When Raiden had decided to throw a Labor Day cookout at the beach, he'd had a couple of stumbling blocks. First, he'd envisioned it happening on Labor Day, which hadn't ended up working out, which had been, uh, probably for the best, it turned out. Second, he hadn't been able to spend the day before the party doing prep because of the reason the delay had turned out being a good idea, but he'd managed to get it all together in a flurry of activity today.

Third, he hadn't been able to decide between a fish fry or a seafood boil. So, in true Gluttony fashion, he'd decided to do both! Which meant he was manning both the fryer and the boil pot, a flower crown perched at a jaunty angle over his backwards baseball cap, plus there was plenty of other food for people who weren't feeling the fruits of the sea, and a whole table of dessert. You fancying coconut cake? Chocolate cake? Key lime pie? Banana pudding? Raiden's got you covered.

There was also a bonfire going, and downwind of the rest of the setup there was a fire pit, with a table with s'mores fixings and a handmade sign reading 'Marshmallow Containment Zone.' And, of course, there was plenty of beachy fun to be had, but mostly food. A lot of food.

Come on down to the beach, everyone! Stretch summer out one more day, and maybe eat a whole lot of shrimp in the bargain.

And so there'd been a successful trip to Eos and they didn't get trapped, and what was more, even more than the new extra insight that Liliana had given him about her theories regarding the Starscourge, Noctra had finally gotten to meet real, live, actual chocobos for the first time, and she had absolutely adored them. It felt like such an elated relief to Prompto that he wondered how much of his anxiety had actually been tied to his trauma around portals and wasn't just some deep dread that she would hate his favorite animal in the whole entire multiverse (yes, even more than puppies, although, let's be honest, it was a pretty close race!).

Okay, okay, he knew it was definitely about the portals, but everything had actually turned out fine, and so now, maybe, he could focus on the more positive.

And that included combing through all the photos he'd taken over the weekend, and realizing that a part of him was already starting to wonder if maybe planning more trips back home was in the future. Probably not anytime soon, with the new baby's due date creeping up closer and closer, but it was...a little surreal, really, to think that it was even possible now...

So, with an adjustment to the flower crown that kept jauntily tilting on his head around his hair, Prompto leaned in to get to work culling through the weekend's photos to pick out some of the best and just think back as to how nice the whole weekend had been (when he wasn't, you know, being anxious about it).

The Photo Hut is open!

As much as Gladio actually did kind of appreciate how nicely that flower crown complimented his long, flowing locks, he really was going to miss constantly tasting the delicious magical flavors of Cup Noodle^TM just by merely existing like he had yesterday. At least now he had a new goal in life: find some science-minded person to figure out how to make everything taste like Cup Noodle^TM at all times.

(Over on the other side of the park at Luke's Diner, Ignis Scientia felt a sudden chill down his spine and could not quite explain why).

For now, though, he at least had plenty of Cup Noodle^TM to keep him satisfied in between taking care of a few things around the gym and maybe squeezing in a little workout here and there, too. And looking fabulous while doing it.

Atlas is open!

Ahhh, well. Nothing quite solidified a definitive return to Fandom quite like being stuck with a hat that one could not remove from one's head. And it apparently switched, because when Ignis had tried to remove the hat, it was replaced with a flower crown, and when he tried to remove that, it reverted back to the hat, and...well, he certainly wasn't going to waste more time exploring if there should be an inevitable cessation of the series. After all, it wasn't as if he had to look at it...

But then there was an additional reminder that Fandom was very much being Fandom this week as he came into the diner with some news from the kitchen as he set to getting his coffee before settling in on deciding the days specials: everything was coming up pancakes.

Just pancakes.

Well, except for the coffee, thank goodness, but anything food related was just coming up pancakes, but as far as a restriction on what he could intentionally make went, he supposed that one wasn't too bad. He did, however, have a sneaking suspicion that this was somehow due to Summer's influence, though precisely how, he could not explain.

(Generally, though, it felt like a realistic assumption to make).

Today's Specials
Cheddar Bacon Pancakes
Loaded Blueberry Oat Pancakes
Chocolate Corruption

Luke's is open!

Had you enjoyed your new flavors? Well, they were gone now, as the island's attention flitted to something else. A kind of a... festive feeling? Something nice. Pretty - and/or ostentatious.

