fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning [05/04].

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning [05/04].

"What the ever-loving fuck is a Portalocity Lounge?"

Apparently, it was precisely the place where Wayne was standing, squared shoulders, thumbs in his belt loops, frowning up at the softest, most sparkliest banner he had ever seen...and he'd een to at least a baker's dozen of Dary's traditional soft birthday parties, so he knew a soft fucking banner when he saw one.

"That," he stated, to no one in particular, especially since he seemed to be the first one there (if you're not five minutes early, you're five minutes late, bud), "is fucking 10-ply."

But it was what it was. No going back now, ain't no reason to get excited, he supposed. Pitter-patter. So he turned his head sharply to one side of the lounge, eyed the chairs against the wall, and went to have a seat, one hand on his knee, tohe other around the smallest cup of coffee he could get, and settled in to wait.

[[ and the ocd ~~is incoming~~ has landed! Let's get at 'er. ]]

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Karolina was worried about Beau, and about some of the students and how this past week had affected them. But new kids were coming in today, and they hadn't yet been traumatised by vampires. And also she didn't want to crowd Beau with her fussing. So. Here she was!

And since Anakin was taking care of the more order-y bellowing, Karolina could instead beam and call out, "Come get your welcome packets!"

Because yes, she had paper bags for each of the students. Inside, they'd find a map of the island, a chocolate bar (Fair Trade, of course), and a $5 gift card to the Perk. And also a little card that said Karolina, Fandom High guidance counselor along with her contact info.

Also, it might've looked like the summery pastels of her outfit were a deliberate counterpoint to what Anakin was wearing. But, nah, that was just how she dressed.

Delirium skipped over to pick up her welcome packet. She opened it right then and there because presents were the best ever, ok?? She took a bite of the chocolate bar, then curiously took a bite of the map and the gift card and the business card. Those were less tasty but she read the business card anyway.

"Oh!" she gasped in delight, "You're like Barnabas! Barnabas! This is a guidance counselor!"

"I am not," Barnabas said with dignity, "a guide dog. I am a service dog."

"You provide guidance sometimes," Delirium said, "When I'm all lost and need help finding my way to a somewhere from a nowhere. This is a counselor who does that so this is a person type of Barnabas."

Karolina almost pointed out only the chocolate was really meant for biting into, but then decided not to. It could've been a cultural thing and she didn't want to be rude - and anyway, as far as ways of interacting with the world went, it wasn't the worst she'd seen.

The talking dog didn't seem to faze her much. Chalk that up to her lengthy history with Fandom. "I suppose so," she agreed with only a touch of hesitation. She offered Barnabas a nod of greeting. "Hello, Barnabas." Then, to Delirium, "And hello and welcome to Fandom to you too! And you are ...?"

She'd looked at the list Anakin had, sure, and so she had a guess. But she always felt weird about going places and having people know her name in advance, so she didn't really want to do that to others.

"Hello," Barnabas said in a stately, dignified voice, "This is the Lady Delirium."

"Right now I'm a girl person," Delirium said after she'd thought quite seriously about the question, "and a student. Or I will be a student once we're at the school so right now I'm kind of Schroedinger's Student where I am but I'm not but I probably will be soon." More thinking. "Am I still a student when I'm butterflies? Sometimes I like to be butterflies. Today might be a butterfly day. I'm feeling a little fluttery inside."

Karolina's head tilted a little. "Is that metaphorical, or..?"

Sorry, she really couldn't help asking.

"I mean," she added, after a pause, "if it's not metaphorical, you won't be expected to go to class when you're butterflies." She sounded kind of joking, but also kind of not. Because, Fandom.

Barnabas caught Karolina's eye and shook his head slowly. It was not, unfortunately, metaphorical. "Butterflies, fish, frogs.. Once she was glitter and we were finding bits of her all over for months. If it hadn't all turned back into her, we'd be finding bits of her still."

Delirium was distracted by something for a moment and promptly forgot what she'd been asking. But she remembered something else. "Thank you for the papers and stuff."

"She's not the only one that happens to, on Fandom," Karolina told Barnabas. With maybe a hint of wryness, if you paid really close attention. "She'll fit in just fine."

More or less.

But Karolina was still smiling. "All my info's on the card, so if you have any questions, you can always give me a call or come by the office. Welcome to Fandom."

A few weeks ago, Billy might have just immediately rolled his eyes at the welcome packets and this whole setup, honestly. Too many foster homes where the warm welcome had been an act would have that effect.

But now? It just made him think of Darla and the glittery Welcome Home poster she had made for him on his first night at the Vasquezes' house, and he smiled as he headed over. He'd been a jerk about it then, and he felt like he had to make up for it somehow.

