fandomtownies | Fandom Pride Parade: Saturday Afternoon

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Fandom Pride Parade: Saturday Afternoon

The day started with a rainbow. Not that there had been any rain last night, really. The island, noticing the ~~handwavy~~ posters up around town, had figured it wanted to contribute to the spirit of the whole thing, and slapping a big, bright rainbow into the sky had seemed like the obvious way to do it. By around noon, it was clear that the rainbow was going to be sticking around, too, less a meteorological phenominon and more a banner painted across the sky. Down below, little flowers had popped up overnight in bright colours, some mimicking the rainbow up above, some in other configurations; pink-purple-blue, blue-pink-white-pink-blue, black-grey-white-purple, yellow-white-purple-black, and so on. The flowers, fortunately, were there to be pretty, with no other weird effects on the island's populace.

Though, really, if presenting a bouquet of them to one's favourite person ended well for somebody, the island wasn't going to complain, either.

The parade itself was to start on the Causeway, a good gathering point for Fandomites in the past, and a fairly central location on the island. From there it would follow Griffin Lane to Galactica Drive, Serendipity Place, Godiva Street, back onto Serendipity and following it until it turned into Loon and Loon turned into Chimera. Then one final turn onto Apocalypse before ending up at the Park, where people were welcome to sit and mingle to their hearts' content.

The weather was nice, making liars out of the meteorologists in favour of shunting clouds aside for sunshine and a pleasant breeze. A perfect day for a parade!

[OOC: Open! Welcome to Fandom Pride!]

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Jono shrugged his shoulders a little.

//Was talking at Dante a few weeks back,// he replied. //He and I had both attended Pride in Baltimore, and I mentioned being surprised that there isn't something like that here, all things considered. Kind of wound up putting the event together, so... figured I ought to march in it.//

"Looks like plenty of people are excited about it," Raven observed. "So . . . good job."

Jono scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly.

//Thanks,// he replied. //I still keep getting this weird feeling like I'm an impostor, though.//

He had a husband. He probably qualified.

"You're married to a man," Raven pointed out. "I mean, I get it, but that's pretty hard to dispute."

//Never did say it made sense,// Jono pointed out. //Just said it felt that way.//

Now he felt kind of silly about it.

//Hell, I feel that way around mutants sometimes, too.//

That surprised Raven. "You don't feel like you fit into a mutant community? Even the ones who aren't superheroes?"

//Not even a little bit,// Jono replied. //Went to one of Xavier's fancy schools for mutant kids once. Was pretty much the resident freak among freaks the entire time. Hard to feel like I belong around that.//

Not to mention how he'd been treated as an actual X-Man.

Something deep inside Raven sank like a stone. "But . . . they're supposed to be your people. Our people."

She'd never spent any real time around groups of other mutants. There'd always just been Charles, and then Kathy and Jono and a few other people here. The supers in Kathy's LA didn't really count -- they'd all been in crisis mode since before she even got there.

//People are going to be people, no matter what's in their DNA,// Jono said, his tone softening a little. //Being our people doesn't change that they came from human roots, luv. We all did, if you look back far enough.//

"I really wish that didn't mean that they end up being dicks," Raven said. "Is it -- you don't have to answer if you don't want, but is it because of the fire? Even when Charles and I got along, there was always part of me that couldn't help thinking that he didn't have to try to blend in."

Jono hesitated for a moment. And then he nodded.

//There were comments on occasion about whether there's enough of me left to have feelings to hurt. And that was just among the other students.//

Raven hissed through her teeth sympathetically. "I think that's part of what I don't really get about this whole thing," she said. "The gatekeeping."

Someone spent her downtime on Tumblr, yes.

//Some people need to feel better than somebody else or they don't see any point, I guess,// Jono muttered. //It's maddening. Especially when you'd think they already know better.//

Didn't seem to keep it from happening, though.

"Kathy said this event's not really for her. That just being poly, she didn't count." Raven's mouth pressed together into a tight line. "But if she and Anders and Dante were the kind to want to make their relationship official, they'd have an even harder time getting it done than most anyone marching right now."

Jono furrowed his eyebrows a little bit at that.

//Seems like for a lot of people, the first big hurdle is accepting that they belong. Hard to do especially for the ones who never really belonged in the first place, perhaps. I'd say poly counts just as much as gay or pan or ace, but what do I know?//

"I'm still figuring out what all the terms mean," Raven admitted. "But yeah. When she first started telling me about civil rights and being a person of color, I had a lot of trouble with that, too. I can look like any other white person, so how can I really count? Even though, you know." She looked down at her scales and gave an acerbic little shrug. "Blue."

//And here I am, only just started going around without wrapping myself from nose to navel a couple of years back, and still don't feel like part of th'mutant community. I mean, I feel mutant enough, but that's not really the same thing.//

Community suggested there was a sense of belonging there.

That was the hard part.

//Shite, I ran around in one of those goddamned X-uniforms for a year. Was th'best seat-warmer Scott never put to use.// Fuck Scott. //Couldn't even be bothered to come looking for me when I went missing.//

And he'd been all too happy to dump him off on some human hospital in London after M-Day to wash his hands of him, at that.

There was no love in Jonothon's bionuclear psionic heart for Scott.

//Community is hard. Identity is hard too. It's hard to fit into th'first one before you've really sorted out th'second, even when people aren't going out of their way to make you feel unwelcome.//

"This Scott person sounds like a douche," Raven decided. ". . . Want me to go beat him up?"

She was joking.

Mostly.

//I figure next time I meet him I'll just punch his face off of his face,// Jono decided. //Give him an idea what it's like.//

It wasn't even as though Logan would have a problem with him doing it, either.

//I'd kind of love to see his look if you were to, admittedly. But it'd have to be th'right Scott.//

Because of course now there were two. Sigh.

"How many Scotts are there?"

Raven's world was not nearly so complex as Jono's. Yet.

//At least two. Scott original flavour, who is a complete tit, and Scott redux, who came through bloody time to be a smaller, more clueless Scott at us all.//

Too much Scott. Not enough inclination to care much about Scott either way.

"Worlds were time travel isn't a thing must be so much simpler," Raven noted. "I'm not sure what people who live in them even do with themselves."

//I imagine they get on with their day secure in the knowledge that when they wake up the day after, it'll still be today for them, rather than fifty years from now or so.//

Jono had also time-travelled once or twice. He was not a fan.

"Weird," Raven decided. "Their lives must be so boring."

//I wouldn't know what th'hell to do with a lifestyle like that even if I'd grown up living it,// Jono decided. //How they don't wither away from boredom, I'll never know.//

Jono was having a hard enough time just dealing with 'mostly normal, with the occasional Fandom weirdness.'

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Fandom Pride Parade: Saturday Afternoon

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