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

[bigdamnprincipal]

In order to give people a place to get away from the traffic jam of the buffet and information tables, most of the chairs and tables had been set up further out on the lawn, away from the school building. The bonfires were going strong, and there was plenty of room for everyone to sit down and enjoy themselves. Assuming they weren't too busy still trying to figure this place out.

[OCD is up! This is the FIRST post for general mingling. Please use this post first, if your browser can handle the comment load. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here and there's more room for mingling here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"It would have been better if they had," Emma mused. "The monster nobody wanted to love, given to a baby who would grow up to love everyone. At the very least, he would have gained a very dedicated bodyguard."

Frankenstein was one of Emma's favorite books, and someone emphasized quite a bit with the monster.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"Maybe," Ender granted, as he shelved, yes, the thought that she emphasized quite a lot with the monster into the neat little folder in the back of his head marked 'Emma'. "But the old Christians were bigger on symbolism than they were on classic movie monsters. Unfortunately for him, he was also born in the wrong century."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"Temporal details," Emma sniffed, smirking slightly. "For all we know, he's going to be born next week, and will spend those undocumented years taking classes here in Fandom."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

Don't say that so loud, Card's listening.

"But I think that already skips over the 'giving a baby to Frankenstein' part of your idea," he said, then gave it a little wave to indicate he knew he was just arguing semantics. "But, I don't know. Say what you want about this place, I think even Frankenstein would find someone who'd want to love him -- possibly to death, and possibly against his wishes, but still."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

CARD! I have a few Words to have with you. One - Ender in Exile characterizations, WTF. Two - Not. Straight.

And that was getting filed in the mental folder marked 'Wiggin, Ender.' "I think we all end up getting things we didn't bargain for," she replied. "And now that I've said that, Frankenstein's monster will be a student next term."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"It might be interesting, though, wouldn't it?" Ender said, and he didn't sound like he was mocking the idea. "To have Frankenstein's monster here with us, coping with the little idiosyncracies of life, learning how to communicate without fear of reprisal."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"And there we have the next great allegory for the failure of the American Dream, and humanity's attempts to stagger along anyway," Emma quipped. "It sounds like the sort of class Miss Perrault would love to teach."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"Mm. But when you start teaching classes on people like that, they cease to be really people. I just think it almost sounds... nice," he said, "All the trappings and self-delusions of Fandom aside."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"You're talking about someone who's a pure innocent - or a former one - getting a second chance at life," she said, giving him a sideways glance. "While there's plenty of broken people, I don't know if any of them were ever completely innocent on the level of Frankenstein's monster. I think that takes a kind of purity that most of us lost simply by being human."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

If there were any empaths nearby, they might have picked up on the quiet sadness that fell on Ender then, and with it, a hint of his vast ocean of self-loathing. But Ben and Karla weren't anywhere near, at the moment, and so he at least didn't repress that.

What he did repress, beyond a fleeting flash of a memory, was the faces of two dead boys, and the giant question mark that came before them. "Maybe, or maybe not," he said, quietly. "I think on some level we'd all like to believe we're pure in one way or another. And that most sins are excusable."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"Who says most of them aren't excusable?" she asked. "You don't have to be pure to have a good reason for doing something. I know I've done more than a few questionable things - sins, if you will - but I'm rather secure in the fact that most people would forgive me many of the things I've done."

"Not all, perhaps, but enough for me to be able to excuse myself."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"No, but it raises the question: do you have to be pure of sin to be pure? Or just pure of motive?" he wondered. "Purity and innocence, I think, are dangerous ideas to tangle with, and generally misappropriated under whatever banner thinks they'll suit their ideals best. Is there some ideal purity our construct of Frankenstein should resemble? Maybe even innocence is flawed."

He blew out a breath. "Maybe only children know. I don't know."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"Motive," Emma decided. "I personally feel that a lot of it comes down to motive in the end, and what it is that you consider a sin in the first place."

She gave a little shrug. "Maybe you're right and innocence itself is flawed. I don't think it's something you loose at all once, though. More like weathered away bit-by-bit until you've been turned into the person you are."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"I think there are some things that can probably make you lose it all at once," Ender said, glancing at her. "But most people don't have to deal with that, thankfully."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"I don't know." Emma just shrugged "Something that huge, to lose it all at once? Most people would snap under something like that and toss themselves off the nearest bridge."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"Don't underestimate the resilience of the human mind," he said, with certainty in his voice. He was thinking, again, of Dink, and that remark that had been sticking with him for the past few weeks, about not being children at all, about children not commanding armies, about it being too much for anyone to take and not go crazy.

He wondered if they all lost their innocence, the moment they came to Battle School. Or if that came later.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[icecoldfrost]

"Telepath, Wiggin," she replied dryly. "I've known what the human - and mutant - mind is capable of since I manifested."

"The mind itself is a beautiful, complex creature. But there so many people out there who aren't brave enough - or maybe stubborn enough - to utilize the potential. Instead of rising to the challenge, they break."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2011]

[endsthegame]

"Having all the information doesn't always mean you're piecing together the context correctly," Ender said, lightly. "Take young Tony Stark, for example. He's new, alone, and uneducated, at least in the ways of Fandom. He has absolutely no idea of what he's walking into. He's terrified, he's groping around for any handhold that might help him put this place into some frame of reference."

He lifted his head at the boy in question. "So tell me, how is he utilizing his potential? I'm getting the general idea you already passed your own judgement on that."