fandomtownies | Caritas; Wednesday [04/13].

Entry tags:

Caritas; Wednesday [04/13].

Was it tacky to advertise for your big party on the weekend during your bar shift on Wednesday? Did Summer really care?

Because you could definitely bet Summer was going to try and tell everyone about that party, and, even if she didn't get around to it, she had a few ubiquitous flyers up around the place and smaller little print-outs advertising for the Big Beefcake Birthday Blowout Bash (sorry, Eliot; like a magpie, this one, but she did, clearly, improve on it), juuuust in case anyone missed it.

Look, she had to cover all of her bases. She was pretty sure she might actually die if she threw a party and, like, no one showed up. Forget parasitic brain eaters, evil galactic empires, the breaking of time and space as we know it....a bad party was, like, the most terrifying thing in the entire multiverse.

Wednesday Jello Shot Specials!
~BEEFCAKE BIRTHDAY BASH PREVIEW SPECIAL~

First One Free With a Karaoke Song
Or if it's your BIRTHDAY this week!

Pulsar and Quasar
Star Shine
Rings of Saturn
Green Space Goo

Caritas is open!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Muggy and terrible," Annie lamented, all but actually apologizing for it. "It's kind of fun otherwise, actually -- they do a thing where they run classes for adults in addition to this weekly...field day thing?"

Annie was not a gamer, no, but she was kind of a jock, so she had a private fondness for shenanigans (in spite of all outward bitching.)

"But no, I don't really think we get many tourists," she added thoughtfully, having never really thought about it before. "Which is weird 'cause the island is gorg. I'd totally vacation here if I didn't live here, probably."

"Oh god, I don't know if I'm prepared for an East Coast summer. Colorado was bad enough," Steph said with a wince, and laughed. "Okay, that sounds kind of like low-key grownup summer camp? And I think I'm here for it."

"That's exactly what it's like and it's super-fun," Annie agreed, nodding vehemently. Even if sometimes it got messy, literally. "Colorado, though? Beautiful part of the country. I haven't spent a ton of time there -- mostly I've just passed through on road trips with my mom. Are you from there originally?"

"Colorado is gorgeous," Steph agreed, smiling slightly, "but I'm not from there. I was born in Oakland, but I grew up in this little town in Oregon, Arcadia Bay. Moved to Seattle for college after that, and then Haven Springs just kind of happened, and now I'm all the way out here."

She took a moment to have another drink.

"How about you? Where'd you come from before this?"

"Oh, wow, you're kinda doing a whole little tour of the US," Annie noted with a smile. "Iowa, for me -- Des Moines originally, and these days I also work out of New York City for half the week." It had been almost a year at this point, which was nuts to think about. "Fandom ended up being kind of a weird blip, really, but I love it here."

Steph laughed. "I was doing the touring musician thing for a while pretty much just for that reason. Had some gigs in Baltimore fall through at the last minute, came here just to kill some time, and ended up staying." She was apparently just a sucker for small-town charm. "So... kind of a weird blip for me, too. But a good one."

She sipped at her drink again.

"Damn, though, check you out with the power commute. I love having access to all these portals, which is a thing I never thought I'd say, but I've gotten some cool gigs that way."

"Oh, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't portal," Annie admitted. "I bounce over to the city on Sundays, and usually make it back in time for Summer's shots on Wednesday. But if I had to like...fly or something? Yikes."

She sipped her own drink, eyeing Steph thoughtfully for a second before snapping her fingers. "You were DJ on New Years! Right? Is that your main deal, music-wise?"

Annie considered putting her phone on a speaker and shuffling a playlist to be good deejaying, so Steph was definitely someone to keep in mind for this year's Christmas rager.

Edited 2022-04-14 14:25 (UTC)

"Yeah! That was me. Though I'm a drummer, mostly," Steph told her. "The DJ stuff just happened after I quit my band to go live in a Rocky Mountain mining town and ended up running the radio station up there."

You know. As one did.

"What do you do in New York, exactly? If I can ask."

Annie, who had looked appropriately impressed at the drumming and the radio station -- don't let the squirrels recruit you, Steph -- shifted into a slightly more shy expression. Just because, like, Steph had been around for a minute but Annie still felt kind of bad any time she felt like she might potentially freak someone out with what she did for work.