All across the island, people were going to wake up to a new day with equally new headwear. For some, it would be a flower crown in the style of a popular image-based social media platform in 2013. For others, it was going to be an incredibly fierce hat as worn by a legend to an inauguration in 2009.

Some, of course, were going to wake up with just the regular hair on their heads. But they were still going to be seeing other people in Aretha hats and flower crowns, so everyone was still going to get a bit of the fun.

And to keep it fun - in a very PG sense - the island was also putting a restriction on certain things coming out of people's mouths. Everyone brace yourselves for saying 'fudge' and 'fudging' or 'smurf' or 'whatchawoo' or literally any other word substitution someone might think of to replace a curse word with. And yes, it went for you too, the folks used to saying stuff like 'poodoo'. The island knew what the bad words were.

In the meantime, memories continued to play out all over town.

They probably got to keep their cursewords.

[ooc: No cursing for the rest of the week!]

Steve had given up trying not to taste apple pie and so he was just having other things that went with apple pie!

Or at least that was the excuse he was giving himself for why he was in the kitchen devouring a half-gallon of ice cream.

[OOC: for the husband!]

"I do not want to know what the crab tastes like," Stark said hurriedly. "Please tell me none of you really licked the crab."

"What about the rest of us?" a nurse asked, eyebrow raised. "We might all be delicious."

"You can drink your coffees and eat these donuts instead of licking people," Stark said. "That's my plan."

There wasn't anyone around he wanted to lick at this time and nobody around he wanted to gleefully tell that he tasted of Death by Chocolate cake.

"I taste like grape lollipops," one nurse offered. "Wanna see?"

"No thank you," Stark said.

He hoped nobody was going to lick him in here but you could never be sure. Not on this island.

It was first period and everyone was directed to the Danger Shop this morning, which had been done up to look like the inside of a commercial airplane. Jaina was standing in the aisle, letting the students pick their seats in first class.

(Not the back and to the left in first class, because those were filled by Jaina's sons, because she felt like she had to keep an eye on them in case they kept daring each other to lick things just in case they had a taste too. Kids- especially boys- were weird.)

"Welcome to Flight and Flying," she greeted them. "My name is Jaina Solo Fel, you can stick with the first name. To give you some background, I come from where the spaceships live, I've been flying practically forever, spent half my life as a pilot in the military, and now I either fly my own starfighter or get carted around in big fancy ships by other people. In this class you're going to get to learn about different kinds of crafts and get to learn how to fly them, or at least as much as you can in one class period.

"We're going to do the standard introductions, and I just want your name, how much experience you have, and if there's anything you really want to study. And then once we're done with that, you can play around on the airplane, whether you want to watch part of a movie that'll get interrupted anytime someone gets on the PA system, or you can get in the cockpit since next week you're going to be flying one of these yourselves."

The phones were lighting up today, but the Troopers were far too distracted experimenting with finding out if they all tasted the same because they were clones to actually do any work.

Steve was rapidly losing patience with the complaints he was getting. "Stop licking other people," he finally snapped at the last phone call. "Of course she smacked you for it!"

He listened to the final question. "I'm not telling you what I taste like!"

It was going to be suuuuch a long day.

The Trooper Station was open!

Good morning, everyone. This is Jaina, and by the way I have squirrels handing me notes I'm taking that to mean I'm doing radio now.

There are only a couple notes: Erasmus was exploring in the woods and finding creepy mansions, while Henry was taking care of and talking with his horse in the stables. I should say "talking to." The horse wasn't talking back. One weird thing at a time.

Speaking of which, I have eight-year-olds who are going to be very weird about licking things today so I guess I'll see you next week when the squirrels get pushy again.

After class, Jon had decided on a cup of tea, and had headed to the Perk for that and a bit of time sat at a table going over notes from class and deciding on what to cover.

So now he was sitting at a table and wondering if he ought to be covering more actually-existing creatures. Except that did run the risk of actual trauma, which he was trying to avoid...

But what if Bigfoot triggered some trauma in one of his students? You never knew!

In between gnawing on his pen and jotting down notes, Jon was also people-watching. A surprising number of people seemed to be licking their lips today. Odd.



Open post!

Well, Riri was still waiting on stuff from MIT. And hoping it wasn't getting shipped back to her mom's place in Chicago, but not wanting to actually check after everything. So, instead of that, she threw herself into the weirdness of this place.

