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

[bigdamnprincipal]

Back at home in Maryland, the weather was awful and raining and gross, just like it had been all week. Thankfully, Fandom's current locale was providing the island with much nicer weather to welcome the new students. It was warm, and sunny, and just about everything the administration could ask for on picnic day.

The tables and chairs had been dragged out and set up around the lawn, and there was the usual buffet table of delectable foods, along with the table of nametags and lists to help folks find their siblings and roommates. With everything set up, it was time to welcome the new folks!

[OCD is 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!]

Comments

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna looked pleased, and rubbed her cheek against Velcro's fur. "You're welcome. And his name is Velcro." She held out an arm for him to tumble down, and caught him before he landed in her lap. She checked on the new girl's name-tag and her eyebrows went up. "I'm Hanna. Hanna Heller. And you're - Gratuity?"

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"That's me. Your new roommate, apparently." Velcro was much more acrobatic than Pig. "Hope you didn't have your heart set on a single."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Not at all," Hanna said, smiling, as Velcro sniffed at Gratuity with interest. "I have been alone for half the year, it was boring." And lonely. Especially now that two of her friends had vanished into another world, and could be... dying. (Dead was not an option.) "I shared with a boy before he graduated, I'm glad to have someone else in the room again."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"Oh. Good." Tip let Velcro sniff at her fingers, then slowly moved to scratch behind his ears. Pig liked ear scratches. Sometimes.

It was so weird seeing a non-Pig clone cat. Tip hadn't really thought of how strange it was that her world only had one kind of cat now, until right this moment.

"I once lived in a car with an alien for six weeks, and now we're best friends. So I guess I'm a pretty good roommate."

Honestly, the road trip with J.Lo probably wasn't the best practice for being a roommate she could have had.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna blinked at that, then looked intrigued. "An alien life-form, or someone just not born on Earth?" she inquired. Then, more intrigued, "Why were you living in a car?"

Velcro, meanwhile, was purring up a storm, and scent-marking Tip for all he was worth.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"I'm guessing you've probably never heard of the Boov, either?" Tip asked. "In my -- universe, I guess -- my Earth got invaded by them about three years ago. They decided there wasn't enough room for Boov and humans to live side by side, so they made everyone move to Arizona. I decided to drive, and one of the Boov wanted to tag along." She pulled out her phone to find a picture. "That's us. His name's J.Lo."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"No, I have not, but there are many people here from worlds with things I had never heard of before I arrived here," Hanna admitted. "...not everyone could fit in Arizona, could they?" She studied the picture, and added, "I can not tell if he looks surprised or angry."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"A little bit of both," Tip said. "And curious. It was right after we met." Hence Tip yelling at him over his shoulder. "And it was really only the population of the US that had to move to Arizona. Different countries got their own human preserves, I think. It turns out they moved everyone in Florida to Ontario, actually, but I didn't hear about that until later."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Ahh. And are they still conquering the Earth?" It sounded very complicated and a little harrowing to Hanna. "I'm sorry, my English is good, but I am not sure I have the right words for that. Conquest?" She shook her head. "How old were you when you did that?" Because three years ago, Gratuity would have been-- ten?

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"Eleven," Tip said. "And no, they all left. After we helped them get rid of their enemies they agreed to move to Titan instead. J.Lo decided to stay on Earth, though. He's back home with my mom."

There was a chance they'd managed to kill each other, already.

"And your English really is good," Tip assured her. "And I'm good at figuring out what people mean, too. Mom's first language was Italian. That's kind of how I ended up named 'Gratuity'. And of course, J.Lo only learned English a few years ago."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Fourteen, then. "I'm seventeen," Hanna said, just to get that out of the way. "I've been here a year and a half. It's rather... did your Older Sibling tell you about the invasions?" Was Gratuity going to decide to leave in the middle of the picnic?

"Because usually those are not very bad." She smiled at the mention of J.Lo, and said, "I'm from Finland and my father was German, but I speak a few other languages too. Not anything alien, though. So he is perhaps doing better than I."

Velcro, meantime, was wiggling his furry butt, preparing to jump on Gratuity.

