Krayzikk

Persona - Academic Akrasia

"I got it, I got it."

Daisuke chuckled a little to himself at the insistent tugs, thinking a moment as he turned his attention to the road. He'd been a little out of it when they came through yesterday, obviously, but he was pretty sure he knew where he was going. Just had to plot the route a bit. A moment later he pushed off hard, putting some extra effort into overcoming the combined mass of two riders, and got moving. One rotation, two rotation, three rotations and they weren't moving fast. Just inching along. Four and five they picked up speed, six and seven they started to cruise.

Getting going was the hard part, keeping up the pace was easy.

"Holler if ya need me to slow down, keep close." He called over his shoulder at Hitomi, pumping the pedals to come up to a decent cruising speed. Not as fast as it took to get to work on time, maybe, but they didn't need to go that fast. Hitomi could barely reach her pedals for Christ's sake. "And you hang on tight."

He took a hand off the handlebars long enough to rap a knuckle against Kimiko's headset.

"Lemme know if I miss a turn."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Plank Sinatra @Kaithas @NarayanK

Winky faces are beneath you, babe.

Lauren got a raised eyebrow for that one, directed over her shoulder, though Ben couldn't keep the grin off his face. He'd kept from outright laughing. Barely. Her reaction had been even more exaggerated than he'd expected. Good news, though, was she didn't seem pissed anymore. Thank God for small miracles. Still she was pretty wound up over her Dad already being in their dorm.

If he was anything like her, he could guess why. She'd accumulated a decent amount of loot and if anyone was gonna know where she stashed it, it'd be her Dad.

Well, and someone who lived with her.

So when he stepped into the room after her, raising his eyebrow a little further at her greeting, he steered well clear of the space behind the door. If it were Lauren, he's expect an ambush. Once he'd taken a few steps into the room he leaned over, as casually as possible, to take a look under Lauren's bed.

If it were me, I'd go right for the stash.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Victoria rolled her eyes a little at her friend's response, but let the jabs pass unanswered. The Japanese girl would get to her answer eventually. In the meantime the cold water felt quite nice, a refreshing contrast to the hot, humid air of the fitness room. Public school, after all, was public school; unless it was as hot as Hell outside, they weren't going to give the budget to keeping certain rooms cooler than others. Have to love budget cuts.

She listened with just a faint frown as Dana responded, batting the bag back and forth with alternating strikes. Not really a matter of how hard either could hit, mostly just practice. Get the heart rate up, keep their technique in good shape, and provide an outlet for any frustrations. Of which she admittedly had many, so the exercise was proving most helpful. A calming, repetitive motion. Hit, noise, wait, swing, hit. Easy enough to process the opinions Dana vocalized in the process. Her frown deepened a little at her combative take, but more of long-standing concern than surprise. The Japanese girl wanted to fight everything, that wasn't a surprise.

When the bag swung back, Dana's grin imprinted in her mind, it stopped not even halfway into its arc. It swung the opposite way with a loud crack that made her friend lean out of its path. The chain holding it up groaned at its moorings, the bag swinging back and forth limply on the weakened grip.

The teen vampire hunter pulled her fist back, slipping both hands casually into her pockets. Her cheeks felt a little warmer than usual, regarding the bag with vague confusion.

"Thanks, budget cuts." She commented dryly, clearing her throat and indicating the loose mooring with her nose. She made eye contact with the teacher, indicated the bag with her head, and stepped a few feet to the next bag over. She resumed her routine easily, glancing at Dana while she waited for the girl to follow. "I don't think we want to think about a fight, Dana. Though I appreciate your extreme confidence."

"I don't trust her."

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I'm always around, just not always chatty. And work has had me even less chatty of late.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

With the morning she was having, PE seemed like just the thing.

Not freshman PE, that living nightmare. Not being forced to play team sports with a wide range of ungainly or overbearing teenagers. That sort of thing Victoria had taken years ago, and crossed it right off her prerequisite list. This was an optional one, more general fitness. Even calling it a 'class' was a bit of a stretch; they were supervised, of course, and had to meet the fitness goals they set in order to maintain a decent grade... But it largely consisted of turning the class loose in the fitness facilities. Weight machines, running track, free weights, all the facilities a decent high school needed. Most of the students took it for the excuse to lift weights or get in shape.

In her opinion, a period a day dedicated to fitness was the perfect thing for a vampire hunter.

So she left the library in relative silence, letting the things she had seen and heard bounce around in her head. Try and understand it. The walk to the locker rooms was quick, as was the process of changing into clothes better suited for gym. They may have made Dana scowl in their simplicity, but fashion wasn't really a priority for gym class.

She let the usual inane chatter of the girls around her float right past her ears, not paying it a moment's mind. The rumors about who was dating who, or who said what about whom behind their back, meant less than nothing to her. It was frankly astounding that such obliviousness existed. Any one of these girls could be a vampire's quarry that night, or any of their friends may have the previous night, and they just didn't realize. Or if they did perceive even the slightest thing out of the ordinary they chose to close their eyes all the harder.

People just didn't see what they didn't want to see. Their little bubble of normalcy was nicer.

Even she had one, if she was honest. Hers had gotten popped too when entirely unknown factors started introducing themselves. Those factors were what had gotten under her skin, truthfully. A quick mile run to get the blood pumping was ample time to think about it. Pierce had always been more than he let on, and clearly more at that. But no one ever pressed him. What he gave was useful, and no one really seemed concerned about him.