Or just documenting it to confirm or deny things.

This was accomplished after she found a whiteboard stashed away in one of the storage closets. She'd dragged it into one of the common rooms to start writing on, but had banged her finger on a doorway along with way. This was the reason there was a very confused 'TASTES LIKE WHITE CASTLE?' on there next to 'JOURNALIST SQUIRRELS' after sucking on her mashed finger.

Precious newbie. And it hadn't even moved past whimsy yet!

[open!]

Jon was doing his best to be extremely pressed and proper for the first day of classes, to match his extremely Oxford accent. Look, there were people he didn't recognize here, and he wanted to make a professional impression.

"Welcome," he said when everyone had arrived. "I am Jonathan Sims, your professor for Cryptozoology. Over my time living here in Fandom, I've come to realize that things which are pure fantasy in one world are likely to exist in another, and furthermore that the rules for things that do exist in different worlds - such as vampires, for example - may be vastly different from world to world. Therefore, this class is going to attempt to focus on things that have never been proven to exist in any world I'm aware of. If you do have proof of them, congratulations, you can present it to the class. Otherwise, we'll be hypothesizing about what might cause their stories, what is known about them, and if we think they do exist and why."

He shrugged. "This first class is easier, though, as we'll be focusing on things that - outside of philosophy class - definitely exist. Namely, ourselves. Introduce yourself. Name, where and or when you're from, and why you're in this class, please. I, as I said, am Jonathan Sims. I am from early twenty-first century Earth, specifically England and more specifically Bournemouth by way of London. I thought a class about imaginary things would be interesting and relatively safe." He nodded at the nearest student. "Next."

When Raiden arrived at Pizza Planet on Monday morning, the only person there before him was mixing up the dough and he went straight back to his office, so he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary at first. He didn't even notice that he smelled like pizza, because everything smelled like pizza.

It was only when he emerged from his paperwork haze, and his office, to discuss the specials with the rest of the staff that he noticed.

"Huh," he said after a moment, and then sniffed his arm. Yep. He sure did smell like pizza. "I...have to go. Away. I have to go away." Before he took a bite out of somebody. Possibly himself. Maybe if he got off the island?

"But what about the specials?" Tito called after him as he headed for the door.

"Do whatever you want!" Raiden called over his shoulder as he texted Gray and Arden to please let him know when it was safe to come back. Hopefully before tomorrow. He had a party to throw.

Special
Pumpkin Spice Dessert Pizza

Pizza Planet is open! The Nephilim is not in.

Vi had meant to get the month off to a start by swapping over a bunch of the summer themed games for some of the fall themed ones, but she'd gotten distracted almost immediately when she'd absently chewed on her thumb while going over her choices.

That absent chewing had turned to a confused licking. First of her lips, then the thumb in question, then several bits of random skin.

"Why do I taste like pink?"

The swimming class was meeting in the basement pool of the dorms (Anakin had provided rather elaborate directions for those, like him, who had forgotten it existed), and their two instructors were waiting for them by the side of the pool with their legs dangling into the water.

"Hello, everyone," Anakin said with a casual wave. "We're here to learn to swim. I'm sorry if the chlorine is burning your eyes, but we had to give the pool a thorough cleaning after relocating the squid."

That was a normal thing to mention, right? He gestured to the dark-haired man to his left. "This is Commander Steve McGarrett, who you might recognize from his work at the Trooper Station. He's also a Navy SEAL."

"Retired, now," Steve said with a slightly tight smile. "And I'm not actually anything like a seal, the animal. SEAL stands for Sea, Air and Land, and we're the United States Navy's premiere special operators. Among our skills is, well, swimming. I'm here to assure you that no one will actually drown."

Steve dropped down into the water with a small splash. "The first thing to do is to get comfortable in the water," he said, "so everyone hop into the shallow end. Your feet will be on the bottom of the pool, so there's nothing to be afraid of." He sent Anakin a slightly puzzled look. "Especially now that the squid is relocated."

"Introduce yourselves as you jump in," Anakin added, sliding into the water.

Guess who'd picked a great time to return to the island:

Yes, that was right, Bucky Barnes, fresh out a portal from Wakanda. Fresh in a manner of speaking, anyway - this latest round of brain work had been kind of a lot. Shuri seemed to think he was nearing a breakthrough, though, and even though Bucky himself was feeling compelled to wonder if she didn't actually mean a breakdown...

