Don’t worry about the future.

[mansionstaff]

Who: EV ERY ONE
What: Graduation. Prom.
When: The evening of May 31st.
Where: The Stadium.
Warnings: WHO KNOWS

It's a beautiful spring evening at Smash Academy, the barest hints of summer just beginning to touch the stadium floor, which had been rearranged into a platform overlooking neat rows of chairs meant to seat the gathered crowd of faculty and students. Towards the other end of the complex was the arrangement for the prom that was to follow. Food and drink, chairs and tables, each with a floral centerpiece, and, of course, a dance floor.



Before everyone could get their party on, however, there was the main event of the evening. From his place at the podium, Master Hand watched students and staff alike find their way into the stadium. With the recent shadow bug invasion, there seemed to be tensions in need of dispelling. If the Headmaster knew one thing, however, it was that some silly antics were not going to ruin this esteemed event. Not tonight. Not if he could help it.

-------

HEY DUDES! Here's how stuff is going to work. We kick off the log with GRADUATION. This part of the log will be divided into separate threads. I'll post them all at once, so feel free to hop around, mingle, post whenever, wherever.

HOWEVER, once the PROM starts, it will be up to you guys to post your own threads. Please check out last year's log if you'd like an idea of how this works. Everything after the thread titled "DISMISSAL" (I will post that in a bit, so don't post prom threads until I have that up!) will be considered prom, though don't let that stop you from continuing to post in the graduation section.

Please label all your threads appropriately! (Examples: "SHENANIGANS AT THE FOOD TABLE", "DANCE-OFF", "THE PUNCH IS SPIKED", "BOTHER X" In general, a location + what is going on in the thread is the way to go. Obviously, more than one thread can take place at the same location. 

Linking back and forth when and if you thread hop is very much appreciated. If things start to look a bit laggy, we'll bump to the next page. Most importantly, TAG YOUR DUDES, HAVE FUN, and let a mod know about any problems or concerns you might have!

Comments

[raced_god]

Falcon slid up next to Joel and put a tiny punch cup into his hand.

Just trust him, Joel, he knows what he's doing.

[golonghorns]

Joel took the cup without a word, gave it a sniff and smiled at Falcon before drinking it.

A little sweeter than he might have liked but not without his charms.

"How's your evenin' going?" he asked his casual arson buddy.

[raced_god]

Well geez, dude, he put it in the punch, what did you expect.

"That's the good stuff," he emphasized with a point to the tiny adorable punch glass. "That's how my evening's going."

[golonghorns]

"Better'n my evening, then. Well. So far." Maybe he'd drink a little more of that punch in more adorable little cups and see if that improved his mood.

"You probably been to a whole pile of these, huh? How long you been teachin', here?"

[raced_god]

"Too long," was the immediate response, punctuated by Falcon downing the rest of whatever was in his punch cup (not punch, probably expensive brandy). There was a moment where he was apparently calculating just 'how long' was 'too long'.

"God. Probably ten years. Kill me."

[golonghorns]

Joel let loose a long, low whistle.

"Damn. That's a long time, sure enough."

He picked up another sandwich, gave it a looking over and then took a bite.

"Still. Worse places to be. If I remember right, you said you could get back home anytime you had a notion to. Can't be so bad, if you're stickin' around."

[raced_god]

"Yeah, I can get home."

Which was pretty lucky, nowadays, and Falcon always half expected to one day find himself stuck.

"That's probably a big reason why I stick around. Home gets to be too much, come out here, and vice versa."

[golonghorns]

"Nice, man. That's real nice."

He'd love to be able to get home. All he'd need was ten minutes. Grab Ellie, maybe Tommy and his wife and drag them here. The Power Plant community they were setting up was hardly a terrible place to be. But it was nothing like this place.

"You never mentioned much about where you're from."

[raced_god]

It had sort of surprised Falcon that Joel was so open about apparently coming from zombie apocalypse town--if he'd come from such a place, he certainly wouldn't be telling people about it, but he supposed they were different types of people, evidenced by the fact that he was about to get real shady.

Not because he necessarily wanted to get shady, but it was kind of hard to explain Spacefuture World to people not also from Spacefuture World (i.e. Samus).

"It's, uh...you know." Full of aliens and flying cars. "Not that interesting."

[golonghorns]

Joel didn't mind talking about the Infection or how society had gone to hell in a handbasket. No, general knowledge about his world was fine. Specifics about himself were a different story altogether.

"Not that interesting."

Joel had a hard time believing it. Not many people he'd ever met from places that weren't that interesting happened to want to connect rocket fuel canisters to a flamethrower. Then again, ten years in a place like this could probably change a guy. Maybe his gut was steering him wrong, here.

"Blue collar neighborhood in the suburbs, huh?"

[raced_god]

"Eh, not exactly."

He answered it with a shrug, clearly trying to either deflect or omit details. "Lived in cities, mostly."

Which he was sure was a far cry from what Joel was probably imagining, if Falcon thought he knew anything about twenty-first century suburbia.

[golonghorns]

"I've been to a lot of 'em. You're American? Which city is your home town?"

So, he hadn't travelled much until after the world essentially shut down. But since then, he'd been all over the place.

[raced_god]

"Me? Yeah."

