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

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!event: welcome picnic

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

Throughout the lawn, tables and chairs had been set up and scattered, some out in the bright, sunny center of everything, and some in the darker, more remote areas.

Eat up, folks! Don't let that food go to waste!

[OCD up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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Oh sure the food looked good, and hundreds if not thousands of students had gorged themselves in previous picnics without ill results but that meant nothing to Barry.

Which is why he had a wireless probe in the potato salad and was analyzing the results on his tablet device.

... right, that was odd.

"What exactly are you doing to the potato salad?"

"Making sure there's not some interdimensional strain of bacteria that's going to kill me or give me the shits," Barry said casually. "I'm sure it's good and all but better safe than sorry."

Okay, it was a relief that he was checking for something off, and not, say, trying to implant a strain of interdimensional bacteria into the potato salad.

"Observation would be less invasive than gadgetry," she said. "Watch people eat the potato salad, and take note if any of them keel over. Though you should watch for other common elements, like if they all had the same cookies, and eliminate that possibility."

Science!

"Yeah but signs of illness or food poisoning can take up to 48 hours to take effect," Barry replied genially. "And I'm hungry now. I'm Barry by the way."

"Eleanor," she said. "You could have taken some potato salad onto your plate and run tests from there. That would prevent your metal gadget from possibly introducing new bacteria into potato salad other people would like to eat."

"Yeah and my instruments are sterile," Barry said rolling his eyes. "otherwise it would throw off my results."

"Define 'sterile,'" Eleanor said impishly. "There are non-humans here. What's sterile for us might not be for them."

"Sterile as in no fucking bacteria or viruses or any kind of non reactive organism," Barry said shaking his head in amusement as he pulled the probe from the salad. "Man, I know what I'm doing, stop busting my balls."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2014]

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"We, the inhabitants of this strange land know that substance as, quote, 'potato salad'," Joker pontificated. "It is composed of carbohydrates, lipids, and various other organic compounds arranged for maximum deliciousness. Although not this particular batch -- there's too much relish in it."

"We'll I know what it fucking is," Barry said jokingly, "I just want to make sure there's no fucking interdimensional microbe that's going to give me intergalactic shits."

"Well, it is potato salad," Joker pointed out. "There are decent odds on those shits, either way. And the microbes are likely to be just like the ones in your own dimension, unless you're from one of the weirder ones. Are you from one of the weirder ones?"

"I'm the only thing weird from my dimension," Barry snarked. "I'm Barry by the way."

"Well, hiya, Barry. My name's Joker, and I'm from outer space. But if you think you're the only weird thing from your dimension, you've clearly never heard of a mantis shrimp."

"It's a colorful stomatopod, what's so fucking weird about them?" Barry asked. "When I was ten I turned my best friend into a dinosaur. That's fucking weird."

"So, you are from one of the weirder dimensions," Joker countered. "Where I'm from, that's not physically possible. And we've got interstellar travel."

"Yeah well, what's weird in one place is probably milder in others. I don't think the rest of my planet could handle dimensional travel as a concept but I can. "

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2014]

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Re: General Mingling [Summer 2014]

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Kathy had been about to grab a spoonful of that potato salad. "...Is there something in that potato salad I should know about?" she asked, giving it (and the new kid) a bit of a side eye.

"Too much relish," Barry said with a nod of satisfaction, "but good for universal consumption."

"Good to know," Kathy said cautiously. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that's something more than a relish-detection machine?"

Because that's what eyes were for. And tastebuds.

Still, a newbie probing the potato salad wasn't the weirdest thing she'd seen on the island, so she was going to help herself to the salad. Though a little away from where he'd been poking it.

"It justs checks for bacteria or viruses . Someone else said something about the relish, " Barry joked. "I'm Barry. Paranoid new student."

She held her hand out. "Kathy. Not-fast-enough-on-her-feet-to-come-up-with-a-cute-descriptor old student."

Heh. There was kind of a pun in there, considering her newly-developed powers, but that wasn't something you just brought up in random conversation. Especially not with people who probed potato salad for funsies.

"Welcome to Fandom. You look a lot less shell-shocked than most of the newbies, so good on you for that much."

"Well I heard that this place was fucked up in a strange way and I don't freak out too easily," Barry said with a shrug. "How long have you been here?"

"You might be one of the first people ever to believe their big sib's warnings from the get-go," Kathy said, assuming that's what he meant. "Or did you have a friend who came here before you and warned you all about it?"

She knew a couple of people had friends and family who came to the island and thought it was a good idea to stay. Kathy didn't entirely get that mentality. She wasn't sure what she'd do if Sarah said she wanted to come and visit Fandom, never mind if she decided to stay.

"It'll be a year in July. Long enough to think I've seen all the craziness the island can throw, but not long enough for that to actually be true."

"I caught and listened to one of your podcasts when I was in my own dimension. Didn't hear much but from the sound of it this place sounded pretty fucking strange."