fandomtownies | Fandom Pride Picnic: The Park, Sunday Afternoon

Much like last year, yesterday's rainbow was still stretching across the sky, as bright as it ever was. The weather this afternoon was beautiful too, not too hot, not too cold. The island didn't even have to stretch to make that happen today.

In the park, there was a pretty impressive setup for a Pride picnic. The tables had been draped in tablecloths in the colours of various pride flags, and each one had a centerpiece that consisted of a vase with smaller ~~moddable~~ flags in it, free for the taking. Off to the side there was a ball pit, a giant inflatable kraken slide (Jono still wasn't actually sure where the slide had come from, but he was going to just roll with it), and other activities for people to enjoy. There were booths, there was the requisite food, and even the stage had made a reappearance this year, with a setup for karaoke if anybody was feeling daring, but plenty of room if anybody wanted to get up and play, too.

All-in-all? It was a lovely day with a brightly-coloured park open for everyone to come enjoy.

[OOC: OCD incoming!]

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Sparkle was here again today, instead of parking his ass at the Demon Marcus, because who wanted to open a clothing store when they could find a nice place in the shade to just lay down on the grass and smile up at the rainbow again?

It was nice, okay? Sparkle was good here.

Breq sat down next to him. "You're happy," she guessed.

"I'm happy," Sparkle agreed, smiling over toward her. "I'm choosing to table all the bullshit in my life for the remainder of the weekend in order to enjoy this."

He waved up at the rainbow in the sky.

"That was a nice touch. Thanks, Island."

"It's a suitable symbol," Breq said. "Most human cultures fail to see the usefulness of the concept. I'm not talking about sexual and gender diversity specifically. There are always things that are seen as unacceptable even though the only thing it can hurt is the sense of propriety of others."

Edited 2018-06-24 17:13 (UTC)

"Because people will always be terrible," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "They'll always find something to hate about people. Makes them feel better about their own shitty lives."

"Yes," Breq said, agreeing with that. "Not all though, obviously, or the universe would be a worse place. Or there would be no need to fight for the right to love."

"Yeah," Sparkle agreed. "Not all."

He smiled faintly.

"Especially around here."

"Especially around here," Breq agreed. "It seems like many who end up here are used to being different in some way where they came from, and the rest anyway have to face things not bring what they are used to."

"All in all, it works out for most of us," Sparkle replied. "That might be the reason I keep ending up back here. There's not really anywhere else like it."

"What was it like where you grew up?" Breq asked. Considering that she guessed from his classes that it wasn't a vary nice place, perhaps the question was a bit direct, but Breq was sure Sparkle could deal with that.

"Better than some places, for plenty of people," Sparkle replied, a little vaguely. "Not so great for others. I was 'others.' It sucked."

"Sounds like a lot of places. Do you miss it?"

She knew missing places that sucked was quite possible.

"I shouldn't," Sparkle replied. And then he was hit with the weird pang he'd felt while he and Hannibal had walked down Yonge, and he sighed. "But yeah, of course I do. It was all I knew before coming to Fandom. It was home."

"Is Fandom home now?" Breq asked. "Of course, people often end up having more than one place they call home."

"Fandom's as close to home as it'll ever be," Sparkle replied. "I don't know if I really feel about anywhere the same way a lot of people feel about home. I mean, I've been staying in Atton's world for a while," and hooboy, there was, um, a little bit of baggage there today that he was going to have to unpack later, "and I don't miss Fandom too much, either."

"Atton is a friend of yours?" Breq asked. "I took one of his classes. Has he left, then?"

"He's my roommate," Sparkle explained. "And I don't think he's gone for good. I mean, he just has something to take care of back home, but we've still got our apartment here, too."

"Sounds like you have more then one place to call home, then, if that how you feel about them. Not everyone finds having a home important though, I suppose."

She smiled here, mostly because she remembered she could.

Sparkle shrugged.

"I mean, I guess it'd be nice to have one and actually feel secure about it. Which is something I almost have here, I think?"

When, uh, when things weren't weird.

Spaceships didn't need homes the way most humans did, but Breq had cared for humans during all her life, and wasn't surprised by what Sparkle told her.

"It's not something I'm leaving for myself, but I'd be more surprised if you didn't."

"I've been kind of fixated on it for a lot of my life," Sparkle allowed. "The heart wants what the heart wants, I guess."

His heart mostly wanted 'familiar' and 'safe' to finally be one in the same.

Breq didn't reply to that.

"Is this something you celebrated where you grew up?"

"Once a year," Sparkle confirmed. "There's a whole month dedicated to it. But there it's as much protest as celebration, even if you get plenty of tourists there to watch the pretty colours and people doing things in public they'd have a reason to be afraid to do any other time."

He shrugged.

"I didn't get to go to many of them, but the ones I have been to were pretty great. Way bigger than this."

"Quite a lot of people are here though," Breq noted. "Considering the size of the island."

Fandom Pride Picnic: The Park, Sunday Afternoon

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