America of the FUTURE, but America nonetheless. Falcon hesitated for a moment, knowing that Joel would probably be unfamiliar with his hometown, and more than a little unsure of how he wanted to breach the timey-wimey topic. He figured, ultimately, that it would probably be best to just take the plunge.

"I'm from Port Town."

[golonghorns]

"Port Town? Not a place I know." Joel replied with a shrug. "Heard of Port Townsend, up in Washington."

Unless Falcon just meant 'a' port town? There were hundreds of those up and down each coast.

[raced_god]

Nope. Actually what it was called.

"It's, uh. You know. I'm not sure how many alternate universe...timeline shenanigans you've encountered, but it's entirely possible we're not from exactly the same versions of America."

Spacefutureworld notwithstanding, this was mostly evidenced by the fact that humanity had not been wiped out by a zombie apocalypse in Falcon's version of America.

[golonghorns]

"I've run into a few folks who seem to be from a different Earth altogether." Joel replied. "Kids from Japan who's world was taken over by some kind of despair. Folks who are actually dogs or... some kind of dog monsters."

He hadn't exactly come to terms with it. But he found if he concentrated more on the people and less on the worlds they came from, life was simpler, to some degree.

"Look, if your America didn't start goin' to hell September 29, 2013? Then yeah. We're from different worlds."

[raced_god]

"It didn't," he answered, neglecting to mention the casual fact that September 29th, 2013 was about 562 years before he even existed. "So I guess that explains that."

It didn't really explain anything at all, but maybe it was good to know that there was apparently an alternate America that didn't experience a zombie apocalypse.

"A lot of the time it's easier to just...not think about it."

[golonghorns]

"That's what I'm finding." Joel replied with a nod. "It's nice to know there are places out there that ain't shot to hell."

A shadow passed over his expression, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. So many 'if only's to think about. But none of them really mattered. Even if he was here now, there was no changing what had happened for him and his world.

He poured himself another little cup of punch and bit into another sandwich. "Yeah. It's just nice to have a second chance."

[raced_god]

"I can imagine."

And he could, sort of, because he'd given some degree of thought to what might have been if the Aparoids had won--it wasn't exactly a pretty picture. He knew, however, that he couldn't compare his what ifs to the experiences of someone who'd actually lived it.

"You got people back home?"

People he potentially couldn't get to.

[golonghorns]

His immediate instinct was to say No. But he'd already screwed the pooch on that one, huh? He'd mentioned Ellie in his first Network post in case she'd shown up here too. It was a dumb mistake to make. If there had been Fireflies here somehow...

No point in denying it now. And he did trust Falcon to a point. About as much as he'd trusted anyone in the last 20 years. (Except for Tess. But he didn't like to think about Tess too hard.) He seemed like a good guy. Good guys didn't necessarily stay that way so he'd be careful what he said.

"I got someone. I mentioned her on the network my first day. Ellie. She, uh. She has folks to take care of her though."

Assuming of course that she got back to Tommy and the rest of the Power Plant settlement people OK and didn't get just as lost as he had.

[raced_god]

"Good. That's good."

Falcon didn't have much to say beyond that--he figured if the other man wanted to elaborate, he would, and he knew enough about people like Joel to know not to pry. What counted was that things were apparently taken care of. He could understand the value in that.

"Who knows, whatever's keeping you here might just...vanish, one day."

They could only hope.

[golonghorns]

Joel nodded and was silent for a moment.

"There's upsides and downsides to that happening. I wouldn't want any infected bein' able to traipse their way in here. One world ruined by that shit's bad enough."

He had to admit though, this world would probably fare better than his.

"...I'd like to be able to bring her here. Ellie, I mean. She... uh. She deserves a place like this."

He looked at the prom-going youth all around them. Would Ellie even like something like this? He remembered her comments about teenagers in books she'd read. 'Is that really all they had to worry about?' she'd asked him. 'What clothes to wear and which movies to see?' Something like that, anyway. He'd been too wrapped up in his own bullshit to remember word for word. She might think all of this stuff was dumb. And he wouldn't blame her for it. Then again he might be wrong and she might be having the time of her life.

...he missed her.

[raced_god]

"Your daughter?"

Probably a bit of a personal question to ask, but it was a reasonable conclusion to draw about this Ellie person, he decided. Also it was better than thinking about a zombie invasion, though he didn't doubt the school would be able to take care of that, if push came to shove.

[golonghorns]

It wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to draw. Falcon wasn't the first to assume and he probably wouldn't be the last. And really, if Joel was a normal, well adjusted person with even only half the hang ups he was hung up on, he might have just outright adopted her. Not that an official system for that stuff existed anymore, but that wouldn't make it any less valid. Heck, she was an orphan. He'd spent the better part of a year making sure she was alive and fed and clothed and... alive, again.

But that was too easy.

"Nah. She's someone I kinda fell into lookin' after. Good kid. Handy with a..."

He'd been about to say gun. Ellie was handy with a gun. That wasn't what normal people said when talking about fourteen year old girls, Joel.

"...joke. Good sense of humor. Can't whistle for shit, though."

[raced_god]

Falcon raised an eyebrow, clearly picking up that this girl may have been handy with more than just a joke, though he found it better not to pry.

"No, no, I get it."

Which he did, of course, as he'd been no stranger to accidentally playing father figure to at least two students over the course of his time at the Academy.