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

[bigdamnprincipal]

Were you a veteran Fandom resident? Did you finish getting your brain broken by your sibling and/or buddy? Did you just want to sit down to recover from the shuttle ride? If so, then there were plenty of tables and chairs set up across the lawn just waiting to be filled!

[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!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Evie hadn't heard anything about a dress code for Fandom, so she'd chosen her 'first day of school' outfit the same way she would as if she were still attending Sterling. Sure, she'd been convinced that most of the people here had maybe a nodding acquaintance with sanity at best (and that belief had only been reinforced by most of her conversations so far), but surely there had to be a few people here who could at least pass for normal for the duration of a conversation?

...Anybody?

In the olden days, knights had armor. Evie had a Chloé baby-blue sleeveless dress with the hem no more than four regulation inches above her knees, a pair of black Miu Miu ankle-wrap heels, a Patek Phillippe wristwatch, and her old diamond earrings, which felt both familiar and strange back in her ears after three months without them in the CLC. It didn't matter if there wasn't a single person on this island who would recognize designer clothing or even the names on the tags. She felt like she could handle anything wearing this.

Right now, though, she was trying to handle lunch. How had they managed to get real, proper, Southern barbeque this far north? And how was she supposed to eat it and not get sauce all over her namebrand everything?

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"Are those Miu Miu?" Hi, Minako was Japanese, not fashion-blind, and was openly admiring the New Girl's shoes. "I mean, I'd break my neck trying to wear those on grass but they look great on you."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

And in one sentence, Minako had become Evie's favorite person on the island.

"Yes!" she said, sounding surprised. And thrilled. "And thank you! I grew up on a plantation, so walking around on grass isn't all that new to me."

Maybe it was all the ballet or gymnastics or whatever, but Evie had never, ever had a problem getting tangled up in grass, even in the highest of heels.

"Coming here kind of got sprung on me last minute, so my mom tried to mitigate the guilt with clothes shopping, you know?" Evie smiled at the other girl. "Hi there, I'm Evie Greene. Nice to meet you."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"Oh maaaaaaaan, my mother would never try to bribe me with clothes. Not unless I, like, finally got an 'A' in something other than gym," Minako complained.

"Oh, uh, I'm Aino Minako - er, Minako Aino, since you're American. I mean, I totally just answer to Minako, my English is fine I just talk a lot," she continued, all in one breath while juggling her giant plate of food so she could stick out a hand to Evie. "Tokyo, normally, but gonna be a senior here."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Okay, this was an international school for the crazy, it seemed. Not that Evie knew of many blonde-and-blue Japanese girls. But maybe Minako had just grown up in Japan?

Actually, Evie didn't even care. She could handle Minako saying she was from Japan--she wasn't claiming it was Japan from two hundred years ago or some kind of parallel Japan from another world. Minako was pretty and normal and liked clothes. Evie could work with that.

"I'm from Louisiana, but I'm just gonna be a junior," she said. "And until yesterday I was in Atlanta with nothing more than the clothes on my back Not even a spare bra or something. So we had to go clothes shopping and Mom splurged a little to make up for me leaving all my stuff behind in Sterling."

Like her friends, her home, stuff like that.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"Ugh, that sucks," Minako sympathized. "If you realize she forgot something, we'll totally go into town and do some shopping. My friend works at the clothing store, and might let us abuse his discount if we ask super-nicely."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Not after he saw the watch on her wrist, he wouldn't!

"I can ask nicely if it results in a super-discount!" Evie said, though she privately wondered just what kind of selection a tiny island like this could have for clothing. Unless she meant into Baltimore? Or even DC?

"Like, do you have to get day passes to do something like that?" she asked, getting a little excited at the thought. "Can you just ask for them or do they have to be, like, earned with good behavior or something?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"To go into town?" Minako asked, wrinkling her nose. "No, you just go, whenever. I mean, you might tell your roommate, in case someone comes looking for you? But that's what cell phones and texting are for."

"If you want to go to the mainland, you just walk over the Causeway and get a taxi at the other end. I don't know if there's rules for overnights or anything? I've only done day trips."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

That was a lot more freedom than Evie was expecting! Back in CLC, she's only been able to text twice a month on specific days. Here, it sounded like she'd have free access to her phone, the town, and possibly even Baltimore.

The more she learned about this place, the more confused she grew. The people were even more insane than she'd been led to expect, but the facilities were far less strict.

"So, besides shopping, what is there to do around here?" she asked, since Minako seemed willing to share useful information, unlike her 'big sister' who wanted to tell her about aliens and stuff.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"So, have you heard enough weird stuff that you're willing to believe me yet?" Johnny asked

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Evie's mouth thinned. "I've seen enough to realize that everyone here needs more help than I do," she retorted.

She hadn't seen the pink pony yet or the actual alien, so everything she'd seen thus far was purely explicable weirdness.

Well, explicable if you started at the mindset that everyone here was at least a little bit certifiable. Which Evie did.

"Why is this where you offer to saw me in half to prove that you really are magic or whatever?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"It's not magic. Just science that's way over my head," Johnny said. "And, yeah, pretty much. Flame on!"

Oh hey, look at him bursting into flame as he stood there. "Any questions?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

There was a kid on fire directly in front of her. A kid. Her age. On fire.

No time to wonder if this was another hallucination. There was literally only one thing to do and Evie did it: she shrieked like, oh, someone was on fire and flung the rest of her water at his head.

