Nice to meet everyone!

[ He has met most of his team already, but he says it anyway. ]

ACTIVITY ONE

[affligere]

[Once teams have been assigned and had the chance to group up, Florence pulls a box from behind the desk in the lecture hall. A lot of boxes going on this week, apparently, but this time there are no hats inside. Instead there are a collection of… very mundane things. There are five objects - one for each team - and they quietly pull them out of the box and set them on the desk.]

This should be a relatively simple activity, with little risk for harm at this present moment. We are hoping to foster cooperation above all else today.

[They look around the room.]

You will take one of these items, and you will have to find a way to market it as a product from its name, logo, features… So on and so forth. We want to see how creative you can be so an example would be… if you have an ordinary pair of socks as your product, you can add a hypothetical set of features to it, such as added insulation and extra softness, or something more unexpected like the ability to hover for short periods of time. You will have the opportunity to pitch the product and market the product to your classmates, and once all presentations have been complete there will be a vote for people to decide what they think is the most appealing product.

The team with the most votes will receive their product in-person - complete with the new features they have suggested - a week before the other teams receive a copy of the winning item. The real product won’t have any magical properties to it, but we will do our best with the technology we have to create a replica. This is not a competition one can win or lose, necessarily, so please give it your all.

[They nod once.]

We will do our best, but we guarantee we will be able to include everything if the features are particularly extravagant. With that being said, I will hand out the items.

[Which are as follows:

-Flathead Screwdriver (Group 1)

-Hair Spray (Group 2)

-Flashlight (Group 3)

-Alarm Clock (Group 4)

-Fabric Sack (Group 5)

Once they’ve been distributed, Florence nods again.]

You have an hour to prepare, and each team will have ten minutes to present their products. After the final presentation you will have ten minutes to vote. If you have any questions, please ask them now.

[They will escort each group to their designated classroom, one group per room, and then leave them to their own devices. Each classroom has a set of supplies from the bookstore to aid in their presentations: paper of varying colors, pens, highlighters, scissors, and so on so forth.]

(OOC: You will have ~two hours to thread out planning, meaning presentations are due at 4:30PM EST. If you need more time, let us know! If you finish ahead of time, you can go ahead and post to the presentation top level.

For presentations, you can format it similarly to the pep rally top levels; one top level for your entire presentation is fine, or if you want a whole thread with each member posting their part separately, that’s fine too. )

GROUP ONE

[affligere]

GROUP TWO

[affligere]

GROUP THREE

[affligere]

GROUP FOUR

[affligere]

GROUP FIVE

[affligere]

PRESENTATIONS

[affligere]

[Woo.]

RESULTS

[affligere]

[Once voting is finished, Florence stands up. There's a static-y noise that... probably counts as clearing their throat?]

Thank you for all of your hard work. You did wonderfully.

[Yay.]

I have gone over all of the votes, and the item with the most votes was the bag from our fifth group. Congratulations. We will create those bags and deliver them to you on Monday, and everyone else will receive their bags the following week.

[Ahem.]

For those of you who had items that failed, do not worry. I know many of you are familiar with the campus store that will grant you mysterious items. [The gacha!] We will produce the other products and put them in as offers to be drawn at random, so there may still be a chance you will receive them. With that out of the way, I will hand activities over to the Instructor.

ACTIVITY TWO

[instructus]

Splendid job, everyone! Even you, Group 4, with your alarm clock that was absolutely broken by you and not us, by the way. I'm utterly impressed by everyone's creativity, and I hope that you all enjoy the items that you've come up with.

[ But anyway. She clears her throat. ]

Moving on, we have one more activity in store for you! It's quite simple, actually.

You're going to be defusing a bomb.

[ ... ] Oh, not a real bomb, of course. But there will still be...glittery, shocking consequences if you're unable to do it within the time limit. And for those of you who aren't familiar with what a bomb is, well, defer to your teammates.

[ She'll then provide the introduction to the event (the description is pinned to your respective Discord channels). ]

The device will emit some uncomfortable zaps on your hand for every incorrect button pressed or wire cut, and if you cut the wrong wires on accident, it'll automatically replace them so you can start over again.

I'll give you a little time to decide who's going on what role; and yes, you will all be in the same classroom for this. Those defusing the bomb will sit on the left with their defuser teammates, and those relaying instructions -- experts -- will sit on the right with their expert teammates. You will be able to communicate via your tablets; I am opening up private conversations between your groupmates just this once. [ She turns to the Teacher's Assistant. ] Florence, please escort them back to the main classroom.

Good luck, everyone!

[ OOC: Since you guys have the overview on Discord and my hands are acting up, I'm giving a condensed version of this activity's introduction.

You are free to thread out any deliberation before the activity officially starts, but ICly, characters will have 3 mintues to defuse the bomb. OOCly, we are looking at going until about 8pm EST but can shorten or extend time as requested.

Ping me (Coco) on Discord when you've finished and I will let you know how to do sabotages! Unless you'd like your group to fail. That's fine too. Just let me know! c: ]

GROUP #1.

[instructus]

GROUP #2.

[instructus]

GROUP #3.

[instructus]

GROUP #4.

[instructus]

GROUP #5.

[instructus]

CLOSING REMARKS

[instructus]

Alright, everyone, everyone successfully defused the bomb, save for Group #5. It was close, but not quite close enough. Regardless, all of your efforts were admirable.

[ A beat, then: ]

Today's exercises were certainly a watered down version of what to expect for the series of lessons to come. Chances are that the pain won't be as kind to you when your classes start to go on-field, and teamwork will be more essential, whether it be in groups like these or between you and your partner.

But...since we're running out of time for today, I'll be leaving you with some small pamphlets this week on what to expect before Saturday comes around once more.

[ She holds up a hand. ]

Bye-bye for now. You know where to find me if you need to reach me.

[ The projector turns off. ]