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

[bigdamnprincipal]

As the picnic continued, there were tables and chairs arranged on the lawn, the food smelled delicious and inviting, and no one was going to be bitey without explicit consent. Hopefully, everyone would take some time to enjoy themselves!

[OCD is 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!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

Norman was here to... face the music, he guessed. Without actually facing the music. He'd brought a comic book to flip through, anyway, and had hunkered himself down in a corner, in the shade. It was about as close to giving in to his desire to just not be here at all as he was willing to go.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

Nope. Hi. Your new roommate is going to plop down next to you and try to read the comic with you.

Looking around, she asked a little anxiously, "Should I be butterflies again? I feel sort of all butterfly-ish inside and maybe they should be outside and flying around? Maybe some fish? I don't feel very fish-y or swimm-y but I did butterflies before so maybe something new this time? What do you think?"

There were people here and so far she didn't recognize any of them. In a crowd, there was usually at least one or two that she recognized in her own strange fashion.

Barnabas curled up next to her, nose on his paws. She wasn't asking him. Delirium was attempting to engage with another person and he wasn't about to interrupt that.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"If you're not feeling fishy or swimmy, why would you be something you're not?" Norman offered her a tiny, crooked smile. "I mean, be what you are, right? That's usually the best thing to be anyway."

Being picked on had never stopped Norman, anyway.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

She pet Barnabas for a moment, looking at him. "I'm so many things sometimes," she said softly, "I don't always know which to be in the when that I am. It's hard to talk to people when I'm all butterflies because almost nobody speaks butterfly except other butterflies and there aren't any other butterflies students at the school so I'd be talking to myself and that's not so polite when there are other people in the when and where that I am that I could talk to."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

Norman took a few seconds to parse all of that, and then just offered, "Then why not be what you are the most?"

As if that made perfect sense.

"And maybe that will just be the right thing to be right now?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

"There's too much of me that's always the most," Delirium said with a tiny frown, trying to think.

Barnabas whuffed quietly. "Delirium, perhaps staying people-shaped for today would be best?"

"Maybe," Delirium said doubtfully. "There's an awful lot of people-shaped people here today."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"Almost all of them," Norman agreed, turning a wry smile toward Barnabas. "With a few notable exceptions. And people-shaped is pretty good for conversation. I don't think I'd know which fish I was supposed to be talking to, if you were a bunch of them, and I wouldn't want to be rude."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

"All of them," Delirium said absently, "They're all me all the time even when I'm not me." She focused on him again. "Are you ever not you-shaped?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"Only when the island turns me into a crab," Norman offered. He closed his book. He was reasonably certain he wasn't going to be getting much reading done for a while, anyway. "And then I guess I'm me-as-a-crab-shaped."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

Del nodded. That made perfect sense to her. "Do you like being a crab-shaped Norman?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"Hmm, maybe only sometimes," Norman hedged. "Being a crab isn't too bad, but they're not very good at reading comic books, and apparently lots of things eat crabs."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[following_my_fishie]

"Comics are maybe not written in crab," Delirium offered, "I won't let anything eat a crab-shaped Norman. What would I do in a room by myself?"

You don't want to know. Without some sort of structure, it would be literal chaos within days.

"Do you like people to read to you when you're a crab?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

So help him, Norman was kind of touched, actually.

"That... would be really nice," he admitted. "It's not very exciting being a crab, except when things are trying to do the eating."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

Lana frowned. Norman off to himself reading wasn't unusual. But Norman with a big cloud of metaphorical darkness around him was. And she liked him, and that darkness didn't seem to be one he was doing well with.

So, have a Sith. She came bearing cookies and set the plate down next to him as she sat. "Another semester starting, then."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"Yeah," Norman agreed, a little noncommittally, barely glancing up from his comic book. "Another semester. A new sibling, a new roomie. Almost a fresh start, I guess."

Not quite. Maybe so far as the new kids went. Until they found out that he was both A) Awful and B) A Freak, and that would be that.

... This week hadn't been great on Norman.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

"Oh? What are yours like?" Lana asked. "My sibling doesn't seem to be here yet, and I still have the same roommate."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"Well... My sibling seems nice enough? Her name's Janet?" Norman paused a little. "And my new roommate is Delirium. She's the one with the rainbow hair and the talking dog."

A pause.

"Who is sometimes butterflies."

Fandom.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

Lana frowned in confusion. "Her dog is sometimes butterflies?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"She's sometimes butterflies," Norman clarified. "I'm pretty sure her dog's usually a dog. I don't know if the butterflies talk, though."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

"That sounds...definitely interesting," Lana said slowly. She shook her head. "Do you anticipate it being a problem?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

Norman was quiet for a few moments, staring with slightly unfocused eyes at his book.

"... Nah. She seems pretty nice. Genuinely nice. It's... nice."

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

"That's good." Confusing, but good.

And then, because Lana was lousy at beating around the bush, "So what's got you feeling like a week in a haunted tomb, then?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

"I'd take the haunted tomb," Norman muttered, shoulders bunching a little. "Everywhere's haunted, tombs just have the bones there, too."

That was not an answer, Norman.

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[unusual_sith]

"Wrong metaphor for you, I guess," Lana said, smiling. "I've been in some really awful tombs, though. Sith ghosts aren't often happy. But what's wrong?"

Re: General Mingling [Summer 2019]

[always_someone]

Norman was quiet for a long moment.

"... Ever do something that got good people hurt?" He paused. "You don't have to answer that. It was rhetorical."

And kind of personal.

"On Tuesday. When that barrier came down," he said, a little more quietly still. "I was one of the people who did that."