It's An Inky Dinky Doo Da Lunchtime

[KamiKaze]

So, Friday at lunchtime was quiet. It was kind of strange, to be honest? Felicia didn’t have anything until this afternoon, and that was student council. Cheer meeting was yesterday. She didn’t think anything was going on, though. Maybe the reason why it was quiet was because she’d arrived early. Her class got out on time, but maybe others were behind. Felicia did see a few people around, though. In fact, a long lunch line had started to form. So, maybe that was it. Lunch lines were the worst.

Felicia usually didn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria, though. She packed her own lunch, and it felt nice to eat outdoors. Maybe everyone else was also the same way. But, sometimes she did, like now. Eating outside wasn’t an option because it’d been raining for the past few days. Pretty hard, too! Maybe it’ll get better tomorrow, but she had no idea.

But she found a table. Felicia placed her lunchbag and a notebook on top, and slid into the chair. Her lunch was simple today: a tuna sandwich with swiss cheese, pickles, lettuce, and mayo on wheat bread. With it, though, she’d packed a slice of cheesecake. Her parents had brought it home for her; apparently, they’d been at a party recently? She hadn’t eaten it yet, but it looked delicious. Felicia loved cheesecake.

After Felicia took out her sandwich from its reusable bag, she bit into it. Well, it hit the spot after the test earlier today. She was sure she did fine. It was simple “What happened in this book?” stuff. They’d been reading Hamlet, and it wasn’t bad. It was The Bard, after all. There’d been a few token jokes about how “angsty” Hamlet was during the class discussions, but honestly, who wouldn’t be over the course of what happens during that play?

After a few more bites, she set the sandwich down on top of the bag she’d taken it out of. Well, she’d gotten her homework done, that test was out of the way, and she’d gotten a good night’s sleep. Maybe she could work a bit on her writing? Felicia had brought her notebook for a reason. It wasn’t full of any actual writing, just ideas she’d jotted down. Maybe she could brainstorm a bit on what to do in something she’d been writing. So far, she knew two things: she wanted to write a more traditional vampire story, and she wanted a scene where a vampire was distracted by mustard seeds. It was an interesting drawback that didn’t appear in vampire stories too often, unless you count Sesame Street? Felicia wasn’t sure that was what they were going for with Count von Count, though. It was probably a coincidence.

She’d written a few notes on that bit of folklore already. She just needed to figure out how to make it show up as an actual scene. Felicia stared at her notes on that element for a few seconds, before pulling out a pen from the spiral binding and scrawling a new note.

Chase scene?

Seemed practical for someone to do. If a vampire is chasing you, and you find some seeds, it was a good idea to take the time to pour it onto the ground. The vampire would be distracted long enough that you could get away. Now, would they be carrying the seeds to begin with, or is it something they spotted while being chased? There’s a difference here, dang it.

[Cicadan]

((Rachael Langdon continued from Torn Jeans and Prom Queens))

That brief moment back at the party two weeks prior had been the conceiving of a new idea. It haunted Rachael up to now, even. She briefly let her mind run away with her, head turning on the axis of heels.

Rhiannon would seek purchase on a winding path leading downward, into the foreboding and cavernous depths of her school. Before her a dank, wretched atmosphere like one might expect of bowels. They had come in drips and droplets. Then surging tides. Things long buried, long forgotten, longer still feared but only in the most childish and instinctive lobes of the mortal mind. It had only been days ago that she'd been an ordinary girl in an ordinary school and now she was something she had to be despite not wanting to be it at all...

Rachael wasn't convinced, but she could let the idea percolate. She'd been able to recycle an old character concept from a fantasy novel she'd abandoned quarter-finished last year so she supposed that was pretty good. Furthermore it was something tonally different from what she normally liked to work with: a more modern as opposed to high fantasy setting. Rachael found doing the research for more realistic settings was harder than just letting her imagination run wild, but so far it seemed just as satisfying when all was said and done.

She returned to reality, and let her head droop to earth a bit as she shuffled on through the cafeteria, unassuming brown sack clasped by two hands shrugging in front of her.

