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

It was a new year, and with the new year came the new spring term, and Fandom High was all set to welcome its new students, along with those just returning from holiday trips home. It was a familiar setting for the latter bunch: there was the requisite bonfire, with tables and chairs scattered around it, as well as the buffet table with ~~moddable~~ warm food and drinks.

And of course, name tags and lists of Big and Little Siblings as well as roommates. Yep, the weather was okay (if snowy) for early January, and Fandom was all ready to celebrate the start of a new term.

[OCD up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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Needless to say, Sparkle had made a breakaway to here from the radio station.

"Did I make it?" He looked around, and then, noting with some relief that the picnic was still in full swing, he stepped up onto a picnic table and yelled out at the top of his lungs, "CELIA? I'M LOOKING FOR A CELIA OVER HERE."

... Sorry, Celia. It was semi-Sparkle-has-a-sibling tradition.

"Here!" Celia shot a gloved hand into the air, flailing it in a wave as she made her way over to the boy who was shouting. And now people would be looking, so she tried to keep her fast-reddening face shielded by her hat until her blush subsided. "I'm Celia. You don't need to shout. Are you...Sparkle?"

They really liked sparkly things here, didn't they?

They loved Sparkly things here! Sparkle could get behind that, if this place wasn't so freaking messed up.

"That'd be me, yeah," Sparkle replied with a knowing smirk as he hopped down off the picnic table again. Aw, this one was a blusher. "Your new sibling. I'm supposed to be like showing you around and junk, telling you where to go if you want to get drinks without being carded, warning you about the local wildlife and weather patterns, and, I dunno, showing you where you can find condoms if you can't find Dite's."

Welcome to Fandom, Celia! Sparkle wasn't being antagonistic, just... enthusiastic. Honest!

Once again, most of that vocabulary was familiar, but jumbled in a way she didn't quite understand. "What does 'carded' mean, and what are condoms?" she asked, once she'd processed what he'd said. Drinks she understood, and of course he would tell her what to expect with the climate -- that only seemed polite.

'Polite' was one word for it, yes.

"Carded, like, when they ask for your identification at bars so they know you're not too young for liquor," Sparkle replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "And oh god, you don't know what condoms are?"

She did look a little out of place, here. He gave her clothing a looking-over.

"Part of me wants to break out a banana and give you like a full how-to demonstration," he noted, cheerfully. "It's birth control. Condoms are birth control."

Not that he thought she'd actually need it.

"Contraceptives?" Celia turned even redder for a moment, as soon as she understood what he was saying. "Oh! I...oh. Usually one has to really search around for someone to provide such a thing, I thought. They're not really openly offered in the shops I frequent, back home."

Celia's knowledge of such things was limited to books that she hid from her father, after all.

Aw, Celia. Sparkle was just going to cross his arms over his chest and lean back against the picnic table with a smirk.

"We have a whole sex shop here that has a bowl of condoms on the front counter for free, because we like students not getting knocked up left and right," he shared. "I work there. And some of the classes around here actually walk students through how to use 'em. I guess everyone figures teenagers are going to be idiots, they might as well be idiots safely."

"Oh." Celia raised her brows, pushing past her embarrassment. "That's quite smart, I think. People will have...trysts regardless of whether they're married or of age or able to raise a child, anyway. Even where I'm from. Having such things readily available would make for quite a healthier population, probably."

She'd spent enough time in cities to know a lot about such things, honestly. Not to mention that she was the result of her father's three-week stop in New York in 1868, when he'd met her mother and then left for Philadelphia.

"So, aside from that, what other sibling knowledge do you have to pass on?" she asked, mustering up her dignity again. She was just now noticing his appearance -- which, like everyone else's, she would not be commenting on. But he certainly was artistic, wasn't he? "I'm an only child, so I really don't know what to expect from any sort of big brother, let alone a school-appointed one."

"Well, if being a sibling here was anything like the real thing, I think mostly it would involve me stealing your stuff and probably a lot of arguing over stupid shit that doesn't matter. 'Moooom, Sparkle's been in the bathroom for a whole hour.'"

Artistic was one word to summarize Sparks, sure.

