fandomtownies | Turtle & Canary; Monday [08/29].

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Turtle & Canary; Monday [08/29].

With one of her classes with Stark being on Monday, Summer almost considered trying to shift things around a little for her Turtle & Canary duties, but it was the first period, so it really didn't eat up a lot of her morning, and she would just come in a little later than before, maybe stay a little later, no big deal, especially today, though, because not only had she been gone for a week, but apparently Shunsui wasn't even back yet, which, you know, rude.

Plus, it was apparently emotional baggage day, and she figured she'd better get a step-up on the bars by throwing up a sign:

Back to School Special!

25% off all Alcohol!

Also an additional 20% off for all new students and teachers!

✨✨✨We're Also Hiring!✨✨✨

See Summer for details!

And at least with all the baggage hanging around and getting in everyone's way, it seemed Apu didn't bother with anything over-the-top for some made-up holiday, although he was spending an incredible amount of time brooding over the 'overcompensates as a desperate bid for relevancy' duffel bag that had shown up, while Summer wondered if she should point out that actually? That one was probably hers, too.

Today's Squishy Flavors
Lemon Juice
Herbs
Red

Turtle & Canary is open!

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“This day is still around?” Goose grumbled by way of greeting as he came into the store carrying a few different bags that had started following him when he made his over.

That was when the trunk labelled ‘daddy issues’ decided to make an appearance and he sighed, “even though that one is a new one,” he considered, tilting his head a bit as he looked at it.

Summer's expression, at least, was a sympathetic one, especially since she knew exactly where that one was coming from. "Fun, isn't it?" she said, shaking her head and leaning on the counter a little, really toeing the line between discretion and curiosity for a better peek at what some of Goose's baggage might have to offer. Probably nothing too surprising, though, with him, that she didn't mostly already know or guess already.

"I just basically try to ignore them," she added, with a shrug, and a cute little 'avoids dealing with trauma' handbag popping up beside her, because at least her baggage had a sense of humor about it, she guessed.

There wasn’t anything very new that might be a surprise, There was a duffel bag labelled ‘freak’ and a backpack that said ‘failed experiment’ and of course there was a large suitcase for ‘Wolf Den’

“You think I’d be used to it by now,” Goose stared down at the luggage that was slowly building up, “most of this I hear pretty frequently at home,”

That was when another trunk that had ‘will never be good enough’ appeared.

There...really wasn't enough time to go over exactly what the multitude surrounding Summer had to offer, really.

"I think that's why," Summer offered, "a good understanding of everything that makes you fucked up is pretty useful around here, but you better believe, me and my therapist are going to have plenty of directions to take our next session after she sees some of these."

And, really, now, Island, was it necessary, with all these heavyweights around her, you had to add 'that one time a girl said you had weird knees in second grade' to everything, too?

(But, like, really, if you thought about it? Her knees totally were weird, that girl in the second grade was really on to something with that one....)

Goose sighed, “I'm just glad this didn't happen when I was back home, I'm pretty sure I would have been put on ice," he remarked and as if right on cue two more pieces of luggage appeared with ‘Cyrocrypt’ and ‘Traitor’.

"You could have just tried to pass it off as some ironic new trend in luggage design," Summer offered. "Probably a stretch, but, hey. That's still better than nothing. Who knows? Maybe outrageous, clearly untrue statements on suitcases will become all the rage out there!"

Goose did smirk at that, “even though that would have been one way for Walsh to find out that I do know about him being my dad,” he glanced down at the ‘daddy issues’ trunk, “I didn’t get a chance to tell him that I know when I was back home,” he admitted.

"'Didn't get a chance'?" asked Summer, and you could practically feel the quotes around those words with the lift of her brows. "Or more like 'conveniently didn't get around to mentioning it'?"

“Er … it was a bit of both?” Goose said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and then another suitcase labelled ‘can’t deal with feelings’ appeared, he sighed, “okay it was more that I didn’t get around to mentioning it,” he admitted.

And Summer nodded, as if proud that Goose could at least admit to it, her own expression going a little apologetic. "You'll get there," she reassured him. "When the time is right, I'm sure. Maybe it'll just take some warming up."

“I hope so, I - I want to tell him that I know,” Goose said softly and hesitated, glancing down at the ‘can’t talk about feelings’ bag, “I’m - I’m scared he’ll reject me,”

He could totally talk about his feelings it was fine.

"Well," said Summer, staunchly, "you know what I have to say about that concern."

Somewhere behind her, the suitcase marked with No One Ever Listens managed to get heavy enough to slide off from where it was in the pile and crash to the floor.

Summer ignored it.

"I really don't he will," she reiterated, for good measure, "and if he does? It's his loss, and you dont' need to waste your time with people who'll reject you for things you can't even help. Especially when there's plenty of people," she put a hand to her chest so that Goose knew that she was talking about herself in that, too, "who won't."

That was when the duffel bags with ‘abandonment issues’ and ‘Max’ appeared.

Goose nodded “I know I need to tell him, about a lot of things really’ he admitted, “I just …don’t even know where to start with bringing it up,”

"I still vote you just get him a Father's Day card and hand it over to him and just say 'surprise!'" Summer suggested.

