GAME UPDATE: October 4th, 2009

[xi_mods]

AT THE XAVIER INSTITUTE:
Professor Xavier takes off for most of this week on important Xavier business, leaving Emma Frost, as deputy headmistress, in charge.

Students are now capable of getting their hands on official Xavier Institute hoodies and t-shirts, if that is the sort of thing that interests them.

While there is no official word on mentor group competition as of yet, a scoreboard has definitely been put up in the staff room, and so far not very many groups have any points. Some teachers may want to do something about this.

The rain from last week persists until Wednesday, following which the rest of the week is dry.


NEWS:
The second presidential debate, which focuses mainly on something boring idk, is aired on Tuesday. Mutants are brought up only briefly towards the beginning of the debate, when Thompson lists Henderson's failure to do anything to address the 'Mutant problem' along with other broken promises. Henderson holds her own in the face of this and is widely considered to have won the debate, although there are plenty of people willing to argue the contrary.

A local news station runs a feature on the construction project that Holly J Sinclair organized a couple of weeks ago – the tone of the reporting is very positive, although they don't interview any of the students – or the Institute's staff – and the members of the public who they do interview seem a little unnerved by having had a group of mutants doing construction work in their neighbourhood.


WHAT WOLVERINE DID THIS WEEK:
This week Wolverine takes on the Crocazons, who are trying to use their Reptile Bazookas to demolish Los Angeles.


OOC NOTICES:
• Since folks have been overwhelmingly in favour of it, we're going to go ahead and allow first-person action logs in xi_rpg to try to cut down on the amount of handwaving we wind up doing on big group threads. Third-person logs are still permitted and encouraged! The rules have been updated accordingly.

• Apps open again on Wednesday! While we're not banning staff characters who don't meet the suggestions on the applications page, we'd definitely advise anyone planning to app a staff character to give them a good reason for being at the school. We'd also like to remind you that we're absolutely okay with characters who won't be actually at the school at all, if you feel like you can make that work! Feel free to talk to us about that.

• On that note, we'd like to know who would, hypothetically, be interested in apping villain characters (or even envillaining characters they already play). If this is something you'd definitely consider, drop an email to the mods at xavierinstitutemods@gmail.com.

• As ever, we encourage people playing staff to start comment threads to this post about what's going down in classes this week to save on threading a million classes. Same goes for mentor group meetings, if you like! You are of course welcome to actually thread any classes or meetings you like, but a) this is still good for planning and b) most people do not want to thread every single lesson, so go ahead and spam this post with that stuff!

Comments

Passive Abilities Class

[greeneyedhealer.livejournal.com]

Hakkai takes his students to study nature this week. To attempt feeling the life forces of plants and trees. Energy from plants and trees has no harmful effects if felt by inexperienced hands, unlike the life force of themselves.

Re: Passive Abilities Class

[nuclearshota]

Len can.. sort of feel something. Maybe. He probably accidentally drains a plant and it withers a bit on him. Oops.

Re: Passive Abilities Class

[nuclearloli.livejournal.com]

Rin will be almost actively draining these plants, she can't really help it. D: And will probably kill the poor things.

[eyes-are-uphere.livejournal.com]

Anatomy: They'll be going over the skeletal system in great detail, expect Tsunade to be horribly detailed. Other than that, it's just notes and worksheets.

First Aid: Uhh. Tsunade might just be taking them out to a local clinic she is friends with used to work at knows of. Mainly just to show that basic techniques can be useful even in a setting such as that.

Mentor group: Yeah. Remember that post about the forest? She did take them back out into the forest to bring back living bears. Bent to their will. Except for the fact none of this probably happened, though she actually stayed in the forest in the spot she set them loose in for once. And is there to treat injuries and the like. She was also nice and probably took them out for food or something. idefk.

All-in-all Tsunade was actually not completely batshit insane lately. That and she actually showed up to her classes. O:

[melodyofwater.livejournal.com]

Oh wow Tsunade.