"Um, so, superheroes are a thing where I'm from," she explained as casually as she could. "I work for one of the national teams -- we're called The Seven, which is dumb because right now there's only five of us."

"Branding is a tricky beast sometimes," Steph said wryly, but she perked up a little bit. "That's so cool, though. You guys have organized teams?"

"We do," Annie shared, shrugging a shoulder slightly self-consciously. "There's a couple other national-scale teams, and then most major cities have either a dedicated hero or a smaller team. I was, uh, sent here as Fandom's hero, initially."

And cue some rueful eyerolling and a little gesture around the bar, as Steph could probably guess how well that had gone. The people of Fandom obviously needed saving! Also? Totally tons of emergencies here. Just ask the firefighters.

Steph burst out laughing.

"Oh, wow. That, um... talk about being overqualified for a position, I guess? Like, did they know anything about where they were sending you?"

"Oh my God, they so didn't," Annie replied, shaking her head and having to laugh, too. "And like, here I am, trying to patrol and fight alllllll the crimes, and instead I just ended up embarrassing myself in front of the mayor and local law enforcement. Doesn't help that I'm one of like...at least a half-dozen super-abled people on this island. Talk about a saturated market. But! On the bright side, it does mean we've got plenty of hands to go around on the rare occasions that shit does hit the fan around here."

Only kinda rare. Once-a-quarter rare.

Medium rare, in a more or less evenly spaced out way.

"And people like me appreciate that we can just hide behind you until it's all over," Steph said with absolutely no shame about admitting it. "Superheroes aren't a thing in my world? I have, like... one friend who has these cool freaky empath powers, but as far as I know, she's the only one."

Chloe had, understandably, not told Steph about Max.

"I'm bulletproof -- and knife-proof, shrapnel-proof, et cetera -- so feel free to literally hide behind me any time things are nuts," Annie offered, as was standard, now. "Freaky empath powers sound...really interesting. But also maybe inconvenient? But useful." People with mental gifts were always so fascinating to Annie, who was much more of a blunt, aggressive instrument when you got past all the sparkle.

"Uh. Yeah, that's a super useful power set," Steph said, her eyes just a touch wide.

She frowned a bit, though, thinking about Annie's next comment.

"Honestly? Her powers make me worry about her more than anything," she admitted. "It's not just reading people's emotions; she can sort of... absorb them, and understand the way other people see the world. Like she did that with me one time. Figured out exactly what I needed to cheer me up."

Which understated matters by a lot.

"She's amazing at using it to help people. I just worry about her giving too much of herself and not looking out for what she needs, you know?" Oh look, judging from that tone and slightly wistful expression, Steph wasn't quite over that whole unrequited crush situation yet.

"That's really cool," Annie told her, brimming with sincerity and offering out a soft little smile 'cause, yeah, she kind of recognized that wistfulness for what it probably was. "She sounds amazing, but -- yeah, that's a real concern I'd have, too. Psychic-y powers are always kind of, like, incredible to me and a little confusing, but your friend sounds like she has the perfect powerset to help people...but also, like, maybe focus too much outward?"

That was a question mostly because Annie wanted to sympathize, but not like, overstep with a woman she'd literally just met. But, like. She super got it.

Steph nodded, emphatically, her expression turning wry when she realized she'd showed her hand a little bit there.

"Yeah. That's what I worry about. Our other friends should be able to keep an eye out and make sure she doesn't overdo it, but still. That's not a power I would want to have myself, you know?"

Especially not growing up in the foster care system the way Alex had, but she didn't feel right divulging that detail.

"No, absolutely not," Annie agreed. "What a -- like, a burden. I mean, I already feel obligated and called to help people with my powers because I was given a gift, but blasting bad guys doesn't, like, take a real emotional toll on me."

Framing it as a gift was a little fraught, though. And she still ran into the occasional...incident.

"But she's the only one? That's also pretty wild," she had to add, since she herself had had the benefit of growing up amongst her super-abled peers.

Edited 2022-04-15 15:51 (UTC)

"As far as I've ever heard," Steph replied. "I guess I can see how people would want to keep that kind of thing under wraps, though."

Case in point: her not knowing that Chloe's best friend was kiiiiiiiiiind of responsible for her PTSD.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Caritas; Wednesday [04/13].

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.

Re: The Bar - 04/13.