Times They Are A-Changin'... ((Open to Reactions & Things on the X-Campus))

[ngm_miscellaneous]

With the opening of the school post-Labor Day fast approaching, it was time to open the dorms to the student populations. This was being done so most of the interior of the mansion (above the subbasements) could be remodeled and re-utilized for more academic means.

It was bright and early on that late August morning the headmaster of Xavier's had the students and staff gather for announcements. Things had to change at how parts of Xavier's were ran. Gone were the days of it being a home first and school second.

Rachel went to the front of the gathered crowd and used her telepathy to augment her voice so everyone could hear her.

"Good morning, everyone. Today, we officially open the two dorms to student living." She used one hand to gesture to the two large buildings behind the mansion and opposite each other across the width. "The students will spend the day moving out today from the mansion into the boys' and girls' dorms. Some of the roommate assignments have been updated and adjusted as needed. The assignments have been posted in both your current dorms and your new one. If you don't have a roommate at this moment, do not think you've lucked out. We have students returning and new ones enrolling after Labor Day."

She took a breath. "With this move to the dorms, comes a change in how this school proceeds. Under my predecessor, the school had more leeway and could be like a home before an educational institution. Now, with the watchful eyes hoping we fail, we have to move how we do things into a more proper school setting. With that in mind, more rules have been instituted to get us in line with those terms of existence."

She took a small breath. "The cafeteria kitchen is now off-limits to students. Only those with prior permission and reason to be there will be allowed in. It is up to Ms. Blaire's and my discretion on whom that is. Food in the cafeteria will be supplied on a 24 hour basis, but do not expect hot food once the kitchen has been closed down for the night. The cafeteria will start serving hot food at 6 AM and will close down the hot food portion at 8 PM.

"The horses in the stables are not to be fed junk food under any circumstances. Ms. Moonstar informs me the next person who slips them one of those deep fried fruit pies will be cleaning out the stalls with a bucket, a sponge, and no powers. And I agree with her.

"The Shi'ar mainframe in this school needs to have its resources used responsibly. Mr. Ramsey will disable your access to the internet if he catches anyone trying to host things like Warcraft sessions on it."



Girls Roommate Assignments
Bobbi Angelus and Rose Logan
Kayla Conners and Bianna LeBeau
Josephine Blaire-Bennet & TBD

Boys Roommate Assignments
Dolemeck Night and Brody Lees
Topher Summers and Richard Brooks
Ilya Gavrilov and Pete Eastman (& co.)
David Roberts & TBD

Comments

[dolemeck]

Dolemeck gave out a sigh. He was hoping to find a home at the Xavier Institute, somewhere he felt comfortable with his powers. Instead, it felt like it was turning into another private school in England. He was also unhappy to see Kayla and Brianna could room together, and he and Ilya could not.

"Bloody hypocrisy." He thought to himself. And while Brody was fun to hang around, it meant space could be a bit tight in their new dorm. Where was he going to put his sewing machine and fabric? Where was his chair going to go?

Without his powers, moving things from his room into the new one was going to be a challenge. He tried to do it by himself at first, moving some clothes from his old room, into the new dorm. But even that exhausted him. By the time he went to make a second trip, he looked to be on his last legs... err... wheels.

[southern_heavy]

Brody hefted his way into the new shared room with Dolemeck as he went to leave, carrying nearly every possession he owned under his arms or strung over his back. He'd always been used to smaller living arrangements, so it didn't really bother him to move...well, that and a lot of his day to day stuff he kept in the enormous toolbox out in the garage he'd used to stake his claim over one of the work benches.

Placing his wad of clothes and books on the bed and dropping most of the rest at the foot of it, he nodded his head at Dolemeck, "Nice new digs, huh?"

[dolemeck]

"Aye, it is impressive." His voice sounded a bit tired. "Sorry if I am not in the best moods. Trying to learn to do stuff on me own and without me powers has been quite tiring. And yet, it has also been oddly enough rewarding."

[southern_heavy]

Brody nodded, "Hey, if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth much, would it?" He dropped all his other belongings into a disheveled pile on the bed, shrugging at the disorganization. Eh, he'd deal with it later.