Joshua was actually extremely amused by the bit with bears, though he was not very successful. He mostly stayed out of the way when they started getting angry.

[total-pessimist.livejournal.com]

Ulquiorra was left with torn clothes and wondering what the hell Tsunade's fixation on bears is all about. At some point he would have thrown a bear into a choke hold, but he didn't bend it to his will so much as have it flail around trying to throw him off its back until it passed out. Have an unconscious bear, Tsunade.

[saintedsinner]

Anatomy: Yay, skeletal system! Ed will sing through all the bones in classic Monty Python style.


First Aid: Ed hates needles. HATES.

[valetudochamp.livejournal.com]

Guess who's riding one of those motherfuckers back down like a bucking bronco? She's got just enough control of her powers to make reins and everything.

[usedsuckerpunch.livejournal.com]

Sakura is going to vaguely wonder if Tsunade feels alright. Perhaps ask her as much. But she's just as attentive as always to the lectures and such. Good thing Sakura finds Anatomy fascinating 8D

Band; Mentor Group

[skull-joke.livejournal.com]

The third week of band class begins amidst rumors that Brook totally hit on Tsunade and that's why the staff room is getting a new door.

Er, anyway - now that class has spent time going over learning to read music without the distraction of instruments, and then spent time learning WITH the distraction of instruments (but in the silliest possible way)...now that that's out of the way, Brook announces that Play Badly Week is over. This does not mean it is Play Well Week, as there is no such thing. There are only weeks in which playing badly is mandatory, and weeks in which playing badly is optional. Students are free to randomly declare Play Badly Time for themselves at any moment for any length of time, and he sees no reason why they should have to ask permission first when the answer will always be "yes" anyway. Brook will be Playing Badly himself once in a while completely at random and without warning, just to set an example. (What kind of example this is, we're not sure.)

When it comes time to pass out sheet music, those expecting more of the simple silly options from last week are in for a surprise: it's Eric Clapton's "Layla (Unplugged)" and it's been rewritten to include parts for every instrument in the class. By some miracle this actually sounds good. Have fun messing around with it, kids, although Brook will of course continue helping out and giving advice as necessary, particularly to those still getting used to reading music.

Towards the end of class on Tuesday (he was going to do it Monday but forgot) (this is okay because he probably thinks it's still Monday anyway) Brook announces that he will in fact be giving several million points of extra credit to anyone participating in Miss Vanderhall's benefit show project, which he will also be assisting. Giselle can give the class any further details she likes about what's needed. GOODNESS HE IS SO PROUD OF YOU YOUNG PEOPLE.

This week's average daily puns-per-class: 105

***

As for mentor group...the general chat-time last time around having settled on musical movie night for their running project, that's what they'll do. In the interests of at least two muns being kinda zombie at the moment it might be best to hold off on the Nightmare Before Christmas log until a bit closer to in-game Halloween. So. What should they watch first? (Additionally Brook is not really down with this whole "mentor group competition" thing. If the kids REALLY want to he'll go along with it, but as far as he's concerned that doesn't sound like much fun at all.)

Rumor

[eyes-are-uphere.livejournal.com]

This is of course, completely true. :| Though Tsunade is not going to confirm this.

International relations and French

[righteousapollo.livejournal.com]

I.R.
Having learned that there are a few students in XI with various links to royalty, Enjolras has opted to discuss the monarchy in relation to international affairs this week. Expect to talk about things like effectiveness, the Divine Right of Kings, ambassadorial duties and things like that.

French
Oh guys, it's verb time. Long lists of verbs in various tenses. And you're learning them by rote. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. By way of 'incentive', all those that fail the OMG MASSIVE VERB TEST at the end of the week have to translate a rather long political tract from French to English.

