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

With all the rain that had blown through earlier in the week, the school administration had been worried that welcome picnic day would be wet and gloomy. Thankfully, it was sunny, warm, and beautiful outside, and everything had been set up just in time for the shuttle of new folks to arrive. There was a buffet table of food and drinks waiting, along with the list of Big and Little Siblings, the list of roommates, and more name tags than they'd probably need for three picnics.

Also, there wasn't a single flower out on the lawn after last weekend. Just saying.

With everything in place, it looked like it was time for the first summer term to begin!

[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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alex put on her nametag and started to walk around, trying not to appear so awkward as she scanned over the different nametags to find the person who was going to be her sibling.

Don't worry about feeling awkward, Alex. Your new big sib was a giant awkward nerd herself. There would be no judging here. This was a judging-free zone!

Kathy had put her own name tag on and was wandering around looking for an 'Alex,' but she was, of course, looking for a boy, rather than a girl.

This was not an awkward-free zone. It never would be, with Kathy involved. But it was going to be much more of one when she finally realized who her new little sibling was.

But until then... "Hey, Alex! Looking for an Alex! Any of you guys named Alex?"

That got Alex's attention, looking in the direction that she heard the voice come in, "I'm Alex," she called out.

Hey look. Alex was a girl. Awesome. Way to sound like an idiot before you even met her, Kathy.

On the other hand, guys was kind of a gender-neutral term, so maybe Alex hadn't noticed? Kathy was going to hope for that, waving and hurrying over to where Alex was standing.

"Hi," she said, giving her new little sibling a friendly smile. "Welcome to Fandom. I'm Kathy, your new big sister--which means I'm mostly here to answer your questions and try to explain stuff about the island to you. Warning, it gets pretty crazy, so you might think I'm trying to haze you or something. That's pretty normal. I'm not, but I won't blame you for thinking so, okay?"

"Hi Kathy," Alex gave a smile back and then paused at the mention of the crazy part, "you mean like some people come from different planets crazy?" someone had just discovered on the shuttle ride over that being from Earth was optional here.

"Exactly that kind of crazy," Kathy said, looking relieved. She probably wouldn't have to worry about not being believed the way she'd been with Joker. "And different times, too. This is 2014, by the way. In case you'd missed that."

That one was new. "2014?" Alex repeated, "it was 1996 when I left,"

That explained the clothes. Not that they were bad! But they were definitely not from the past twenty years or so ~~and oh god now I feel old~~.

"That happens sometimes," Kathy said apologetically. "I mean, we get people from the 19th century and stuff. So you're not as time-displaced as some?"

Which would certainly make Alex feel better. Riiiight.

"I mean, you know what electricity is. And the internet."

Beat.

"You have the internet in 1996, right?"

She certainly hadn't been expecting to wind up at a school roughly 18 years in the future, she wondered if Annie had known that when she had found this place. Actually there were a lot of things she was going to have to ask her sister when she next spoke to her.

"We do have the internet," Alex confirmed, "but not everyone has it, we only just got it installed at home but it's more for my father to use for his work,"

"That's not going to last long," Kathy confided. "Everyone uses the internet now. Like, our phones are tiny internet machines that also happen to let us talk to people."

Something just occurred to her. "Oh my gosh, you still use modems and phone lines! AOL disks! Hotmail!"

Oh, honey, no. Let Kathy introduce you to the wonders of wireless.

...Eventually, she would remember that she needed to explain the rest of Fandom to Alex, too, but a girl had to have priorities.

"Phones have the internet here?"

Yes that was what Alex got from that, actually owning a phone in her own right was still a relatively new concept for her.

"Unless you're using some kind of burner phone, yeah," Kathy said earnestly. "Even dinky little flip phones have the internet nowadays. And there's way more to do on the web now than you had back in the 90s. You can watch TV shows online and download music and play games..."

She wasn't sure what the net was used for back when it first started. IRC chats and ascii porn?

"Wow..." Alex was a little speechless, she was just starting to realize how much she was going to have to catch up on.

It was only 18 years, it couldn't be that hard right?

That was what Wikipedia was for!

...Oh god, Alex didn't know what Wikipedia was. The nineties had truly been a dark and terrifying place.

"Okay, so, umm, there's more I'm supposed to tell you about than just the internet," Kathy said, belatedly realizing she had yet to explain the island itself to Alex. "Are you ready to hear more? Warning, it gets really pretty crazy, but once you can accept time travel, you're pretty much good."

"I think so," Alex said, really after everything she had just learned it couldn't get that much more crazy.

Right...?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2014]