[dolemeck]

"Aye, that is somewhat correct." He sighed. "I still cannot believe I got me-self on probation with the school. Now that I look back on my actions... I realize I have been an arse when it came to me powers and wanting to do things I cannot do, yet. Serves me right, but I am still worried what I will have to do to get out of this hole I dug me-self in."

[marvel_boy]

For as long as Topher could remember, the Xavier Institute had always been home. Despite a brief life away from superheroics in California, Topher had always lived at the Institute - even when his parents were off leading X-Factor or one of the other teams they'd been a part of.

It would be difficult to start thinking of this place as anything else, but he understood exactly where Rachel was coming from.

Besides. Change is good. Wasn't that, like, a thing four years ago?

Granted, the fact that he was moving away from the mansion proper, where he'd lived for so long, into the dorms themselves, well, that was new. And probably good. I'll get to be like one of the other kids. Maybe some of them will stop seeing me as being one of the privileged legacy kids. Not that anyone had ever looked down on him for it - at least not to his face - and not that Topher had ever lorded the fact that he was sort of a legacy over the other students, but it was something he'd been very cogent of.

Of most of the students there, he'd had it the easiest, coming from a family that was almost entirely all mutant.

Besides. New faces, new friends. This is good. And at least the roommate is someone who won't cause Animus to come bursting out of me halfway through the night.

They were teenagers. Emotions were going to run rampant - everything from feelings both positive and negative. Still, Topher couldn't deny that there were some students who tended towards the negative spectrum more frequently than not. And that could have ended badly.

He pulled off his green flannel shirt and tied it haphazardly around his waist as he surveyed his new digs.

They were nice. Dorm-y, but in that rich, prep-school way that made everything seem just a touch more luxurious. It's like steel beneath silk, though. Everything was, after all, built to take a beating, considering the nature of the students there. The rooms could withstand bursts of fire, gusts of wind, bolts of electricity, and so much more.

Though a visit from Fin Fang Foom might not go over so well.

He surveyed the boxes on his side of the room - clothes, books, training uniforms, action figures, two guitar cases - and got to unpacking. Moving things over had been easy - super-strength had it's advantages, after all - but the unpacking part. Well, that part was always...Tch. So boring.

Okay. Important stuff like clothes first. Fun things like posters and guitars and Mom's tiara later.

It took him a shorter time than anticipated - maybe an hour and a half, tops - and he grinned as he set down the glass mannequin head with Lorna's first tiara down on his desk, next to his laptop. The thing was old - scratched and battle-worn, dented in places - but it had history. When he was little, Topher used to throw it on, along with his mom's cape or his dad's well-worn leather jacket from their X-Factor days, and he'd run around the house, pretending that he was a superhero on a mission to save the world from evil.

His hand gently brushed over the tiara. Sometimes, dreams do come true.

[eidolon34]

It was a strange thought to think that they would have to move from that rooms that they had become accustomed to, but Richard supposed that change was inevitable for the likes of them. Of course, the idea of there being more changes to come with the move was disconcerting, but he understood that they needed more structure with more students coming it. He had just held hope that the cafeteria wouldn't be one of the places affected.

These were the things that he thought of as he floated all of his belongings through the air, which was the easiest way to move things and not bump into people and cause serious accidents. Making his way to his new room, Richard found his new roommate to already be there, and he thought it was his great fortune to have a roommate that he knew.

"How is it going rooming," he asked as he made his stuff transform from vapor to its natural state on his bed. It was time for the long process of figuring out how to arrange all of his belonging in a new room, and he figured keeping up a conversation might be a good way of speeding that process along.

[marvel_boy]

"Hey!" Topher said. He turned around and watched as Richard's belongs went from being vapor to solid. It was, Topher had to admit, one heck of a nifty power. "Welcome, roomie! I, uh, hope you don't mind? I kind of already chose my side of the room." Thankfully, the room was a spacious one, evenly split down the middle, mirror images in terms of basic layout. Topher undid the green plaid shirt he'd tied around his waist and slipped it on over the thin white v-neck t-shirt he was wearing and looked at Richard's things. "Arranging things. Kind of a pain, isn't it?" He sometimes wished he'd had his mother's powers - magnetism made moving and arranging some things easier, at least. "Need help?"