Mentor Group
Umm umm umm more planning idk? HELP ME OUT HERE GROUP PEOPLE

French

[purapea.livejournal.com]

Axel is playing down his french skills just slightly to seem a little more 'rusty' and gets a couple of the verbs wrong but overall passes :)

Earth Science, Combat, Mentor Group

[mighty-molita.livejournal.com]

Earth Science: Rock Collections are due at the end of the week. They need to be labeled by name, characteristic, and where they are generally found (if you just say "Found in the Dirt" you will find your rock collection buried under ground and are required to dig it up with a shovel.

Anyway, we're now moving on to earthquakes and volcanoes this week. So lava and tectonic plates are our theme. And that means it's surprise field trip time 8D

I plan on logging this and it will be a surprise (Toph and earthquakes will be involved). All Toph is telling the students before they go is that they are going on a field trip.

Combat: Toph conducts a more formal martial arts class this week. Teaching them some of the movements involved and different throws. Later she announces that they're going to try weapons and allows everyone to select a weapon of their choice (anything that is generally sharp is replaced with a wooden/plastic replica). She then shows them various ways to use the weapon and asks that students improvise using the weapon in some combination with their power (if that is possible).

Mentor Group: Since we didn't log last week, I'd like to have some sort of log for this week. Any suggestions for things you guys would like to do? I would recommend checking out Toph's recent post in the online comm as well.

Re: Earth Science, Combat, Mentor Group

[melodyofwater.livejournal.com]

Field trip! \o/ Demyx's rock collection isn't very varied, but he actually did it so that's good enough for him.

Energy Projection, German and Mentor Group

[truepsychictale]

ENERGY PROJECTION

Target Practice this week. With tacky lamps.

Thus the world is a better place.

GERMAN
For the ones who are just starting off: Colors, counting and basic grammar.
For the more advance group: Conversation groups and presentations about famous Germans. One person per famous German.

MENTOR GROUP
I need to make a log for it soon because I am made of fail and lose but team building skills plus if things go well a reward for it.

Also, Sasha will like to talk to each of his students about their future goals such as jobs and such. Not like that is anything new.

energy projection

[righteousapollo.livejournal.com]

Mira loves blowing stuff up, so this may be her favourite class. Her aim is rather shoddy, however, and she completely lacks any refinement in her explosions. It might be a case of aiming for one lamp and actually hitting the next two alongside it instead.

Geography, Mentor Group

[superspeeds]

Geography
This week continued the trend of mindless tedium. The current unit focuses a little more on nature, so you damn hippies can rejoice in that. Weekly unit reports were handed back again almost immediately with snippy, but largely irrelevant comments.

The Thursday afternoon class took a field trip to the Brooklyn Transit Museum. Pietro may have been heard muttering angrily in idk, whatever gypsies speak on the commute.

Mentor Group
At the entrance to the hedge maze, the group found a rather messily scribbled note with instructions to help each other through the maze and the promise of a prize if they made it successfully. The prize was actually just a huge plate of baklava and a set of circus tickets for sometime next week. It's one of those Cirque du Soliel type things.

Re: Geography

[malfoysuperior.livejournal.com]

Draco is actively uninterested in nature, the environment, or any sort of preservation of either. Despite his habit of sitting in the front, he spends most of this unit drifting in and out of awareness, though rarely is he unable to answer a question directed at him.

He is slightly more intrigued by the transit museum, because of course Draco has never used public transportation, but he pretends to be even less interested than he is, because he also never intends to use public transportation.

Driver's Ed

[likesherswords.livejournal.com]

Mia once again decides to use the Danger Room. Although students who do well there will start driving in a real car toward the end of the week (powers that clash with standard automobiles not withstanding). Every so often you will have to deal with drivers of a less than polite or sober nature.

Re: Driver's Ed

[gettheeadonut.livejournal.com]

Again Harry manages everything well, with maybe one or two minor slip ups, but he seems confident behind the wheel. He does display advanced knowledge in flipping off asshole drivers, making sure to use creative applications of gestures and languages, but actual road rage is nonexistent.

