fandomhigh | Intro to Fandom; Monday, First Period [08/29].

Intro to Fandom; Monday, First Period [08/29].

Oh, boy! How convenient that the island decided to kick the semester off for their Intro to Fandom class with a…very prescient example of just what this island had to offer.

One that, no doubt, left very little room in the classroom for all the emotional baggage the two people at the front of it were likely to have brought with them.

It definitely didn't help that there were absolutely some repeats, and the only way they'd be able to tell which were Summer's and which were Stark's was because Summer's luggage was, undeniably, much cuter and more fashionable. And none of Stark’s, unsurprisingly, was pink.

There was a good chance that some of it (well, hello there, monolithic suitcase marked 'Repressed Feelings' that seemed to keep appearing between them no matter how many times they tried to move it or, in one instance, defenestrate it) was actually shared emotional baggage, too. Imagine that.

Either way, she sat perched on a very large steamer trunk proclaiming 'family dynamics' that she figured she might as well just own up to, and met the classroom with a poorly restrain smile of forced excitement. "Soooooo!" she declared. "Welcome to Intro to Fandom! Your very first class on your very first day at this new school, because I definitely noticed that all the names on the rosters are new ones. Which definitely means introductions are in order, but, also, the island decided to give us a nice example," she gestured at the veritable explosion of an airplane's holding bay surrounding her, "of the sort of crap we'll be talking about in this class."

Stark, looking resigned to his fate, was leaning against a trunk of his own with a very large number printed on it. “At least this doesn’t usually injure anyone. Physically.” The emotional damage from the emotional baggage might just lead to even more baggage the next time this came around but at least it wasn’t likely to cause anyone to require a trip to the clinic. Unless someone was crushed by the literal weight of their emotional baggage. Or tripped over it. Or violently stubbed a toe.

“It’s unpleasant,” he continued, shoving aside the bag marked 'Slave' with one foot while carefully avoiding looking at that 'Repressed Feelings' case. “Very unpleasant. But not usually too harmful. Unlike many other things here. Hopefully we can help prepare you for some of that.”

"That's what this class," said Summer, nodding staunchly in the continued effort to just ignore everything surrounding them right now, "is for. This island is a place where something like…literal emotional baggage," a gesture to said cases and bags and trunks, "will randomly show up some days and follow you around. Or maybe you have a Big Sibling that's awesome enough to have warned you about the gremlins or the weekends when you'll turn into a kid or the weekends when you'll have a kid from an alleged future show up. There will be times when you're really not yourself and there will be weird things that attack and sometimes you'll have apple cider coming out of the faucets instead of water. Don't worry. We'll get into them, we've got a whole semester to start breaking some of that down. Add that to the fact that this is an interdimensional hub, and you've also got people from all sorts of places, different backgrounds and experiences, all gathered together on this weird little rock in the ocean.

"Which is why," she concluded after that ramble that seemed to just manifest a cute little plastic caboodle with 'Overcompensation' stamped onto it, "introductions in this class will be particularly important. Plus, it's the first class of the entire semester, so there's no way you guys are even remotely as sick of them as you'll be by the end of this week!"

"You don't have to talk about your baggage," Stark said, pushing aside the case marked 'You're Not Enough.' "We're not going to make you." If they did, they might have to talk about their own baggage. There wasn't nearly enough time in one class period for that.

And, really, the baggage sort of spoke for itself.

"There is enough time, however," said Summer, "for good old standard introductions, which usually do a pretty good job of highlighting one of the biggest things that make Fandom High so special and great: it's a multidimensional nexus, so we're all coming from different places, different times, different experiences. So let's just start there. I'm thinking name, where you're from, what you're hoping to get from all this, if anything, and anything else you think might be interesting to share. For example, my name is Summer, I'm from Earth and this time period, but definitely not this version, like, my Earth has been taken over by an evil Galactic Federation, like, twice, and also was threatened by big giant heads that wanted us to compete in a singing competition, and what I hope to get from all of this is to help make you guys a little more comfortable with some of the things you're going to encounter here, including not being phased or surprised when things like this," a gesture toward the piles of baggage, "happen."

"I'm still surprised when this happens," Stark muttered, still very much not looking at that shared baggage. "I'm Stark, not from any Earth at all because I'm not human. I'm a Banik. I'm from space, but not this version or Summer's version and mostly I was somewhere called the Uncharted Territories with different empires fighting different wars than Summer dealt with."