[eidolon34]

"No worries. One side of the room is as good as another," he stated as he began to figure out how to maximize space so that nothing had to get thrown out and that there was always room for more things to be added. Once he had established how things should go on the shelves in his head, Richard began moving things with his powers so that they lined up perfectly, and it only took a few minutes to get everything settled in.

When he was done, he turned to face Topher with a smile on his face, and Richard felt quite proud of himself. "I was actually going to ask you the same thing."

[marvel_boy]

Topher leaned against his desk and watched Richard quietly. He was more organized than Topher was, in a way. Topher tended to collect and collect and collect so there tended not to be space for more things to be added.

He grinned and indicated the posters on the wall behind him - Dazzler, Nightcat, Lila Cheney, Darla Deering, and a poster for some band called Marvel Boy and the Starjammers. "I'm all done," he said. The bed was also made, the shelves filled with books and knick-knacks. At the foot of Topher's bed were two guitars - an acoustic and an electric.

"I hate making it a process, you know?"

[dark_scion]

Fred wasn't too close to the proceedings, but his enhanced hearing allowed him to pick up everything clearly.

Hmm, not the most convenient of times for me to reside here. I will have to inquire how this will affect my presence here. Hopefully it will not disrupt my work.

[kinetic_assault]

The outing of the school brought unwelcome change, but these things were necessary to keep everyone safe. Brianna had been in out of the mansion throughout her life but it felt like they were leaving, even though they were just moving into the dorms. She'd have to figure out the new room set up and get things ready...and she needed to know who her roommate was.

When she went to the board and checked, she smiled broadly. Kayla was still her roommate.

"Okay, this won't be so bad." the Englishwoman said, smiling brightly.

[fourshelled]

When moving was called for, it was usually the heavy muscle who got to do the lifting. D'Artagnan had neatly put all of Pete's things into provided boxes and then hauled them to the new dorm. He set the boxes around the bed closest to the door. Considering his own night-time proclivities for wandering about when the nights weren't cold, he figured it was the way of things to be less of a bother.

A couple trips later, he sat on the edge of the bed with a contented sigh. He reached around into one of the boxes to grab Young Master Eastman's book on Shakespeare. He could use some light reading while he was in control of the body.

[kid_from_chukotka]

Ilya didn't really have much to move in, and that was more than a bit embarrassing. He'd never been rich, and could be called 'average' for his hometown and most of his life, but to be at the Institute was to not only be around people who had more but people who had much, much more. Although SHIELD had supplied him with clothes and a laptop, those things and three books were all he had.

Moving in was an overstatement. He just walked in, put his bag by the bed farthest from the door and then turned to the monumentally difficult task of trying to introduce himself without being awkward to his new room mate. He hadn't really wanted a room mate, knowing that he'd just bother the guy with his nightmares and flashbacks, but he hadn't wanted to make a fuss with the Headmistress, either. Ilya gingerly sat on the edge of his own bed, looking at his room mate uncertainly.

"Hello," he said softly, not making eye contact as if that would conceal how nervous he felt. "My name is Ilya. It's nice to meet you."

[fourshelled]

D'Artagnan was aware of the nervous and shy young man entering the room. Though the six-foot tall turtle had not looked up from his book until Ilya had passed by him. He let him get settled before quietly closing his book and setting it aside. He took a breath and stood at the greeting.

"Good morrow, young sir," he said jovially as he offered his hand for a-clasping. He didn't even seem to mind the lack of eye contact. "Ilya is it said? Well, you may call me D'Artagnan. Finest swordsman in all of... this Xavier's dorm."

He had been going to say in all this land, but he had boasted that in front of the wrong person. That had been an embarrassing lesson.

[kid_from_chukotka]

Oh, no. Fancy English. Ilya's just barely fluently speaking English, and he hasn't had any problems since he got here, but one thing he's learned is that flowery language loses him. He really doesn't want to come across as massively stupid and ignorant, though he might be, honestly.

He took the other mutant's hand without hesitation, though. He's just this shy naturally, it's not a dislike for anyone. He looks up, curious as to what turtle eyes looked like, and then said, before he could filter it, "I like your eyes."