Sadly his car is not ready for on the road driving, so he probably sits that out.

computer science, flight, mentor group

[boobwindow.livejournal.com]

COMP SCI – man I don't know COMPUTER STUFF. PERHAPS IT'S TIME FOR A TEST sob I'm so bad at this but presume the class is coherent ok :'|

FLIGHT – Competent fliers get an obstacle course and some feedback and instruction. Less competent fliers get more help.

MENTOR GROUP – consolation about losing the laser tag and asking how they feel about further competition :') DO YOU GUYS WANT A LOG?

All- For Virgil

[phoneskillnoise.livejournal.com]

I imagine Comp Sci is lots of programming and learning to make things using html and other programs *shrug* Maybe having projects like: build your own website, make a computer game, make an animation, etc.

As for Flight, Virgil is probably on the obstacle course. If there are any water-based traps he might be in trouble, unless he effectively dodges them.

Virgil is all up for further competition. I wouldn't mind a log.

Art, Psychology, Mentor Group, and Art Club

[paintedfeathers]

ART
While the pots finish their second firing (cooking in the kiln/oven) the class will be going outside with large sketches to do sketches of wildlife. Their instructions are to draw something alive. This includes everything from bears to plants, so pick your target wisely.

We're going to be using theses as bases for paintings next week.

This week's art-critters include frogs and bears (Tsu, don't kill his bears).


PSYCHOLOGY
We'll be going over memory and how that works. Sensory memory, short term memory, long term memory and all that jazz. Plus all the ways that memory screws up and etc. Feel free to have your characters be wondering about if they can trust their memories and such things.


MENTOR GROUP
idk what do you guys wanna do?


ART CLUB
Members are free to use the art studio whenever they want, basically. Mr H will offer the some projects if they want to do them.

One is to design an album cover for a pop track. They'll be given music, photos of the band, and their logo. The best one will be sent in and might get used. If their cover is used, the kids who made it will get the money for it. (this is one of the commissions Mr H has been given to do, but he doesn't have the time to do, feel free to figure that out and glare at him) Does anyone want to log this?

[phoneskillnoise.livejournal.com]

Neku
Art- Sketches birds, lots of birds.

Art Club- Agrees to participate. I'm not sure he'd catch on unless he saw that everyone had the same band/songs/album art.

Starr
Psychology- She'll be pretty interested in this considering her power is kind of memory based. She may even ask Mr. H what he thinks/knows about the body remembering things over the mind.

[shutupk9.livejournal.com]

PHYSICS
You guys have a test! Surprise! Oddly enough, it's pretty easy. If you paid attention in class and took notes on vectors, then you should be able to get it. And yes, there is one question that's completely out of the wall-he asks your opinion on dogs. At the end of the week, the Doctor starts you guys on velocity and acceleration.

MENTOR GROUP
The Doctor has an assortment of board games that have seemingly come from freaking nowhere. There are some normal games (Clue, Monopoly, Risk and Trivial Pursuit) but then there are some freaking weird ones (Hi Ho! Cherry-O (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Ho!_Cherry-O), I Vant To Bite Your Finger (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/14346) and Panzer Command (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2072)) Decide which one you want to play and then it's board game time!

Of course, there's the high probability that the Doctor will completely forget about the board games and instead start talking about something else that's completely random. Hence, that's why I'd like to log this sucker. :3 Ideas/input?

[a-whiter-shade.livejournal.com]

Eli puts down the correct answers, is confused about the dogs but says they're pretty all right he guesses, he never got to have one but he always wanted a pet.

[a-whiter-shade.livejournal.com]

EMMA:

English: Start reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Juniors) and Gulliver's Travels (seniors). There will be reading response journals due every few chapters.

ESL: Short stories in English. They can be about whatever. There will be peer editing involved.

Advanced Telepathy: Practice constructing mental shields, then practice breaking them down.