Well. Wasn't nothing, was it?

He fired off a quick text to Jesse to tell her he was both alive and back on the island, and then he let Ingrid briefly talk his ear off about how they should've been planning for all the seasonal screenings for every holiday coming up (it was never too early to think about Halloween, apparently), and something about the auditorium appearing to be stuck on only accepting movies from a particular year.

Aside from that, Bucky was unaware of any shenanigans. That was not going to last.

NOW SHOWING
Battle of the Realms

The shop was haunted. Or rather, the street in front of it seemed to be.

Pam had moved her lab equipment downstairs, to the back room - with the pain coming and going as it did, it felt unsafe to rely on the stairs. It was quiet, for the most part. Except, every so often, she heard it.

A voice. A male voice.

And yet, every time she walked to the front of the store to open the door and see who it was, there was nothing. Just the fleeting sight of brown curls, vanishing into thin air.

"This is the stupidest ghost I've ever encountered," Pam muttered, and turned away from the door.

"Breasts!" the ghost burbled anew.

[[ open ]]

Another week was upon Fandom, and a new day was dawning. But it wasn't just any week on the island, or for the island. Yet another fall semester was beginning up at the school, marking a familiar re-starting point in the cycle of life on Fandom island, and this time, for whatever reason...

It had the island itself feeling a little bit nostalgic.

And so, in the early morning, when the first member of staff came to the Perk to get the day started, he was greeted not only by every usual pre-opening task that awaited him, but also a strange scene that played out near the order counter. The interior looked different there, for one thing, harkening back to design choices of an earlier, just barely past Y2K era. And then a customer showed up at the counter in a Fall Out Boy t-shirt and an old school Nokia phone in hand, and the girl behind the counter fumbled with the change a little, and apologized, because it was her first day --

And then they were both gone, and the counter and everything around it were back to a 2025 normal. The present-day barista blinked, but barely had any time to process, before one of his colleagues came in through the back, excitedly announcing he now had a taste and apparently it was cactus flower!

All across the island - the school, the dorms, the town - people were waking up to a new day, new flavors (unless they happened to have been here in 2012, and happened to taste the same), and the possibility of old memories playing out right before their eyes.

And the island, with its nostalgia trip through old favorites, was just getting started.

[ooc: BLAST FROM THE PAST WEEK begins! Did you know the first ever post in the townies comm was also the debut of the Perk? Now you do!]

They can be found over here so you don't forget what classes you signed up for!

(Let me know in comments if I left anyone off.)

Oh, there's the pile of notes. At least you're making the kidnapping worth my time. Hi, new folks. This is Tony Stark, bringing you the news of the day. You get used to the gossip of the squirrels eventually. Just treat them like paparazzi sometimes.

But let's get started. First off, we have Raiden... eating a giant mayonnaise gummy bear at Over Easy.

...

...

Okay, moving on! The welcome picnic happened up at the school. First up was the new students getting to meet their faculty advisors! Erasmus getting a little information overload from Ghanima. It is a lot to figure out in a short period of time. Riri found out that the moose wasn't a joke from Jaina and questioned the legality of the place. Bllie... was actually the most on the ball with all the oddness of this island, surprising Don a bit.

Erasmus met his roommate, Henry comma boy. Thanks for the clarification, porg intern. They had a slight miscommunication on language after finding out that one is a necromancer--Oh, like Liliana!--and the other is from many centuries ago. Riri and Billie also ended up roommates and did the usual settling of issues that might arise. Including a nickname.

Erasmus also met Stark who... okay, that's kind of funny. Who, through a series of misunderstandings, Erasmus thought might be a serial killer. Arden and Erasmus bonded over sweet tea. Ugh. Give me coffee over that any day. Riri and Erasmus planned to pool information on the place like they're running an investigation. Which is adorable. Don had concerns about my and Steve's baking class for some reason. But wasn't surprised by the fire extinguishers purchased for it. Rude. Anakin and Jaina talked about politics back home after he was thanked for watching her kids. Stark was concerned that Anakin would bring his shenanigans to the bus ride. Which seems like a lot of work for only three students. Go big or go home, I say. Don learned all about the bakery that Steve let me buy to have access to French patisserie while overseas. Steve and I discussed our new class for the fall. And... Steve was Steve about Riri cursing. Oh, sounds like someone recognized him. Or maybe just someone who looks like him. Billie explained what a DJ was to Luma before they talked about California. Charlie and Billie bonded over music and compared magic and time travel. Oh yeah, that kid fits right in here. Rey and Stark talked about what class he was teaching this semester and what it meant.

