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

[bigdamnprincipal]

So this week had been... less than great overall, but everyone in town was okay again (as okay as they ever were, at least) and now there were new people to welcome to the island! Thankfully, the weather was warm and sunny, perfect for anyone who wanted to take part in some shirtless shenanigans, and the front lawn of the school was all set up for yet another tasty picnic. There were tables of blank name tags, lists of information, and enough food to probably feed two Fandoms. Time to be welcoming!

[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 Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"I object to the word 'kid'," Owen said, swinging about with a big grin that was only a teensy bit meant to hide his complete bewilderment. "As even at this tender age, I'm clearly a strapping example of manhood. But I am admittedly 'new', yes, so you're about... seventy-five percent right?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Alright, then," Prompto snorted at that, chuckling, thinking it felt good to just sort of do that, and thank the gods for welcome picnics, damn, "does this new strapping example of manhood which stands before us," complete with a gesture of his arm and a nod of his head that felt appropriate for bestowing such a title, "have a name?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Ah, Owen," Owen said, his eyes dropping briefly to Prompto's nametag, "Owen Corley. Prompto, is it? Would you mind... filling a man in on where he is?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Whoa! What were the odds??

"I absolutely can fill a man in on where he is," Prompto's grin brightened excitedly, "because that's exactly what my job is. And, yes, it's Prompto, Prompto Argentum, and I'm actually assigned to you to be your Big Sibling. That's, like, your Fandom Guide for Newbies, because this place takes some getting use to, but, don't worry, it's actually really awesome."

Most of the time.

He'll get to that stuff.

"So there's your first one," he continued. "This is Fandom High, it's, like, this multidimensional, multiuniversal high school for a bunch of....strapping examples of personhood for all over the place, like different planets and time periods and things like that. I'm guuuesssing since you asked that, that you're one of the ones who might not necessarily have known you were coming?"

Man. He'd gotten so much better at this than the last time around. But, to be fair, the last time around, he got Entrapta, and Entrapta was...very distracting.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Not a bloody clue," Owen said, as he attempted to make sense of that in the back of his head. He didn't quite manage it, though he had noticed that the Anthem felt... diffuse. Far away. Not that he'd ever heard it, heard it, but it was usually like-- true north on a compass, or something.

... He needed to stop thinking about it.

"Last thing I knew, I fell asleep on a pretty uncomfortable strider. Next thing I knew, I found myself tossed out onto the road." Beat. "To be fair, I did ask for a one-way ticket to adventure, so I suppose I got my wish." Another beat. "... Sorry, did you say 'multidimensional'?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto's face scrunched up with symapthy as he listened to Owen, maybe with a little understanding wince thrown in there. Especially with the one-way part, because it was such bullshit when this place sucked people in and wouldn't let them back out, but hopefully that wouldn't be the case for Owen, they'd just have to figure that part out eventually.

"I did," Prompto confirmed with a nod. Hey, look, this place was sort of a headtrip, and if it helped to get some of the trippier stuff out of the way first, then that seemed to be all the better. He knew he had really appreciated having some of this laid out for him from the get-go, and he didn't seem to see why Owen would feel any different. Seemed to have a good head on his shoulders so far, what witht he totally not freaking out over the somewhat sparkly banana-smelling dude telling him about multidimensions and everything.

"It's kinda like a...a..." His hands danced in the air a little as he went searching for a word, "nexus, I guess, of, like, all different places. There's portals involved in all of this; people get portals to and from their different worlds and everything, it's kind of wild if you really think about it, and it's also, like, stupid selective. Some people can move in and out of dimensions like it's no problem, and then you've got other people who can't get back home no matter how hard they try, but, honestly, if you're stuck here, it does definitely suck, but there are way worse places to be stuck, this place is usually pretty awesome."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

It wasn't like Owen was eager to go back where he'd been, was the thing. Any place was as good as any other. And at least this one came with free sandwiches.

... He hoped.

"I'm about to ask you a very important question," Owen said. Both to buy himself some time to process, and because he did always like to time things properly.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

So many free sandwiches, Owen. And a ton of extra pizza and eggrolls that you didn't even order.

Prompto's head tilted, with intrigue as well as sort of a little dumb thrill of excitement that here he was, being the person that other people ask important questions to. Not that he felt even remotely qualified for it, but he was definitely good at pretending he was.

"Shoot," he said. "I mean, important questions is exactly the sort of thing I'm here for you for, bro."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Is that," Owen said, pausing again for dramatic impact as his pointer fingers extended and he methodically... pointed them at all the food on the table, "...Free for everyone, or just whoever happens to have paid a great amount of money to come here?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Oh, Owen. Prompto liked you, for sure, and he laughed, waving both his hands encouragingly toward the table as if to push him that way.

"Totally one-hundred-percent free for everyone," he assured him, "and really good stuff, too. Go, go on, go get something and then we'll continue. Because, seriously, dude, I respect and appreciate your priorities."

He might grab...a little something to nibble on himself, out of camaraderie, but his own weird relationship with food definitely did not preclude him from living vicariously through someone else's appetite.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"I mean, I can walk towards a table full of delicious-smelling food and talk at the same time if I really put my mind to it," Owen said, grinning easily. "Unless you are, in fact, simply here to haze me and eager to release me onto the public full of ridiculous ideas."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

"That does sound like fun," Prompto admitted with a wry smirk, "but, I swear, nearly every ridiculous thing coming out of my mouth will actually be true. But, hey, maybe we should start a little with you, too, since, I mean, you don't seem too thrown off by being here, so that's not a bad foot to start on. What sort of place are you coming from?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Ah, I see you've bought into my excellent disguise, that's a load off my back," Owen said easily, as he began to walk towards the table. "I'm still trying to decide whether I'm having a very elaborate, strange dream." A pause. "I'm from Heliost, originally. Recently, ah, graduated from the local Satomi."

