fandomtownies | The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (5/5)

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (5/5)

If last Thursday had been an extremely unproductive day for Steph, today was the absolute opposite. (Saffron was halfway across the store and back to putting actual effort into avoiding her as much as possible, which was a clear indicator that in her eyes, at least, things in the store were back to normal.) The signs she'd wanted to make for the different sections of the store? Done, complete with full color illustrations, and already put up to help people more easily locate where the gaming sourcebooks were, for example, or the mini painting supplies, or crossword puzzles. Or cat-themed games, because that was its own special section. The new display rack for posters? Assembled and stocked. Materials for Free RPG Day? Already ordered.

That still left her with plenty of time in her day to work on personal projects, and that was good: Steph was rarely happier than when she had multiple creative projects on the go, and these were big ones. First off was -- well, she couldn't call it finalizing a syllabus for her workshop when said workshop was going to be a collaborative effort and she had no idea yet which direction it was going to take, which as far as she was concerned just made it more exciting. But at least she had a general outline of what needed to be accomplished by which week of the course in order to stay on track, several premises and scenarios all hashed out, and the necessary crafting supplies ordered.

And then there was the matter of organizing Fandom Pride, which was, without a doubt, the single biggest project she'd ever decided to undertake on her own. Sure, she'd singlehandedly made Pride happen back in Haven Springs, but that had been through sheer force of running the radio station and making the entire month's programming as queer as she could possibly could. It hadn't been an actual festival or anything. Luckily she still had connections back in Seattle and Portland, and a good chunk of today was going to be dedicated to getting as much advice as possible out of them.

It was a lot, and it was kind of intimidating, but honestly she wouldn't have it any other way. It'd keep her busy enough to ignore any lingering unease from last week, but mostly? She was just excited about the chance to share a couple of things that were incredibly important to her.

Yeah. It was going to be a busy day, and pretty much guaranteed that she would forget about lunch entirely if not for the fact that Little Bot was absolutely going to pester her at lunchtime until she had a proper meal... which she knew for a fact, since it had already happened twice this week. Thanks for that, Vi.

[OOC: Open!]

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You were welcome, Steph. Not that Little Bot needed to pester her today, since Vi was here to do it in person.

"Hey, you eaten yet?" This question had absolutely nothing to do with the bag from J,GoB Vi was holding. Really.

It took her a second, because she'd been so caught up in what she was doing, but Steph looked up from the mess of notebooks, sketches, and sticky notes covering almost the entire desk.

"Not yet," she said, the look of intense concentration she'd been wearing dissolving into sheepishness. And also the realization that yeah, she was really hungry.

Look at Vi's surprised face.

"Thought so," she said, brandishing the bag in Steph's general direction. "Good thing they gave me far too much lunch for just one person."

It wasn't even entirely a lie, the amount of food places served here.

Steph gave her a very long, questioning look before coming to the same conclusion as the narrative because yeah, her fridge was at its most stocked when she had leftovers in it.

With a resigned sigh (but also a tiny smile) she started to clear all of her stuff off the desk, setting it to the side, then reached for the bag. "Gonna hang out while I eat, just to make sure I do?"

It wasn't a complaint, more like an invitation, really.

It was doubly convenient for Vi, both in getting enough to eat and Steph never being able to prove she'd bought lunch for her.

"Yeah," she said, letting Steph take the bag and sitting across from her. "You're as bad as Powder."

Steph half suspected it anyway, but no, given the way food orders tended to somehow quadruple in size around here she really wouldn't be able to prove it.

"You know you really don't have to do this," she said as she started unpacking the contents of the bag. "Especially since I know you got Little Bot in on the whole thing. But I do appreciate it."

The food, but also hey, bonus best friend time.

Vi couldn't have planned it better, really.

"Yeah, well, I was coming by to visit Little Bot and Saffron anyway," Vi said, grinning broadly. "And figured I could get rid of my leftovers at the same time."

And spend time with Steph, she guessed.

Because spending time with Steph was such a hardship, right?

"Wow," Steph said, laughing, and kicked at Vi's foot under the desk. "I see how it is, okay."

Speaking of Saffron, there was a meow, and all of a sudden a cat leaping up onto the desk with every intention of climbing into Vi's lap.

"Yeah, yeah, your favorite human's here," she told Saffron. "Now you can tolerate my presence, huh?"

Simply excruciating.

"Did you think I came just to see you?" Vi asked, still grinning as she scooped up her lapful of cat for proper snuggling. "Sorry you're so wrong." It was only mostly to see her.

It was the worst.

Steph took a couple of minutes to start eating before she replied, which meant Saffron got a little bit of snuggle time uninterrupted by her other, grudgingly tolerated human.

"I know where I stand relative to the cat and the roomba," she said finally, grinning back. "I'm resigned to it."