ROGUE:

Rehearsals rehearsals! Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after class.

Nulls: Practice on Bobby. Matt makes pizza on Friday.

STORM:

The kids give their book report presentations and start the ancient Egypt unit. Most of the week is spent learning about pyramids in preparation for the Egypt trip.

Also, EGYPT TRIP.

Lightning kids we can work stuff out on an individual basis.

[broken-tool.livejournal.com]

Rin

ESL: Rofl. Guess who is still doing nothing. ♥ Though she might right about a sentence or two. Though she might actually be prodded with an idea.

Rehearsals: Yeah, she'll be there on time. :|b

Nulls: Still the same cheating with Len, probably. ♥

Kisara

ESL: Kisara's probably going to write a little story about some weird prince and princess thing set in a desert somewhere. Yeeeah. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good in grammar and spelling for the most part.

[noctivigant.livejournal.com]

CRIMINAL LAW
Field trip to the precinct! Now you get to question the cops about whatever, get shown cool stuff and there will be a few lectures. Next there will be tea and cookie time where you can talk about your experience at the precinct or ask any questions left unanswered.

SELF-DEFENSE
True to his promise, there will be weapons. Granted they're just sticks but you'll be learning how to defend yourself against and with a weapon.

MENTOR GROUP
Will just be a chill evening with an order of pizza. Dick would like to discuss the possibility of joining in on the whole competition thing that has started between groups and your thoughts on it. (Let me know if people want to thread this.)

Self-defense

[broken-tool.livejournal.com]

Haku
He'll probably take fairly well to this whole stick defense bit, mainly because something to defend with is absolutely better than nothing.

Kisara
...Yeah, she'll probably get smacked a few times and really just be quite easy to break through. Strength is not exactly her forte.

[7thheavensmile.livejournal.com]

Telepathy and Empathy: While they probably work on this in control class, Tifa is going to have the class do a bit of relaxation/meditation exercises this week to help clear out everyone's heads and get some stress out. Other classes are probably getting tougher now, and Tifa wants to help relax the minds of those who already have enough mental stress through the day.

At the end of each class, she wants them to turn in a small report on how they've been feeling lately, along with any ways they use to relax. Tifa will definitely be introducing some of her own techniques for mental relaxation and blocking out noise. Any questions? Lemme know, I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Mentor Group: I'm not familiar with everyone's powers, so let me know what your character can do if you can. Tifa will probably ask what the kids think of competition, and whether they want to just chill out or actually do something constructive.

[maiiau]

Telepathy & Empathy: Miku will enjoy the meditation exercises. In her report she mentions she's been feeling quite good lately, and also uses music and singing to relax.

Laundry day

[dustsrobots.livejournal.com]

Norman collects all bed sheets and other linens and takes them into town to be cleaned, calling on some of the students who volunteered to help him earlier.

There is slight tension with other customers at the dry cleaners, but Norman handles it with grace.

Re: Laundry day

[firstlaugh.livejournal.com]

Be careful with Tina's sheets - they will completely covered in fairy dust. LULZ MAY ENSUE if any of the helpers come in contact with it...

Detention

[thehornetssting.livejournal.com]

Detention will be held in a spare classroom for the remainder of the week, while the detention hall proper undergoes renovations. Starting with Soifon's arrival, things like sitting, moving, and breathing heavily are now forbidden.

[idiotvocals.livejournal.com]

Kaito doesn't waste much time setting up his class even if it's the middle of the week. He'll be taking the remainder of this week to see what level everyone is at and starting at the basics with vocal warm ups and such. He'll be also asking about music you guys like to listen to/sing along in the shower/etc and working that into his plans.

[hatsunemix.livejournal.com]

MIKU IS AT PROFESSIONAL LEVEL SURPRISE. She's quite animated in talking about music, of course, and listens to just about everything.

First Aid

[hauntedcrown.livejournal.com]

Bakura ditches. :|