Summer smirked a little bit over at the students. "You guys follow all that?" she asked. "Well, either way, it's your turn. Who wants to go first?"

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With some of your own baggage!

TJ Wagner, with a big "family expectations" and a smaller, almost cute "daddy's girl".

Beta, "Gifted Child Syndrome - Turbo Edition"

Allie Pressman, "Dictator?"

Meeka Joffer, "Familial resentment"

Hahaha, baggage? What baggage? There's no baggage here!

Beta had practically been buried in baggage when she woke up. About 2/3 of it was in a sleek, futuristic, metals-and-synthetics design reminiscent of Far Zenith -- really, was that detail necessary? -- and crisply labeled with things like Just a Tool, Not a Person and Inferior Copy. But the rest seemed to be made of leather and other organic materials, in various tribal designs; the handwritten labels on those were more along the lines of Can't Keep Up and Not Really One of Ours and one, stitched with glowing machine cabling in a distinctly Banuk style that just said Liability.

She could hardly carry one of the bigger ones, let alone all of them, so she'd left them behind -- except they seemed to just keep reappearing wherever she went.

Which made no sense whatsoever.

Who are you, where are you from, do you have regrets yet? Or are you going to actually fit in here amazingly well?

"Hey." She waved. "I'm TJ Wagner." Said like the composer. "I'm from New York - state not city - in this year. And I'm used to a school of mutants, so this isn't too different so far. I was hoping this class would give me what it says on the box, an intro to the place."

Summer nodded, a little pleased that this one didn't immediately delve into a mild panic about all the baggage, which was a good sign that what TJ said about her last school was true and that it would transfer well over to Fandom.

"Which," she said, "if we're doing our jobs, is exactly what it'll do. Is there any thing in particular you'd like to know more about that we can focus on, moving forward? Or even just anything you'd like a quick run-down of while we're getting things started? This is the intro to the intro class, after all, so it's a really good time for those sort of broad, open-ended questions before we start narrowing in on the real nitty-gritty Fandom-specific details."

TJ pointed viciously at the suitcase she'd shoved under her desk. "How long do we have to put up with this?"

"Hopefully just a day," Summer assured her (sort of), with another approving nod, because that was a very good, very important question. "Usually, if things are happening early in the week like this, it's either a one-day thing, or a whole week thing, but not always. Literal Emotional Baggage day, in the past, has typically been just a one-off, though. If someone's happening on a Thursday or a Friday, there's a good chance it's sticking around at least through the weekend. If it's a Saturday? You're usually done by Monday. But while there is often a sort of pattern to how these things happen, the island does occasionally attempt to throw those of us who are used to its ways off a little by throwing something at us at an unexpected time or making it last a bit longer than what we expect."

TJ nodded and sighed, making a mental note of everything. "Okay, next question: what's the weirdest shit that happens? And when things attack, what's the plan for taking care of the kids that don't fight?"

"'The weirdest shit' is always a little....subjective," Summer admitted. "I feel like everyone's going to have a different answer for that one, and I'm admittedly not the best person to ask that one to." She turned for a moment, to pluck out the 'Can No Longer Relate to Most Things in a Normal, Functional Way' suitcase that she saw earlier and displayed it as if that was proof, and then set it back down. "But there are some days where it's like everything you do is completely random and unpredictable and that one always throws me a little bit because, like, they get really random, and everything happens so quickly that it's kind of exhausting.

"As for when something attacks, there's usually either a haven put in place on either the dorms or the town hall, and Caritas also has a protection spell in place, so, when in doubt, that's not a bad place to go, either. Anything tries to hurt you in there, that person gets booted out into either the back alley or the duck pond in the park. Thankfully, there's no shortage of fighty-types around here, so the offensive force is pretty powerful, and anyone who isn't a fighty-type is plenty safe, unless they decided to be dumb about it and actually go out looking for trouble instead."

"I'm a fighty type," TJ said. "The school I grew up at got attacked on the regular."

There had been a few blue people over the years so Stark didn't immediately start at the sight. Even today.

"We should be able to offer that. We've both been here for a lot." Maybe for too much.

"Awesome." TJ gave him a thumbs up. "So how bad does it get?"

"I was a koala for a week this summer," Stark said, darting a glance over at Summer and not even a little bit at that shared baggage they had.

"...a koala. Like, small, fuzzy, not-actually-a-bear koala?"

