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 recent cold front had been a welcome weather pattern as far as Zoe was concerned, and she was very grateful for how things had turned out today - it was sunny and breezy, and just cool enough that no one would pass out from heat exhaustion. Hopefully.

Beneath the blue and gold streamers and balloons, tables had been set up with drinks and food, including an entire table of ~~moddable~~ different ice cream flavors. As always, there was a stack of nametags set down next two signs: one listing the Big Sibling/Little Sibling pairings, and one listing rooms and roommates for the new students.

[OCD is up! Have at it! 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. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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Quinn tweaked her ponytail so it would sit exactly right, squared the nametag on her chest, and started walking around looking for somebody named Kennedy. The name could have been for a boy or a girl, but so could Quinn. She just hoped they'd be cool and popular, or (failing that) at least not annoying.

She might, on some counts, be in for a lot of disappointment there. Maybe.

The girl whose nametag, stuck deliberately askew on the left shoulder of her sleeveless shirt, read Kennedy had her thumbs hooked into her pockets and also happened to be wondering what kind of person the new little sibling (really, Constance, again?) would end up being. Maybe she was about to find out.

"Hey," she said, clearly sizing Quinn up as she approached. "So, you get stuck with me. Congratulations."

She actually did make it sound like it warranted congratulations.

"I should be congratulating you," Quinn said, lightly but with a little jut of her chin. (In truth, she figured whoever got her was lucky.) She was sizing the girl up in return; pretty, and her clothes looked expensive even if they weren't flashy. Between that and the confidence, she was likely worth getting to know.

"So how does this sibling thing work?" she asked, reasonably politely. "You impart your wisdom, I listen graciously?"

"Guess we'll see if you should," Kennedy answered, one eyebrow twitching up slightly. It was a subtle sort of social game she knew from years of boarding schools and social events Westchester style, but one she hadn't really played in a while. Maybe she was a little rusty at it. "Listening graciously isn't a big pastime people have when it comes to me. So what's your deal, Quinn? How'd you end up coming to the island of concentrated wacky anyway?"

Quinn shrugged. "My cheer coach thought I wasn't being sufficiently challenged at home, and my parents agreed," she said. "So here I am."

"I have to say, it doesn't seem all that wacky so far, other than the random British guy from the bus who believes in vampires." She raised an eyebrow conspiratorially. Vampires, right? How insane was that?

"Cheerleader, huh?" Kennedy couldn't keep a tiny bit of oh, one of those out of her voice, even if she was already reflexively grimacing at hearing the words 'British' and 'vampires' in the same sentence. "Yeah, you'll definitely get a lot of challenge here. The kind your coach and your parents have in mind? That might be a little shaky."

But-- sorry, Quinn, and welcome to Fandom-- that wasn't the part that had gotten her interest. "Another one? I wonder if his world has crazy-ass vampires, or the standard kind?"

...welcome to crazy world, Quinn.

"Yeah, don't worry too much about that," she added, reassuringly. "Vampire attacks? Really not a widespread problem around here."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Do you guys all agree ahead of time to be as weird as possible when new people show up? 'Cause it's really kind of lame."

"Someone got the sanitized school brochure then," Kennedy replied, crossing her arms and raising one eyebrow. "Wow, are you ever in for an adjustment period. Hey, I'm trying to cut to the chase here, because Fandom? Totally blowing any standard of weird you have out of the water, so you might as well know what the learning curve is now."

"Lay it on me," Quinn said, folding her arms and trying to look tough and untouchable. "Tell me everything. Blow my mind. But if I find out you're making stuff up, I'm going to be pissed."

Aww, look at her trying to look all tough. That was kind of cute, but Kennedy would be pretty dumb to take it completely for granted considering she didn't look all that threatening herself.

"For starters? Guy on the bus wasn't wrong. Vampires? Real. Magic? Real. People from other planets, or can do things like hear what you're thinking? Totally real too. Crazy-ass mad scientist monsters? Those come around and try to attack the place every now and then. Pretty much the basic rule about Fandom is to check your 'that can't happen' at the door, because here, it probably can, and will." She paused to take a breath and added, dropping a little of the bitchiness, "Look, I'm not messing with you here. Crazy shit happens on this island and the sooner you find that out, the better. Don't get me wrong, I'd do it if I had to, but I'd rather not have to bail your admittedly-kind-of-hot ass out because you were too busy, I don't know, trying to figure out if the giant tomato with teeth was really triyng to eat you."

Quinn's defenses fell away. She couldn't brush this off as lying, or a joke, and it showed.

"So why do people stay if it's so awful?" she asked, but her voice sounded small.

Oh, hell. She'd gone and freaked the poor girl out, hadn't she? Kennedy actually felt bad about it.

"Because it's not," she answered, completely serious now. "I know, I know, it sounds like the world's longest bad acid trip or something, but it's an awesome place. Also, the crazy stuff doesn't happen, like, every day or anything like that."

"But there's magic all the time?" Quinn asked, still uncertain but making more of an effort to stay together. Nobody was going to see her break down. "That's -- I mean, at home there's one girl who says she's a witch. And my boyfriend's friends threw eggs at her house on Halloween."

"All the time," Kennedy confirmed. "Not my thing, but. We have a whole group of magic types. My girlfriend's one of the leaders of that group," she added proudly. "Might not want to mention the egging thing? It won't go down too well here."

"You have a girlfriend?" Give Quinn a second; she wasn't exactly coming from a gay pride hotbed, and the way Kennedy said that so casually was at least as weird as the magic thing.

But, honestly, who Kennedy was sleeping with was not the most important thing just then. "Okay. Place is weird. Believe it, don't think about it," she said. "Check. But -- what can you tell me about the cheer squad?"

"Oh, yeah," Kennedy replied with just a moment of dorky grinning, and she didn't bristle at Quinn's reaction; she'd gotten worse, and in any case she generally worked under the assumption that someone could be a bigoted asshole about it and she probably still had more money than they did anyway, so whatever.

...also punching out her new little sibling might not go over too well. Um. Not that she was anywhere near that point.

"The cheer squad? I know we have one," Kennedy said, scrunching up her face like she actually had to devote some thought to this. "Which is still weird to me, since we don't actually have any sports teams. I don't really check it out much; it's not my thing. But, you know, if it's your thing, that's cool."

Edited 2010-07-04 01:29 (UTC)

"You don't have sports teams?" Yeah, Quinn really didn't get that one -- it was weird enough to sweep away any lingering thoughts about the girlfriend thing. "So what do cool people do for fun here? Y'know, in between fighting giant tomatoes with teeth."

If you squinted, you'd realize Quinn was implying Kennedy was cool, there. Or at least knew what cool people did, which was almost as good.

Kennedy could squint to find that implication, or carry on with her usual slightly-too-obnoxious assumption that she was cool. Wait, she was going to do that anyway.

"Kinda depends on what you're into, I guess." She shrugged. "Some of us think practicing beating up on each other is a good way to pass the time. There's a karaoke bar in town, if karaoke with zombies is your thing, and nobody'll stop you if you want to head out to the mainland to party. Or, you know, throw one."

"I'll pass on the beating people up and the zombies," Quinn said, sounding dispirited. "Maybe I'll throw a party once I know who's worth inviting."

It was a little reflexive, but Kennedy rolled her eyes mildly. "Yeah, have fun figuring that out around here. Fandom'll do the wacky to social circles, too."

"Okay, but there have to be popular kids, right?" Quinn asked. "A high school wouldn't function without that."

The neediness in her voice? That was the sound of a girl who had spent 11 years cultivating chits in a system that she was being told didn't apply.

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

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