In a particular sense of 'graduating' that was really more of an 'unscheduled, prolonged break'.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Well, then, there were some nice unfamiliar words that Prompto had pretty much expected. "Is Heliost a planet?" he asked, moseying on over to the table along with Owen. "Or a city? And the local Satomi...is that some kind of school or something like that?"

Deductive reasoning powers, activated!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

That finally got a genuine blink out of Owen, instead of his usual steamroll of babble. "Uhhh, yeah, mate, Heliost is a city," he said slowly. "And you know, Satomi - cypher school?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Nope," said Prompto, feeling...weirdly proud about that blink and those slow questions. He felt like maybe he wasn't doing his Big Sibling job quite right if he wasn't shaking his little bro up at least a little, especially considering how he'd pretty much had to pick his jaw up off the floor after talking to Sabine that first time. "Sorry. I don't know Satomi. And I'll bet the majority of people you asked around here wouldn't, either. Let's roll it back a little, to that whole, multidimensional, people from different places things. I mean, like.." His hands spread out in front of him to indicate just a fraction of how wide of a scope he was building here, "...eeeverywhere, including most places you've never even heard of. For example, I'm from a place called Insomnia, on a planet called Eos. This planet here that we're on is called Earth." Which he still felt sounded kind of dumb and flat. Earff. Kind of a dumb name, Earthlings, sorry 'bout it.

Buuuut, all that said and done, he had to admit, he was a little curious about that last part.

"Like, what's even cypher school? Because it sounds cool as hell."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"It's where they teach you how to be a cypher," Owen said slowly. "You're really not having me on here, are you?"

... The confusion was not stopping him from reaching out to grab a pizza roll, mind you. If Prompto was going to break his mind, he might as well get some free food out of it.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Yeah, nothing worse than a broken brain and an empty stomach.

"I'm really not," Prompto vowed, holding up his hands as if to show how little ill-intent he was holding. "I swear, but I will say this, if cypher school is anything what it sounds like," which was, like, spying shit and things, right?, "then I think there's a slight chance your old school may have actually been cooler, as sweet as this school usually is."

And maybe he should have him meet Nina. But unleashing Nina on someone was not something to tread into lightly.

"My old school," he offered for point of comparrison, "was totally lame and normal and the most exciting thing that ever happened there was that our prince also went to school there, so..."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"I mean, cypher school is just the usual, really," Owen said, attempting to blanket himself with his earlier blase attitude again. "A spot of information processing, a bit of experimenting with ember, learning how to speak into people's minds across great distances... okay, I'm lying, it was rather exciting for a while, there."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Learning to....

"Yeah, no," said Prompto immediately, "your old school was way better than my old school. I don't know how much of that you'll be getting while you're here, but everything here is pretty much all over the place. I've had cooking classes, shop classes, a few classes that seem to pretty much be loosely based on a theme as an excuse to hit things, a class that was pretty much just a virtual reality video game..."

Not quite learning to speak directly into people's minds across great distances, or anything, but, hey, not too shabby, either, though, right?

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"That doesn't actually sound too bad," Owen said, shoving a bite of the roll-- "Oh, this is good-- er, I mean, I get bored of doing the same thing over and over again. Do you get bored?"

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto grinned faintly at the completely understandable food distraction. "I'm a fan of the burgers, myself," he offered, "but those are a little harder to manage when trying to talk.

"And, yeah, I mean, sometimes. The class load is a lot lighter than I was used to, so there's a lot of downtime, but the classes themselves are way more interesting. And, like, everyone here is really cool, so even in your downtime, there's plenty to do, and this place is...weird, really weird, and tends to keep things....interesting."

He decided to put a particularly ominous spin on that last word, to see how Owen might pick up on it before figuring out the best way to dive into some of those little tidbits of info.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Interesting how? Out of control relics, bad guys to fight? You lot don't have walls..."

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Ha!" If the laugh that squeaked out of Prompto in response to that sounded a little bit desperate, well...that's exactly what it was, though he tried to smooth it out a little with a chuckle as his face sort of filled up with some red. Sure, he was planning on going into last week as his go-to on the things that weren't awesome about this place, but, damn, that was one hell of a segue just handed right to him on a goddamn silver platter, wasn't it?

"Funny you should say that," he continued in a tone that suggested that wasn't a whole lot funny about it at all. "Because you pretty much just missed one. A big one. A whole dome covering the island that no one here put there, but that some deceptively charming idiot," and that would be Prompto pointing straight at his own dumb mug for the folks following at home, "decided to break down, which effectively brought in a small waves of vampires who actually bit a few people. But, like, that wall was actually built to try to keep all of us out? Because vampires were biting people all over Baltimore...that's the nearest city, by the way, on the mainland...and this place is filled with just the sort of people who would gear up and go kick some major vampire ass when given half the chance."

There was a slight pause.

"Which they did. Like, and how. And I'm talking, like, you juuuust just missed it. Like it all went down two, three days ago. Just in time for everyone to sort of recover and get ready for..." He gestures to the picnic around them, "this whole thing. And you guys. The new strapping examples of personhood joining our ranks for the new semester."

Well.

He did ask interesting how, and Prompto was pretty confident that that was a pretty good example if there ever was one.

Even if Paris didn't think anyone should be leading with it. But if you asked Prompto, it was just the thing to lead with, because now he knew.

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Summer 2019]

[cypher_can_fly]

"Huh," was all Owen said, at first.

Then, a moment later, "No Scars though?"