...oh wow, what a girly thing to say. He winces internally.

[fourshelled]

The man-sized turtle tilted his head and blinked. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Aye, they are most striking are they not?"

Even with his slightly beaky mouth, D'Artagnan managed a smile. "I envy thine hair," he commented before rubbing a hand over his own bald pate. "Mine scalp is as bare as a church on Tuesday."

[wild_child]

Rose didn't truly have a lot of possessions, so her packing up and moving didn't take too terribly much, and left her able to help Bobbi move.

Right now, she was setting up her bookshelf, placing her books on Zen Buddhism and meditation on top shelf, followed by her books on Japanese poetry and epics, and then her motorcycle repair guide.

So freakin' weird not to be in the Mansion proper anymore. That'd been her home long as she could remember. It was full of familiar and comforting scents. Now there was this new building, barely touched, with just a few lingering smells from workmen and construction.

"One door closin' and another openin', eh?" she mused aloud.

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi actually had a system for packing her penguins up and was in the middle of doing so when Rose came back in.

"Have a feeling it's still going to be a blast." Bobbi grinned as she put the last of five boxes in a pile. Her clothes were in the bottom box, and her school books were in her messenger bag, which she slung over her shoulder. "Just glad this move isn't clear across country again. I swear I didn't have this much stuff at the beginning of summer." She stretched. "Hope the 'bot'rents don't send more stuff I don't want to take over our room with all my penguins." She did reach into the top box for a moment though and snagged a roll of stickers. Thinking a moment she peeled one off and stuck it inside the closet. "So the next people using the room know I was here."

[wild_child]

Rose, fortunately, just had a last box to take up.

"Not sure what they're gonna do with this part of the mansion," she said. "Don't exactly get invited ta planning sessions."

She paused, as if remembering something, then opened one of the dresser draws and removed something taped inside. It turned out to be a packet of cigarettes.

"Ya didn't see nothin'."

[iced_cherub]

"Hey, Rachel may be my legal guardian, but I'm kept out of the loop too." She stretched a moment watching Rose.

"See what?" Bobbi grinned innocently as she tossed the stickers into the box and lifted her bag before grabbing two of the boxes. "Like I'd say anything, who else would put up with feathers all over the place when I molt."

[wild_child]

Rose stuffed the cigarettes in her pocket, and hefted her last box, along with Bobbi's other three. It paid to be a bit stronger than you looked.

"Eh, I'm only savin' 'em ta stuff a pillow," she said with a grin.

[seismic_shockwave]

Kayla was very happy to see that her dorm arrangements weren't changing, and the dorms were pretty nice, and clearly built for durability. She had no complaints there. Huge goddamn relief.

She knew, though, that things were going to get busy for her. Which wasn't a bad thing, because she liked being busy. And cooking for a large group of students was going to be an exciting challenge.

Soon, she'd have to go up and get moved in. She didn't have a whole lot to move, truthfully, so it wouldn't take long.

[hellfire_empath]

The fact of the matter was that Brooke was becoming more and more used to change. First you were human, then you were mutant. First your father was in jail for tax fraud, then you found out that he was a figment of your mother's power and that your real father was a powerful telepath in New York. First you thought you were a perfectly functioning member of society, then you found out that you're kind of a sociopath. First you're a single woman, then you're engaged to someone you never expected to walk into your life.

Things happened.

This was another one of those things.

Brooke nodded, once Rachel's announcements were over. The fact of the matter was that she didn't know how, or if, any of these things affected her. After all, Brooke wasn't sure how much longer she was going to be at the Institute. Sure, she would still need training with Emma and Rachel, but as a woman who had recently gotten engaged...

Huh. Changes or not...I might actually miss it here.

Brooke wrinkled her nose. She was going to need to find someone who could help her move her things into the guest quarters. She'd been offered a position as one of the resident advisors - shocking, that - but she had declined. The length of her stay at the school was uncertain, and she didn't want to leave anyone in a lurch when she inevitably got married and got herself a beautiful penthouse in the city.

[dazzle_daybreak]

Josephine stared at the listing, curling up her face slightly. She'd really been hoping for a roommate. Someone she could become best friends with, and stay up late, doing their nails, and talking about boys and music.