While nodding in agreement at the briefcase that showed up reminding everyone My Dad is a Fucking Moron.

She felt it could be much bigger.

“Well that is coming up in Australia,” Goose considered with a tilt of his head, “this weekend I believe,”

In what was a first he was aware of a date that was coming up since he been obsessively checking the dates for Father’s Day since the idea had been first suggested by Summer.

"Oh, shit," said Summer, "I was just suggesting it to be ironic nowhere near Father's Day, but that totally works, too."

Goose did smile softly at that, “maybe I will call then or something like that?” he considered.

Was he being a coward about talking to him in person? Perhaps but he was taking baby steps.

Very small baby steps but it was still progress.

Cutter had realised that he had not actually packed that many clothes so he decided to go ahead and pick some things up to get settled into his new apartment.

Of course he found himself being followed by several pieces of luggage and he was trying to ignore them, particularly when one of them was a large trunk that said ‘Helen’.

“I think I might be needing to get a head start on the drinking,” he remarked dryly and then stumbled over another suitcase that appeared that was labelled 'terrible husband'.

He sighed, “kind of figured that one out when I found out my wife cheated on me,” he remarked as he glared at the suitcase.

"If you're not drunk already," Summer commented, watching this play out with an almost appreciative interest, especially for all the unnecessary bits of exposition it had to offer about this person who she was pretty sure she hadn't even seen before, "you're way too late for a head start. But hi! Welcome to Turtle & Canary! I'm Summer, if you need any help with anything, just let me knooooow, but be forewarned, we cannot actually do anything about all the baggage. That's on the island. But we do have a decent selection of carts, wheelbarrows, and wagons if you need help toting it all around. Personally, I suggest just leaving it. If they don't follow you, they'll just reappear again later, anyway."

“Nick Cutter, I’m the new Palaeontology teacher this semester,” he glanced down at the trunk, “this definitely didn’t get mentioned the other day and that included running into a friend of mine from home, who’s apparently several years in the future,”

He grimaced as bags labelled ‘ruins lives' and 'will always be alone' appeared.

"I may need one of those carts," he sighed.

"Yeah, no," said Summer, with a small, understandable nod, wondering if she should maybe even try something like a Today Only Wagon Rental sort of thing for people, but she'd get to it eventually. "There's no way anyone could actually be able to list all the weird shit you're probably going to have to deal with around here, and this one's rare enough that a lot of people," herself included!, "tend to just forget about it until it happens again, and then they definitely remember. I wouldn't worry about it too much, though, it's usually just a day thing and then we all can move on with our lives."

Cutter blinked at that, “and to think I thought coming to Fandom would be a chance for something normal,” he remarked dryly, “but then again I only applied two weeks ago, it seemed like a good idea at the time,”

Despite herself, Summer barked a bit of a laugh there. "Oh," she said, "you got one of those brochures, did you? Yeah, buckle in, buddy, this whole place is weird, and that's coming from someone who..."

She paused a moment, turning around to look over the stacks of luggage there behind her, and plopped a suitcase marked with 'literally no gauge for what's actually normal human responses anymore' onto the counter, and just gestured at it demonstrably.

"I'm even teaching a class about it this semester," she offered. "Had our first sesh today, as a matter of fact, so, in a way, the baggage actually was weirdly convenient."

Cutter nodded, “after spending the last year chasing dinosaurs around England and well…” he gestured towards the bags, “most of this is from the last year actually,” he admitted.

He sighed and a suitcase with ‘Claudia’ appeared on it, “and to think it was to get away from all of that,”

“Well it would definitely be a topical class, I got signed up for a cooking class this semester,” he revealed, “apparently a couple of members of my team thought it would be a great joke and my boss encouraged it,”

Then a satchel with ‘doesn’t follow rules’ appeared.

Summer was so, so tempted to ask all about who this Claudia was and start digging into this guy who she'd literally just met (what's up, Boundary Issues tote, how you doin'?), but, thankfully, there was a good alternate distraction in that.

"Ooooh, you might be in my cooking class, then!" she guessed. "Chopped: Fandom? In the community center? Tomorrow night?"

That was when a very large suitcase with ‘original timeline’ appeared on it, Cutter grimaced.

“That’s the class, I don’t know much about cooking,” Cutter found himself admitting, “I think that was part of the joke,” that and everyone found it amusing about Cutter being signed up to something that required following someone else’s rules.

"Ok... someone want to clue me in one what the HELL is going on here?" Billy said as he walked in, tripping and stumbling over the bags that just would...not.. stay out of his way.

Yes and hello Summer. Sorry, the still kinda newbie was having a bit of a morning.

Hey, there was a reason she was teaching a class on Fandom Weirdness this semester! She was clearly one of the best people he could have gone to, in this respect, and she gave him a warm, sympathetic (but not really all that sympathetic, considering the mountain she was, at this point, literally sitting on).

"Hi, Billy," she said. "Welcome to Baggage Day. As in, you know, literal manifestations of all your emotional baggage. It's super fun!"