Her eyes scanned with quick and mousy snaps, to and fro, she couldn't recognize any familiar faces. No Daniel... no Johnny... no Kitty... no Eris... no Jasmine. Maybe they were still in their classes and would show up in a bit? Rachael figured she could linger, pathing herself around so she produced the incessant contrails of a buzzing fly. Or maybe sit at an unoccupied table until someone familiar showed

Like Felicia. Maybe in the realm of a close friend, Miss LaChapelle one of the kindest souls Rachael had the fortune of knowing and orbiting around. Rachael could have imagined her friend in a past life as a gallant and noble knight, the figure to match myths and legends.

Felicia had set pen to paper, briefly. After that she seemed to be busy, concentrating. That could have meant well anything from homework to creative pursuits to keeping a hit list, but the last was weirdly specific and thoroughly out of character and Rachael didn't know why that particular option had blossomed into her thoughts. And the remainder two and anything else Felicia was potentially doing were serious pursuits! Rachael didn't want to up and bother an actively engaged friend without reason, she was quite nervous to come off as rude or ill-intentioned.

So time passed as Rachael lingered nearby, in the aisle between the table and another, trying to keep her eyes hovering right in that sweet spot somewhere over Felicia's shoulder where Felicia would know Rachael was looking at her if she happened to see. But it was fine if she didn't, Rachael posited. She could always take the unspoken and ungestured and unconscious hint and move on.

[Deamon]

((Yasmin Carrol continued from Fashion Flare))

The cafeteria wasn't something Yaz would say she enjoyed. You had to deal with the awfulness of the "food" and you had to deal with the awkwardness of trying to find somewhere to sit. Yaz hated all of it. The entire experience was something she could live without ever having to do again. Still she had to do it this time, they had run out of food in the house so she had to go with whatever was passing for food in the cafeteria. She had what she assumed was a burger dropped on her plate along with some soggy chips. Yaz stared at it for a moment. It would have to do.

Grabbing a drink from a nearby vending machine, Yaz began the worst part of eating in the cafeteria, weaving through tables looking for somewhere to sit. She didn't want to be here but the cafeteria food needed to stay inside the cafeteria so she had no choice. Carefully navigating the maze of tables that threatened to block her way with every step Yaz searched the sea of people for the face of someone she knew and wouldn't mind spending lunch with...there was a lack of that readily available on first look.

As Yaz continued to look she eventually spotted Rachael standing awkwardly between some tables. Yaz was friends with Rachael, they were in the same classes and got on well, they were both quiet and knew that silences in conversations didn't need to be filled. Yaz knew she could spend lunch with Rachael and not hate everything. Rachael was however looking at something, following her gaze Yaz saw Felicia LaChapelle sitting at a table by herself writing something.

Felicia was nice and Yaz knew she was friendly so of all the people she could have sat with Felicia seemed like a good choice. She glided up next to Rachael and stood next to her for a moment before deciding she should probably say something.

"Hey...so should we sit there?"

Smooth as fuck. God she was a loser.

[Aura]

((Yumi Nunes continued from Study Buddies))

Yumi didn't like the cafeteria. It was always loud, and by the time she got there it was almost always crowded, so on most days she had to sit next to people that she didn't know very well while she tried to eat whatever they were serving that day. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, and she was always glad when it was over so she could return to the relative peace of her studies.

Today was looking to be a bit different, though. For one, she wouldn’t have to rely on the cafeteria to get her food. There had been a little bit of goulash left over from last night’s dinner, so her mom sent that to school with her in a small tupperware along with piece of toast and one of Grandma Agata’s brownies. It looked like she would be getting a pretty good lunch today, probably better than what the cafeteria was putting out in her opinion.

But even with better food on hand, she still had to deal with the challenge that was finding a comfortable place to sit. She passed by tables full of people loudly discussing their plans for the afternoon, laughing about gossip, and engaging in various other forms of social interaction. Yumi felt uncomfortable about the idea of butting in on what they were doing, and even if she wasn’t, she doubted that she would be able to fit in if she inserted herself into their groups, so she kept on walking in search of a place to sit.