"I'm Allie Pressman, I was supposed to be trapped in a town in Connecticut, and I was not supposed to be here."

So this suuuuucked. None of her issues were good first impressions!

Summer sucked in a little bit of a breath at that, giving Allie a wrinkled nose and a nod of sympathy. "Yeaaaaah," she allowed, "that can definitely be an awkward one, where you should be elsewhere but wound up here instead. But....now I have to wonder, since you said you're supposed to be trapped in Connecticut....have you tried to leave the island yet? You could be trapped here, too, and that," her voice lifted as she started looking around so that everyone would hopefully catch this part of the discussion, "is also a thing. Sometimes people literally cannot leave this island, or, at the most, can't leave this planet, which is always a whole thing..."

Her attention focused back in on Allie for a moment.

"So if you haven't tried yet, it might be worth making the attempt, just to see if you can, but also be careful, because sometimes people can't get back, either."

She rolled her eyes as if this was on par with, like, accidentally locking your keys in your car, or something.

"I can leave, though all of that is scary," Allie noted. "I just can't get home."

Which actually made total sense, but she was trying to be in denial about how it made sense still.

"You've tried leaving already?" Stark asked. "I'm sorry you can't get home. If you want to get home. And that you were trapped before."

"I'm Beta, I'm from..." She sighed. Was she going to have to do this for all her classes? "It's complicated."

It wasn't actually that complicated, she just didn't want to have to share all that and have to field more questions.

"The Earth I came here from is a thousand years in the future, though."

A small briefcase that said Only Valuable for My DNA appeared by her feet and she immediately tried to kick it over. The Resents Being Cloned From a Genius duffel was harder to hide, though.

Yeah, try as she might not to be too nosy about anyone else's baggage (you think she wanted to explain 'Apocalypse Ex-Husband' and 'Cannibalism Phase' to her students? Nah, bro, nah), those were getting maybe a slightly sympathetic look as 'Never Respected' and 'Never Listened To' joined her considerable pile.

"Well," she said, "welcome to the past, then, Beta. We don't get as many future types around here, I don't think, but there's definitely a few of them. When you're working with that level of distance, though, the different ways Earth's future can go has a lot of room for divergence. I hope it's not too tricky for you to get a hold of all the super-retro technology, but I'm pretty good on that sort of thing if you need me to help with anything. And believe me..."

She rolled her eyes, with a light smile going for...sympathetically playful. "I also get complicated."

Boy, did Beta hope this version of Earth managed to avoid the fate of hers, though it wasn't looking great for that right now, no lie.

She shook her head. "No. It's okay. It's not difficult at all. Primitive, yes. A little frustrating, maybe, but --" She touched her Focus with a fingertip, and a ring of purple lights haloed it for a moment before she deactivated it again. "I can manage."

Context might help, Beta. No? Okay then.

Look, Everything is Happening TOO MUCH had joined the pile in the form of a steel case large enough to fit two and a half of her, looming behind her chair. Context was not a priority.

"Hello, Beta."

Stark eyed that case about being valuable and shook his head a little. He had one marked 'Valuable' of his own though the text didn't properly convey the bitter way he always said the word.

"A thousand is a lot of years."

"A lot can happen in that time span," Beta said softly.

Like, you know. The robot apocalypse, two false restarts, the beginning of a new civilization, two more near-apocalypses and a third incoming. That kind of thing.

Ignore the messenger bag tagged AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, please.

"I am Meeka Joffer and I am from Zamunda, a country in Africa. Which is on Earth, though it is 2019 in my would," Meeka said, tucking a newly appearing handbag into her backpack. The word --dentity could be seen as she shoved it away. "My Earth has no magic or aliens or mutants, so I hope that I will be able to adjust quickly to my new environs."

She gave no hint of how she truly felt about any of this, hiding it all under a polite and diplomatic smile.

Where they will not be even trying to figure out which 'Abandonment Issues' case belongs to who.

Summer was also very disappointed that actually? A lot of her baggage wasn't really all that cute, like....girl. For real, some of that shit's real ugly.

Stark was fine with the way his baggage looked, although the colors of some larger items were an unnecessary reminder. The problem was there was just so much of it. And it was heavy. It was going to be a long day.

Currently obsessed with how Summer's VA is pretty much just lol fuck you, being Summer is literally my favorite thing, bye.

Like, I feel that.

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Intro to Fandom; Monday, First Period [08/29].

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