fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

Entry tags:

!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

The weather was lovely thanks to the island's new location, and even though it had been less than a week, there was no sign anywhere on the school lawn that part of the land had sunk and collapsed during graduation.

That didn't stop everyone from setting things up away from where the graduates had been seated, of course.

There were tables and chairs and plenty of food and drinks, along with nametags, and three signs: one listing the Big Sibling/Little Sibling pairings, one listing rooms and roommates for the new students, and one listing the cabin assignments.

[~~WAIT FOR THE OCD PLEASE.~~ OCD IS UP. This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here and here, in an effort to keep browsers from breaking for as long as possible.]

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"Getting out of California?" Cal asked. "If my experience is any indication, I gotta agree with him..."

"Being around, you know, 'normal' people my age," Alex said with a shrug.

It was weird how Cal felt he could almost hear the quotations around that word, that strange and unfamiliar concept of 'normal.' He grinned a little, mostly sarcastic, mostly sardonic, and wondered if he should just clap a hand on Alex's shoulder and tell him 'tough luck, Charlie. You're stuck with me.'

"It's overrated," he said instead. "No one's ever really normal, anyway."

Unfortunately, this touched off panic in Alex. "Then how am I supposed to learn to act like normal people so I can go home?"

This was...certainly not the anticipated reaction. "Uhhh..."

Well, though, really, if he thought about it, maybe Alex was lucky. Cal wasn't exactly the epitome of normal, but he had done pretty well in making himself seem much more normal than he really was.

"It's not that hard," he said, trying to reassure the new roommate as his own concerns about having a roommate started to dissipate. He had a feeling Alex would be too caught up in his own thing to notice much of Cal's. "Don't worry; you'll do fine."

"I hope so," Alex said. "I don't want to let anybody down. Uh. I don't always know when I'm being rude, so, I don't know. Tell me."

"You're cool so far, man," Cal assured him with a nod. "I'm more likely to be the rude one. I'm gonna apologize right away for any late nights that might be infused with the sound of a typewriter. I'm Greek. When the muse calls, we have to answer her, and I think mine's usually a insomniac."

"Oh, I can pretty much sleep through anything," Alex assured him. "But what's a typewriter?"

Cal...stared.

He couldn't help it.

Maybe this whole normal thing for Alex would be harder than anticipated.

"...Seriously?"

Alex fidgeted just a little. "What? I--the technology is really different where I'm from. I'm guessing it's something technology-related, anyway. They must not have covered typewriters in class."

"Yeah, it is," Cal said, nodding. "It's, uhh...well, you...type on it. Do you know what typing is?"

"Yes, of course I know what typing is," Alex said indignantly. "You do it on a computer."

"Well," Cal said, a bit defensively in response to the indignation. "Just put it together then. Type. Writer. It's a machine where you write by typing." Cal shrugged. "Self explanatory."

"Why don't you just use a computer with a word processor?" Alex wanted to know.

"'Cause they're too expensive?" Cal submitted, with a slightly confused frown because it seemed kind of obvious to him. "Plus, I mean, you know, it's a vintage Underwood. Really nice, very noir. It's inspiring just sitting in front of it."

Maybe computers were too expensive for civilians, Alex thought, but none of the incoming trainees had ever seemed to have any problems. Of course, that was in 2990. "Right. I'm not very creative, so...I guess I wouldn't know."

"And the clacking sound of the keys as you write?" Cal added. "It's kinda musical and..." He shook his head. "Sorry, I'm a nerd, I guess. I'll show it to you when we're in the room. It's kind of my baby."

Alex could understand that. He kind of felt the same way about his practice sword. "Okay," he said. "Cool." He was kind of proud of himself for using the slang correctly.

Cal just gave a slight grin back. "Cool," he agreed.

He was feeling like he could be okay with this roommate, which was reassuring.

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Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part I

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