"Thanks," he said, failing at not lighting up at the sight of the chocolate.

That was exactly the chocolate's intended effec, and so Karolina was super pleased.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling brightly. It was sort of her thing. "I'm Karolina. Welcome to Fandom."

"Billy," he replied, already unwrapping the chocolate bar because he was an adolescent boy. "Are we really going to need a map?"

Karolina shrugged a little. "If you have a really good sense of direction, which I don't --" Though she could always cheat and fly above buildings to get a better sense of the big picture, but that was neither here nor there. "-- then maybe not. But it's an old island with buildings packed tightly together, so I've found a map can help before you get familiar with it."

Guess who else was going to cheat and get the aerial view? And possibly make people wonder if there was a storm coming in, but anyway.

"That's a really good point," Billy conceded. "I just don't get how I've never heard of this island before."

"Did you come from somewhere close-by?" Karolina wondered. "Because, I hadn't heard of this place either, before I came here as a student, but I think that's because I came from across the country, and it's a really small island."

Unremarkable, even. If not for all the weirdness.

"Well, I was born in --" and his face fell, a little bit, just for a moment when he thought about his birth parents -- "Michigan, apparently, but I've spent most of my life in Pennsylvania. I'm basically from Philadelphia." The years he'd spent doing the grand tour of the Pittsburgh foster system didn't really count as far as where he felt like he came from.

Billy shook his head.

"It's not that far away, you'd think I'd have heard something about it before. I don't even think I've seen it before flying along the coast." Not in a plane, but shh.

You know, Karolina wasn't even making an assumption about whether it was in a plane or otherwise?

Funny, that.

"It's kind of a weird place," she said, in an understatement fit for a newbie's ears, her head tilting to the side as she realized she should maybe have thought up some strategies for talking to the new kids about the island. "... Okay, really weird. In a way that makes it more likely you haven't heard of it before."

"I kind of got the impression I wasn't in my own world any more," admitted Billy, and on a meta level of which he might probably never be aware this conversation would prove that pretty definitively. "And I sort of heard some stuff before I got here about how it might be kind of weird?"

Not the part where it could be useful for a teenage superhero in training. That part wasn't weird at all.

". . . I just didn't really get a whole lot of specifics on how."

Re: Trip to Fandom - [05/4].

solarhippie - 2019-05-04 22:59 (UTC) - Expand

This was way less worrying than black leather and robes!

"Thanks, this looks super helpful," Janet said gratefully, even before looking to see what was in it.

Any amount of welcome helped here.

While it hadn't been deliberate, the longer Karolina stayed within close proximity to Anakin, the more she realized she probably looked really normal to most of the new students.

She was pretty glad she'd opted not to float and glow for this trip.

"There's a map of the island," she said helpfully, smiling at the girl. "Hi, I'm Karolina. I'm the guidance counselor at your new school."

Edited 2019-05-03 22:09 (UTC)

"Good to meet you, Ms..."

And then Janet stopped, because years of her upbringing meant she absolutely could not call her guidance counselor Karolina.

"Dean," Karolina supplied easily, even if she was shaking her head a little right afterwards. "But just Karolina is fine, really."

She was much more used to hearing 'Ms. Dean' from people who were trying to exert authority over her than from people who considered her an authority figure.

"Good to meet you, Ms. Dean," Janet said, honestly a little surprised that that made her feel a little better right now. "I'm Janet Kim. I'm one of the new students. I mean, obviously. You probably know the old ones by now. And we're at an airport."

Shhh, sweetie.

Karolina smiled warmly at her, if not without a tiny hint of amusement. It was pretty obviously not mean-spirited, though. "Well, you might also have been someone who's not even going to Fandom and got confused," she pointed out. "And now we've established you're exactly in the right place. Nice to mee you, Janet."

Wayne figured it worked out well to have the other students get their welcome packets while he finished up a dart. Once it seemed everyone else had gone and got theirs, he flicked the cigarette away, grabbed his bags, and headed over to collect his with a stern but grateful sort of nod of appreciation.

Karolina was going to be the opposite of stern. Contain your shock, everyone.

"Hi!" she said, smiling brightly as she handed him the packet. "Welcome to Fandom High. I'm Karolina, the counselor. And you are?"

Well, Wayne could say one thing about his experience with this school so far, and that was that there was certainly no lack in diversity of personalities. The chipperness here might have made his squint go a little more squinty, sure, but he supposed it was only to be expected out of...a counselor.

"Wayne," he offered brusquely, taking the bag with one hand while holding out the other to her, might as well do this greeting thing right. "How are ya now?"

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