But, hey, at least it wasn't Truth Day. At least on Baggage Day, you could pretend you didn't see anything of note most of the time.

"Right.... I had kinda gotten that general theme..." Billy said with a sigh as he looked at the baggage that seemed to be multiplying at his feet.

There was the expected "Military trauma" "PTSD" and "Zombies" ones but there were also a few that Billy was trying really hard to ignore... "unworthy of love" "destined to live alone" and "deserving of death row" were kinda hard to just brush off.

"So ummm...." Billy said trying to sound casual as he cleared his throat. "How long does this usually last?"

"Just a day," Summer assured him, trying (not that hard) to at least be moderately polite in not look, but, come on. Especially when he was more than welcome to get an eyeful of her lovely pile that included such exciting revelations like 'inciting a race war', 'nearly genociding an entire race,' 'generational alcoholism,' 'blowing up several exes (probably)', and 'hey, remember that one time your grampa's ship melted a child in front of your eyes just to protect you'.

There was a lot, it would literally take an entire day to sort through even a fraction of Summer's trauma, but anywaaaaay....

"...hopefully. I'm pretty sure if it lasted longer than that, the entire island itself would just sink into the ocean under the collective trauma of everyone's baggage. This is not generally a place where well-adjusted people tend to flock to, after all."

Edited 2022-08-29 13:58 (UTC)

"Lucky us," Billy said drying, eyes unable to keep from scanning the pile for a second. It WAS a bit hard to not see it, not matter how focused he tried to stay on looking at Summer only.

"I could do without the reminders of death row though.... and the nearly being eaten by zombies thing.... already have enough nightmares about all that as it is." (Thanks Jon!).

"Yeah, it's, like, thanks, Island," Summer rolled her eyes. "Did you think we'd forget? And I swear, it seriously needs to follow it up with, like, an...Affirmation...Coat....scarf...something day, just to make up for it, but, what can you do? Just grin and bear it until it's over and hope no one's feeling obnoxiously nosy about anything."

"Summer." Jon nodded and shoved GUILT aside; he was a man with a mission. "I need petrol. Probably quite a lot of it."

There was....a pause.

"Okay," she said, eventually, "I know our whole gimmick is 'everything except duct tape,' but also, this is an island with no cars? I got lighter fluid galore, though, and a shit ton of cheap alcohol."

She eyes Jon a moment and considered the mountain of luggage behind her.

"Cathartically burning our emotional baggage, are we?" she guessed.

"Yes," Jon said firmly. "I'll take whatever will burn them." Before he got buried in his own.

A cheerful bag marked Impulsive fetched up against his feet.

Summer gestured to Apu to to do his thing.

"You do know they're just going to come back, though, right?" she checked.

"I don't care," Jon said. "I'll keep burning them. I'm hoping it will be cathartic. You can join me, if you like. And spread the word. I already asked the fire department about it."

Summer looked behind her at Mount How Does A Twenty-Two Year Even HAVE This Much Baggage behind her, and then back at Jon.

"Nah," she said. "I'm good. The carbon emissions on the faux leather alone, Jon! I'll just save it all for my therapist. She's definitely earning her paycheck this week."

Edited 2022-08-30 00:50 (UTC)

That took Jon briefly aback. "Your...um, you have a therapist that knows about all of...this."

"My grampa was a pickle in one of our group family sessions," Summer informed him. "And my mom's space clone blew up her office once. I think she can handle..."

She grabbed a bag at random, turning it toward her read it, "That time I made myself giant on accident trying to have bigger boobs for prom and then my mom literally turned me inside out.' Oh, wait, we already covered that, what's some more recent trauma? Where's me freaking out because it's almost my two year anniversary and I'm only twenty-two and what if I'm wasting some primo dating years by settling down too early? Oh! There is is!"

She held it up proudly.

It was turquoise!

"You're...I wasn't aware you were married."

That seemed the safest thing to comment on in all of that.

Shut up, Avoidant satchel.

"Oh, I don't mean, like, settled down settled down," Summer clarified, "but, I mean, I was married before, when I was in high school, but, I mean, it was the Apocalypse," hello, Cannibalism Phase, she thought you were buried way deeper in the pile, she was just gonna go ahead and yeet you discretely right over theeeere now, "what can you do?"

She couldn't even be mad at the My Grampa Replaced Me With a Robot caboodle showing up just then, either, because that actually was related, believe it or not.

"But, you know, I've never been with anyone as long as I've been with Barry, and it just kind of, you know, feels like a lot? And, I mean..."

Summer trailed off. She knew exactly what that bag showing up on the counter next was going to say, so she was shoving that one underneath the counter as fast as she could before anyone could even glimpse at anything about maybe catching feelings for anyone else.

"Anyway!" she laughed lightly. "I could go on about my shit all day, clearly, but you have your own shit to burn through...literally! So let's get that lighter fluid and get you on your way!"

"Yes. Please." Jon wasn't throwing stones at anybody else's baggage, particularly not anything apocalypse related. The Eye be damned, he was determined to avoid as many people's secrets as possible and not even look. Much. "And you're still free to bring anything over, if you like."

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Turtle & Canary; Monday [08/29].

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