"Which, hey, if you're into that sort of thing, I can provide," Sparkle shared. "But mostly I think I'm supposed to just make sure you have fair warning of the gremlins, and you know how to, like, flush a toilet and turn on light switches or something. When are you from, anyhow?"

"New York, most recen -- wait, you said 'when,'" Celia said, staring at him. "What do you mean, when? It's...the fourth of January, isn't it?"

Celia was still missing the important part, somehow.

"Yeah, it is," Sparkle agreed, smirking. "What year?"

Trick question! People were always tripped up after the New Year! Right?

Plus, you know, time travel.

"1883. No, 1884, it just changed," Celia said, shaking her head.

The fact that he was asking this was already making her stomach sink and her heart race.

"Now, what year is it here?" she asked, afraid of the answer. Perhaps he was just teasing her. Though it would explain a lot of things....

"2013!" A beat. "No, 2014. It just changed."

So, at least they had that in common?

"Welcome to the future, Celia. Sadly, we don't have hoverboards yet."

"I traveled a hundred and thirty years into the future?" Celia asked, eyes going round. "I -- how? I didn't know that was possible. I just took a train!"

But she'd fallen asleep, and who knew what portals might have been involved during that time?

Did her father know?

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Is everyone here from another time? What year is it for you, at home?"

"It's only a few years ago for me, back home," Sparkle replied with a shrug. "Five years doesn't make much of a difference compared to some of the people around here."

To say the least.

"You get used to it. Or you don't. But most people do, so at least you have a fighting chance."

"That explains the clothes," Celia said, mostly thinking aloud. "And the...airthings. And the lack of horses. And -- oh, how didn't I realize this sooner?" She shook her head, exhaling sharply. "You seem very casual about this. I assume I'll be able to access my own...time just as easily as I got here, right?"

Because otherwise she might just have a panic attack, finally.

"I've been here for about a year and a half now," Sparkle replied with a shrug of his shoulder. "I'm used to it. And, I mean, money aside, I generally don't have trouble getting back to my own Toronto. You see people coming and going all the time, around here."

"Good." Celia visibly relaxed a bit, taking a deep breath. "Sorry. It's been a day of shocks and that one was rather the worst, I think. I have nearly a century and a half of technology and culture to catch up on, it looks like."

She was going to just set that aside for now or she'd completely forget herself and miss the rest of the picnic due to exploring light switches and televisions.

"Um. Is there anything in particular I should know about the school, before classes start? There wasn't a list of things I'd need in the pamphlet, that I saw."

"I guess a notebook and a pen couldn't hurt, depending on the class. What are you taking this semester?"

See? Sparkle could be helpful, on top of all of that 'jarring' that he was radiating, there.

"Um." Celia consulted her schedule, having only barely glanced at it before. "Self Expression, The Occult, H-Handling Your Powers...." She stopped and stared at that for a moment. She'd have to show people what she could do sooner rather than later, it sounded like. "And Coping with Change. I didn't sign up for any of these."

"Damn, no crossover at all," Sparkle replied, wrinkling his nose. "I got fun and games and Hannibal's cooking class this semester, but I'm willing to bet your teachers'll let you know what's up when you go in for your first class, anyhow. The powers one'll probably be in the Danger Shop. Unless it's not. Maybe the Occult one, too."

And was he jealous that his sibling was in a class for powered people? Damn right. But he'd deal.

"What's a Danger Shop?" Celia asked, looking mildly alarmed. "It sounds -- well, dangerous. And probably unnecessary," she added, looking down at the sheet. "I'm already quite...good at control."

"Oh, it's just a... a kind of... shit." How did you explain holographic technology to someone from over a century ago? "Kind of a room that makes tangible illusions? So you can walk in and interact with things that aren't really there. You can't get hurt in it or anything, I dunno why they even call it that. A flair for the dramatic or something, I guess."

"Tangible illusions?" Celia repeated, intrigued. "Hmm. Is it science, or magic?"

It seemed that things here were veering more towards science, which worried her.

"Pretty sure it's all digital," Sparkle replied. "But it's no science I'm familiar with. Probably something from the future, or space, or something like that. I never asked."

A beat.

"You're catching on to what the right questions are fast, though."

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

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