She did find a little hope when she saw a mostly empty table with only one person present. And as luck would have it, it was someone that Yumi actually knew. She recognized Felicia from the writing club, and she was someone who Yumi thought of as a friend. She didn’t know if Felicia felt the same, but she had never been anything but nice to her in the past. She was busy scribbling away in her notebook, so maybe she didn’t want to be bothered. Yumi stood there for a few moments, wondering whether or not she should sit down before mumbling a brief greeting.

“Hi Felicia.”

[CondorTalon]

CLAIR BELVEDERE - PREGAME START

It was lunchtime. Clair pushed through the doors of the cafeteria, moving toward the table that she usually took when she ate inside.

Which was often.

She could have gone outside, at least to not make herself look like a NEET, but it was too busy being a wet sack of lame outside.

So whoops, there went that idea.

Oh.

Well, would you look at that? Someone was already sitting at the table. Someone she recognized, but wasn't too, too familiar with. More interestingly, there were three other girls around the table that Clair was more familiar with.

For... maybe not the best reasons.

She debated approaching the table. That was, after all, the only table that didn't wobble or have a squeaking leg. On the other hand, she wasn't aware off the top of her head which ones of them were aware of her change. Or had forgiven her. Well, it's not like she was going to die if she didn't get the table, but...

She sighed, before swerving to the right and taking one of the adjacent tables instead. She warily gripped the tabletop with her hands and gave it a tiny push.

Squeeeak.

Great.

[jimmydalad]

Aria Samuels: Start

Deep breath Aria, it's only lunch time. He had so far succeeded in avoiding the popular clique. All things considered, that was a good thing. It meant he wasn't going to have his remaining shreds of dignity put through the mud or having everyone laugh at him. Still, the hour was young and full of trepidation.

He darted his eyes around the area, focusing on taking deep breaths as he looked for a place to sit. Safety in numbers was probably the best policy for this situation.

That table was full, that one had someone he didn't like. That was a popular table: make a note to stay as far away as possible. He had waited some time until the cafeteria was more full in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of being caught. It seemed like his plan worked, but left the consequences of finding a table more difficult.

Wait, that table didn't seem bad. Felicia was nice, if not a bit of a lesbo slut from what he had heard from rumors. The other girls didn't seem to be mean either. Then again, was it ok for him to just walk up to them and join them? He doubted they knew him very well, nor did he think they had the best opinion of him. He was a bit of an asshole after all. Still, the places were filling up and he didn't want to be stuck taking a long trip to the bathrooms just to eat in peace.

Tentatively, he made his way over. So far, so good. You can totally do this. One, two, just keep moving towards them. And then ask. Was that hard? He could feel his heart pumping against his ribcage. Why was it feeling like a mile in his brain? The seconds seemed to stretch on forever. Maybe he should just turn back. But then where would he sit?

The earsplitting squeak of the table rattled him, his body visibly wincing at the sound. Guess it was now or never.

"H-hey," Aria stumbled out, nerves catching him in his throat. "Mind if I sit with you guys? There aren't many spaces left."

He let the last bit of his sentence hang in the air. God, he hoped other people weren't watching.

[KamiKaze]

Felicia looked up. Okay, there they were. People were here, so it was a good idea to stop writing for the time being.

She flipped her notebook closed, and smiled. Rachael was a quiet person, but sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing. They’d both enjoyed writing and reading fantasy, which was nice. A few others were nearby, too. Yumi and Yaz were there, too. They were both kind of like Rachael, in a way: kind of quiet, kind of artsy.

Suddenly, Felicia heard a loud screeching noise. She flinched, before she decided to turn her head towards the source. It was… Claire? She was sure that was her name. Claire had dragged a chair out from the adjacent table. And somehow, she’d done it in a way where you could honestly mistake the noise for a banshee. It was awkward, but Felicia just gave her a quizzical look before looking back. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to say anything about it. Maybe it was a little embarrassing, and she wouldn’t want anyone saying anything.

She looked back.

“Oh! I wouldn’t mind if you guys sit here,” she said, putting her smile back on. “I was just thinking about something. Erm, writing-wise, I mean.”

Aria had joined the group, too. Felicia didn’t know Aria as well as she should have. He was a gamer, wasn’t he? She remembered something about his diary being read in front of everyone in middle school, too. That sort of thing was the reason why Felicia tried to do something about bullying. No one should go through something like that.