Maybe they should've been paying closer attention. Still, it was the Slayer that had her concern. It wasn't surprising that some of their number thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. Anything that could take out a vampire like that was bound to get Casey hyped, for sure. And others felt like they should give her a chance. If she was an asset, great. But no one had any influence over her. Even Pierce didn't seem to, and he was the only one who knew what was up.

The look on her face from the night before kept popping to the forefront of her mind, jarring whenever she tried to think of the innocuous girl that she'd seen that morning.

Her frown deepened while she turned her attention to a punching bag, breaking the silence for the first time while she started to take out her stresses on it with each punch.

"What do you think, Dana?"

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

I'm about as edgy as a feather pillow. Had recently gotten back from work so I didn't have enough energy to come up with a five paragraph post explaining my thoughts.

@Lucius Cypher, using them as NPCs works just fine. You don't need to constantly RP them but you at least don't need to boot the character from the team just because the player left. We could even give them to new players who may or may not stick around.

It helps with the constant revolving cast of characters coming and going at least. That has to be strange from an IC perspective.

@Silvan Haven

It's true. Silvan has no edges.

Anyway, he's got the right idea. Taking away the team structure doesn't make you more able to interact outside of it, and NPCing missing members works just fine. See again: Amy Desire when we really have to. If your entire team is gone except you, that becomes something to discuss how best to work with.

But to be brutally honest, that's an individual teams thing. Snow has dealt with a significant portion (ie often around half) of his team being either gone or just not even being filled and he doesn't even want to get rid of the team system. Because teams are a huge piece of what makes RWBY's school setting different from... Pretty much any other shounen set in a school.

Taking that away from everyone because some teams have difficulties is honestly unfair, for one thing, but also doesn't solve the root issue. I hate to come back to that phrase, but teams aren't making you less able to interact outside of them nor are they locking you into dead interactions. Those restrictions are only in your (not you specifically, a general you) head. NPCing team members makes it so that people can come back, and if a team really needs refreshing, then we can see about filling those slots with people who are active.

But nixing the teams aspect doesn't really fix anything.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Honestly, the idea of disbanding teams doesn't address the underlying issue.

The team structure aggravates it, yes, but not being organized into teams won't change what happens when someone isn't around. No offense to @Kaithas, but there are tons of times that he isn't around. We wait for him if we can, and it's practical, but that doesn't stop anyone else from doing whatever they want.

If someone's inactive and shows no signs of being around, break off the interaction. Jump ahead a little and cover the before stuff if they do get back. There's nothing that means you have to stick with a dead interaction, nor is there any obligation to stick purely within your own team. Luke and Gratia are together all the time, more than either one interacts with their own team, and @Crimmy and @HereComesTheSnow have never been on the same team.

On top of not solving the issue... It kinda kills a big piece of what makes RWBY unique. I know that I wouldn't have half as much fun if BASL weren't BASL.

The underlying issue isn't the teams, it's people not interacting outside of them. Or people failing to break away from interactions that aren't going to actually happen.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

To be quite honest, I wouldn't mind sticking around, it's just that nothing is happening anymore. I'm getting pretty bored of just waiting to move forward a single day.

Honestly, if Lugu isn't down to stick around I would just start up a new thread, grab everyone who is interested and move to the new thread. Fresh start, so to speak.

@floodtalon

A fresh start would absolutely kill the game. It has several times, going back more than three years to a game that spawned another, and another, and another, and may actually have spawned this one a few generations removed.

Exact opposite of what I think anybody really wants. The point is that we like the start we've got.

Star Wars: Empire Asunder

You've got my interest for sure.

Persona - Academic Akrasia

"Aight."

The one-word-answer didn't bring out any of the thoughts going through the teen's head, but it said pretty much all it needed to. Daisuke downed what was left of his drink in a single motion while he looked Kimiko up and down a moment. The girl was just looking at him expectantly, but that wasn't new. It took just a second to decide he could do it. Protest wouldn't do any good, even if he felt like it, 'cause she wouldn't listen to any of the reasons. Best friend or not, girl was an odd duck and anything to do with a cute girl asking to be carried'd probably be lost on her. Maybe she'd listen if he said he couldn't, but.

Well.

That'd be a lie, for one, and for two he'd never hear the end of it.

So his coffee cup sailed underhanded into a trash bin and the delinquent stood, pushed in his chair, and casually scooped Kimiko up with his right hand. Picking her up by the scruff of the neck'd be impractical and weird, so one hand on the seat of her pants gave enough support to keep from dropping her. He leaned forward and twisted in the same motion, bringing his shoulder down and in so he could set her on his shoulders without any fuss. Dropping her wasn't a concern, she wasn't hard to lift and the girl had a good enough sense of balance. He straightened up as soon as he felt her on his shoulders, grabbing his backpack and sliding in her chair like the weight of a second person wasn't there.

He casually handed her makeshift fries up to her while she settled in. It only took him a second to find the keys to his bike lock in his pocket and spin them around a finger, eyeing the two others in thought a second.

"Hitomi, you're gonna have to use Kimiko's bike. Use her helmet, Kimiko'll use mine. Probably the only way she's gonna fit her hair in. I'll try not to go too quick, you're gonna have to follow me." He'd already turned and started for the exit, hunching over a little when he got to the door and adding to his passenger, "Duck your head."

"Gonna have to hang on tight," He commented to her, tapping one of her legs next to his head with a finger. His other hand was undoing the bike lock with a few deft twists, pocketing the key and looping the lock around his handlebars before glancing back to make sure Hitomi was following. Kazou kid, too, if he felt like coming.

"Not sure how we're gonna get beanpole on a bike."