"OH MY GOD, SOMEONE HELP ME THIS KID IS ON FIRE!"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

That water didn't do much except make him look annoyed. And create steam. "Flame off," Johnny sighed. He wasn't on fire anymore! Also, his clothes had burned off, leaving him in his FF impact suit. It was basically a blue, sleeveless bodysuit. "I can control it. That's what I do."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Evie blinked at him. And then blinked again. Once more for good measure...

Nope. He was still there. Still intact, except for his clothing. Nice arms in that bodysuit--focus, Evie!

Great. Now she was going to have to start reevaluating whether or not shared delusions were a thing. Because there was no way she could have seen what she'd thought she'd just seen, because he had literally been on fire. And now he was standing there, looking annoyed like, she'd been the one to do something crazy.

"That's not possible," she told him. "What did you--how did you--is this some kind of elaborate joke? A hazing ritual? Is there a candid camera somewhere, filming all of this?"

Great. Out of the CLC for not even twenty-four hours and the delusions were back. Maybe Dr. Tanner had been right.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Flame on," Johnny sighed. As he burst into flames again, he lifted off the ground and ended up sitting cross legged about five feet up.

"There was a ridiculously complicated science experiment, it went wrong, I ended up becoming even more awesome than I already was, which I thought was impossible. But every now and then you find out that you're wrong."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Funny how none of this seemed to be reassuring Evie in the least.

"Reject the delusion," she murmured, closing her eyes and trying to block out every sensory detail related to the hallucination--the crackle of the flames, the heat on her skin, the brightness against her eyelids. "This is not real, it is not happening. Boys can't float and they can't carry on normal conversations while being on fire. What you're seeing is not actually there. Reject the delusion, embrace reality. Reject the delusion, embrace reality."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[myownface]

"Chloé! And oh my stars that watch!"

Yeah, Sparkle had a fashion radar. It was built in. He dressed as though he'd just fished hand-me-downs from a dumpster, but that was his style. He'd thank people to appreciate that.

"Oh my god I don't think I've ever seen a Patek Phillippe in the wild. I have lived in houses worth less than that watch. Look at it look at it."

She'd probably seen the watch before, Sparks.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

Evie did glance down at her watch, but only because she wanted to double-check which watch she was wearing today. Right, the black one, to go with her outfit.

Duh.

"Thanks," she said, giving him a grateful smile. Yes, he looked like the dumpster-diver mentioned in his narration, but he appreciated fashion and it seemed unlikely he'd be lighting himself on fire while he talked to her. That made Sparkle one of the best people on the island, according to Evie. "I have another one in pink, but it's harder to match with my outfits, you know?"

Even if he didn't know, he looked like he would understand.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[myownface]

Jesus fucking Christ this girl's wrist was worth more than all of the food he had eaten in his life. But she wasn't, like, looking down her nose at him or calling him names, so the disgustingly filthy rich girl was probably okay, maybe.

"Yeah, it's hard to coordinate with pink. Especially the blue like that. You'd have to dress neutral rather than accessorizing that way, that makes all the difference."

He was pretty sure dressing to match the watch would be way less expensive, though.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

...But then she wouldn't have had two watches! Keep up Sparkle!

"Well, I wear a lot of pink, so it's not as hard to coordinate as one might think, but, yeah, not exclusively." Which was why she'd gotten this one in black. "I have other watches at home, but I didn't have a chance to pack before getting shipped off here, so I was able to convince my mom to let me get these instead."

She gave Sparkle a conspiratorial smile. "The trick was to buy the pink one first and then point out that I couldn't wear it with everything."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[myownface]

Sparkle was taking mental notes, here. Like, 'how to unabashedly act like a spoiled rich kid' for 100, Bob.

Who knows? Maybe it could come in useful someday. Of course, his takeaway so far was 'Mom didn't want her around for some reason,' so... Maybe not.

"Well, you have to be careful what pinks you're matching with what pinks," Sparkle reasoned. "It's not like bubblegum goes well with neon. But they all look good with black."

Basic colour theory, aw yeah.

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

The reason was crazy, Sparkle. Wasn't that why they were all here?

"Truth," Evie said, then held out her hand. Not so he could admire the watch again, but to shake. "Hi. I'm Evie Greene, new kid from Sterling, Louisiana. And you?"

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[myownface]

Well, she wasn't acting weird about touching a member of the proletariat class, so that was a point in her favour, at least. Sparkle grinned a little and gave her hand a firm shake.

"Sparkle. Old kid from Toronto, Ontario. So, you know, from that other weird place that sometimes speaks French that would make a Parisian curl up and die crying. Especially since there's Acadian smeared all over my Quebecois."

He blamed Lewis.

He was also barreling onward because that was usually a good way to get people to not accuse him of either making up his crazy name, or lying about it. He lied about lots of things! But he only lied about his name on fake I.D.s.

"So, what part of the brochure got you shoved here? The unparalleled curriculum? The weather? All the smiling faces? They didn't have to hire models to pose like that, you know? Like, the student body actually looks like that."

Re: General Mingling [Fall 2014]

[poison-princess.livejournal.com]

"I take it the faculty hands out the good drugs on picture day," Evie muttered sourly. "Or is that how they can let everyone wander around so freely? If we're all blissed out on meds, they probably don't have to worry about what we're up to."