"I like your name-- no, Velcro, don't."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"Yeah, she mentioned them." Tip had done some stomping around and had considered a transfer, yes. "But she also said that she manages to hide away and watch TV instead of dealing with them, so I guess they're not that invasive." She shrugged. "And I don't know, J.Lo's English isn't that good. He kept talking about how if we weren't careful, we were going to explore." She smiled faintly at the memory. "He meant 'explode'. And he calls things 'ridicumulous'."

She held her hand out to Velcro again. "It's okay with me," she assured Hanna. "My mom's cat jumps on us all the time. I like cats."

Cats were one of the most important species on her Earth. Even for all that there was technically only one of them left.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Oh, good." Hanna paused and said, "I have missed most of the invasions too. Either by being in my room, or in the Preserve. Whatever happens usually stays in town, and the dorm seems to be protected. If I see the deer or the fish becoming stranger than usual, I go back." She smiled a little, as Velcro mewed and leapt. "He gets into things. But he's very sweet."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

Tip caught Velcro and let him climb up her arm. Bill, perched on her hair, jumped up in alarm and spewed a handful of bubbles. Which probably wasn't going to help in the "avoid the cat's curiosity and attention" quest. "We might have to train him not to try and eat my robot."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"There are bubbles coming out of your hair," Hanna said in fascination, and then what Gratuity had said caught up with her. "Robot?" A bubble-blowing robot?

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"His name's Bill," Tip confirmed. "The Boov use bubbles for writing. Bill was an advertising robot." Bill floated up higher and swooped in a tight circle, creating a small, complex bubble figure. "I think he likes you."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna held out her hand, enchanted. "Do you think I can learn bubble language?" she asked. Then smiled more widely at her roommate.

They liked each others' pets! Or friends. Hanna wasn't sure if Bill was sentient or not.

But this was a very good start.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

Tip usually went with "semi-sentient". J.Lo said he'd developed his own AI out of sheer boredom, but she wasn't entirely sure that J.Lo meant that the way a human would think of an AI.

"Dunno," she said to Hanna's question. "I'm not very good at it, yet, myself, and J.Lo's been trying to teach me for years."

J.Lo was pretty bad at writing English, too.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"I read and speak other languages, maybe that will help," Hanna said, then took another chip. "Is there anything you want to be sure I know, as your roommate?"

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"I haven't really thought about it," Tip admitted. "Which is kind of dumb, I knew I was going to room with someone. I guess -- I have a toolbox from J.Lo that you should probably know about. I don't think any of it explodes -- or 'explores' -- but it's all alien tech, so." She blinked. "Oh. There are these things in it that look like aspirins. They're not. Don't swallow them."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Oh. Okay." Hanna blinked and nodded, a little overwhelmed, as Velcro started nosing at the chips. "Umm. I run every day, and I listen to music with headphones..." Very boring information, but important. Oh, and, "I have nightmares. And military training. If I thrash in my sleep, you should not attempt to awaken me. Let Velcro walk on my face, that usually wakes me up."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

And now it was Tip's turn to blink. "Got it. No waking you up." She'd rather thought living with J.Lo in a car -- and then living with her mom and J.Lo in a makeshift room in a casino -- had prepared her for anything, but she was quickly realizing that wasn't the case. "And -- you can listen to your music without headphones sometimes too, if you want. I like music."

Rihanna was her favorite, but she'd listen to most anything, really.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna's expression eased as Gratuity accepted what she'd said without further comment, then added somewhat shyly, "I love music. The best store in town is Groovy Tunes; they have instruments as well as CD's. And Jonothan, who works there and sometimes teaches? Is happy to help you find anything you'd like."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[intotheout]

"Very cool," Tip said. "I signed up to take a music class, too. Do you play anything, too? I'd love to learn sometime, but we never had any money for even a rental when I was growing up."

Because she was clearly all done growing up, at 14.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Summer 2016]

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"No. I sing a little." Hanna's face flamed, because she really didn't feel she was any good at it, not yet. "My mother was a singer." The thought of that lost record album still hurt sometimes, when she thought about Needful Things. "But if you don't mind me practicing..."