But that seems to be all the notes the squirrels decided to gather. Which means it's very possible they were distracted by the food at the picnic. I certainly was. Hopefully everyone settles in well and enjoys their time here! 

SUNDAY (with Saturday's news): Tony Stark
MONDAY (with Sunday's news): Jaina Solo
TUESDAY (with Monday's news): Arden Finch
WEDNESDAY (with Tuesday's news): Stark
THURSDAY (with Wednesday's news): Cara
FRIDAY (with Thursday's news): Steve Rogers
SATURDAY (with Friday's news): Lydia Bennet

Thank you alllll!

Erasmus had a personal ranking system for cemeteries and graveyards, based on how noisy the spirits of the dead buried there were. The town church's graveyard was an interesting one. No one had been buried there for a while, it seemed, so the spirits were mostly content and quiet, but they were...well. Interesting. He'd have to come back and check it out more thoroughly later, because for now he wanted to find the cemetery he could feel in the woods and see how it compared. He expected it to be even older, probably forgotten and left untended by its location.

He wasn't what you would call 'outdoorsy' by any stretch of the imagination, but he could tromp through the woods for a bit with the best of them, heading in the straightest line possible toward the dead until he saw a house through the trees. Well. More like a mansion. A kind of creepy mansion.

"Huh," Erasmus said quietly to himself. "I guess I could have just followed the path." The cemetery must be behind the house, but he wasn't about to go poking around on private property, so it looked like this was a dead end.

Ha. 'Dead.'

(Open to anybody else in the woods!)

"So what d'you think, Pebbles?"

It had been a bit of a relief to find the stables two days ago. For a moment, Henry had feared that he might have to stall his horse in the dorm hallway, or some other untenable position, and that he would have to defend her from passing onlookers. Yes, she was an unsightly horse in any number of ways, but she'd been good to him the few days he'd had her. He was growing to be quite fond already.

And not just because she was the first horse he'd ever owned. (Did he own her? Or had Sir Radzig meant to loan her to him, and had he now accidentally stolen her? A troubling thought for another day.)

This was the second morning he'd gotten up early to go see her. He'd fed her, and now he was clumsily going over her with a brush, attempting to work away some of the muck she'd picked up on their ride to Ledetchko. "You know they have water that comes out of metal rods in the walls?" he said. "Ah, I suppose that's hardly important to you. Let alone the fancy privy. Must be easy, actually, being a horse. You just do your business as you go along."

He patted her on the neck. Should he use the brush on her mane, or did he need a comb? She tossed her head. Right, then.

"At least now we know we're not dead," he continued. "If we were, God or the Devil would have quite the odd sense of humor, moving us back and forth between this mad place and the bloody Rattay bathhouse, no? I don't think there'd be bathhouses and wine and bathmaids in Hell. Perhaps there should be in Heaven, though."

He swiped clumsily at her mane with the brush. "What would you want for an eternal paradise?" he said. "Just fresh grass and sunny skies? Or do horses dream of, I don't know, apples raining down from the sky and caretakers shaped like carrots so you can take a bite out of 'em any time they draw your ire?"

Pebbles let out a loud neigh.

"Oh, you like that, do you?" Henry said, patting her flank again. "Suppose I should watch my own arse then."

[[ open ]]

The last few months had been exhausting. Everything about LA, the threat of his apparent daughter and his apparent abandonment of her, and Lucifer hadn't even managed to figure out how to get Dan off of Earth yet.

Well. Apparently the man had now figured out how to possess people, so Lucifer supposed that made his life easier.

But day after day had crept by, and now they were close - so close - to the day he was meant to, apparently, father a daughter and then disappear. And what was he doing? Stalking back and forth through his apartment, drinking. He couldn't even relax enough to make this time with Octavia and Duke worth it.

He eyed the clock.

He stalked.

He took another heavy swig straight from the bottle.

[[ for two, and we are going to try and get through this horrifically stupid finale as fast as possible. ]]