Totally professional relationship here.

Sassing your boss over lunch while your shared cat pawed at your face was how most workplaces functioned, right?

"Just so we're clear on that," Vi said archly, the effect ruined by said pawing making her break down in giggles.

Especially when you were doing this on your days off, Vi.

"Absolutely clear," Steph said, snickering. "You just drop in to get cat snuggles and be a pain in my ass."

Well, she could hardly just drop in while she was working, now could she?

"And to check in on Little Bot," Vi added. "No other reasons."

She was just going above and beyond, really.

"Obviously not," Steph said with a solemn nod. Never mind that they'd only gotten Saffron and Little Bot a couple of weeks ago. "Definitely not because I'm just that awesome or anything."

Truly, the sacrifices she made.

"Of course not," Vi agreed. "Next you'll be suggesting I actually like spending time with you."

They were very deeply appreciated sacrifices though.

"Pfft. That would be implying that you actually like me or something," Steph said -- grinning the whole time, which really undermined the dismissive tone.

"I guess I like you enough to grace you with my presence."

Could Vi keep a straight face saying that? No.

Steph put a hand over her heart in feigned shock.

"Wow, Vi, you really know how to make a girl feel special."

Funny how that didn't actually come out all that sarcastically, though.

"I try." Vi didn't really have a good comeback to that that wasn't smiling kind of goofily.

"What are you working on?" She asked instead, since Steph had at least eaten something if she got distracted by the answer.

It was a fun reaction to get out of her, though, so Steph was going to enjoy it. And maybe smile goofily right back.

"I... may have volunteered myself to organize this year's Pride festival for the island," she admitted, "so now I'm trying to figure out how much we can pull off in a town this small."

"Oh, cool," Vi said, and then, because she trusted Steph not to make fun of her not knowing things. "What's a Pride festival?"

Steph had figured it stood to reason that Vi wouldn't know, so she took the question in stride, but she would never have made fun of her for not knowing, anyway.

"Next month is Pride month," she explained after a couple more bites of food to both make Vi happy and give her time to put together an answer. "There's a lot of history that goes into it that I want to work into the actual event, but basically, it's all about celebrating queer culture and refusing to let people pretend we don't exist. A lot of cities will have one weekend in June for a sort of carnival and a parade, which is more or less what I want to do here, but I've also got a few ideas for things to do through the whole month."

Look out, she was in that animated, enthusiastic mood again.

Which meant that yet again Vi was making heart eyes at her.

"And queer culture refers to people like us?" That much she'd kind of figured out from context, but she was definitely confused by why anyone would try to pretend people like them didn't exist.

Runeterra was definitely way ahead of most universes' versions of Earth that way.

Steph nodded. "There are way too many people in this world who think that the only valid kind of relationship is between one man and one woman, that gender is strictly defined by what kind of body you were born in, that people who don't experience romantic or sexual attraction are broken, all kinds of bullshit like that." Her expression was equal parts 'sorry to tell you our world sucks this way' and 'I'm so embarrassed that I have to explain that our world sucks this way.' "They... haven't made it easy on us, which is the understatement of, like, forever, and basically, a huge part of Pride is us saying 'yeah, fuck that.'"

It was one of a tiny handful of ways Piltover didn't suck.

"Well that's dumb, not the saying 'fuck that' part." There were a great many things worth saying fuck that about.

"I know, right?" Steph smiled at her, but there was a little bit of sadness around her eyes that she couldn't quite dispel. "People made my life miserable about it when I was fourteen. Anyway, this island? Is actually amazing that way, way more than most of this world can be, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still say 'fuck you' to those assholes by just existing as loudly as we can. Pride's important to me, so I want to make it happen."

She took a deep breath. "But wow. This is going to be a lot of work."

"Fuck 'em," Vi agreed, reaching for her hand. "Not in the fun way. And you know I'm here to help, right?"

Like Steph was going to not let Vi take her hand or something; if anything, it did manage to chase that touch of sadness out of her eyes for the moment.

"I know," she said, squeezing Vi's hand lightly. "Because you're the best, you know that?"

"Someone keeps saying something like that," she said quietly. "Guess it must be true."

"It is absolutely fucking true," Steph told her. "Look, Saffron agrees with me."

Vi grinned at her. "Oh if you an Saffron agree on something it's definitely true."

"I think it might be the only thing Saffron and I agree on," Steph said ruefully, "which pretty much proves the point."

Saffron did seem mildly put out that Steph was holding on to one of the hands that could be petting her, though.

"I won't argue then," Vi said, squeezing Steph's hand before returning to Saffron's rightful petting. "You're pretty great too, you know."

"Good thing I believe you," said Steph, who really just enjoyed the sight of Vi and Saffron enjoying each other's company. "Because I don't think you're getting Saffron's backup on this one."

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The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (5/5)

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