Felicia gestured towards the empty seats. Well, she had people to sit with, now, so that was good.

[Cicadan]

Rachael might have been more comfortable just standing there silently, evaporating molecule by molecule into the ether.

The problem was that a lot of things happened in quick sequence and even one of those things alone would have been a lot to process. Another girl appeared at Rachael's shoulder. Yasmin- Yaz- was someone else Rachael rather trusted but she'd asked a question that needed an answer. Needed decisiveness, and Rachael needed a moment to dredge any of that particular quality up from the pasty recesses of her head. No time to figure it out. Another another girl who was this time unfamiliar, also talking to Felicia. Would they all be sharing the same table? No time to figure it out. Another another another girl who was maybe familiar. She'd managed to insert herself adjacent to their group with a loud noise that grated on the ears like metal making love to metal. Her face was something Rachael was vaguely intimidated by though she didn't know why, had they had an argument, had she been some kind of bully? No time to figure it out. The most another-est of faces, this one a boy, asking for shelter from the swarms elsewhere in the cafeteria. Rachael sympathized with that, that she could figure out somehow from the mess of static her brain had scrambled into.

There was a lot happening at once, specifically, a lot of unfamiliar faces all a mite too close. Rachael felt a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. She had taken her Zoloft already, she was pretty sure. Because she was at least still breathing normally, as in, not so loud it could be clearly heard.

Her ears rung for a second. Maybe silence, or the echo of everyone else having spoken still reverberating.

Eventually, Rachael answered Yaz.

"Y-yeah. We could?" Not the most confident statement ever uttered. Rachael stuffed herself at the table bench, in as tiny an iteration of personal space as she could manage, arms virtually fusing to her side and her lunch sack half crushed between her own thighs.

'Uh. Hi. Guys.'

Was a thing she didn't actually say, her mouth was welded together with artisan precision. She glanced around. She'd probably left too much space on either side of herself for someone to slot themselves right next to her stiff-as-a-rotting-wood-board body. She tried to dismiss that nerve frying thought from mind and come up with something else to say.

"Writing wise...? Felicia?" She glanced sort of Felicia's way.

[Deamon]

And then the entire fucking high school showed up.

Yumi, Clair and Aria appeared from practically nowhere and descended upon the area Yas and Rachael had been standing in. Yaz being as shy as she was hated that the other three had just arrived and sat down around Felicia. It was to be frank a disaster.

Rachael replied to her question with an affirmative which meant they got to venture into the group.

Yay.

Yaz and groups did not mix. They were like water and oil. She had many problems with groups and most of them started when she was in middle school. Yaz had been late to hit puberty and if someone didn't know her they could have even believed she was still waiting for that particular hormone delivery. But at middle school she had been the smallest girl by far, not that she wasn't the smallest girl at high school as well, it was just that middle school had been a bad time in her life. She was bullied nearly relentlessly for her lack of size and her shy nature made her stay quiet about it, eventually she took to just avoiding groups of her peers altogether rather than risk whatever cruel mockery they had devised. Yaz knew it was stupid that she still maintained that fear of groups when most of the people at her high school were decent people it was still there in her subconscious reminding her of what happened, warning her of a potential danger.

Following Rachael, Yaz looped around the table to find a free space.

"Hey." She offered quietly as she sat down and retrieved her lunch from her bag.

Luckily for Yaz there was a conversation she cared about already in progress, so she decided to quickly slot herself into it to keep her mind off how uncomfortable she was.

"What is it your writing? If you don't mind telling us I guess."

[Aura]

Yumi graciously accepted the invitation to sit, parking herself in the seat across from Felicia as the rest of the group found their places. She unpacked her lunch, using her paper bag as a plate analogue as she set her meal on the table.

The rest of the table packing around her made her feel uneasy, and she immediately regretted placing herself at the center of the table. She liked having the option to get out of large social situations if she was forced into them, and the seats next to her filling up would make it more difficult for her to leave if things became too uncomfortable. She felt a claustrophobic sensation, and tried to find something else to focus on to ease her thoughts.

Her mind fell to Felicia's notebook. She had just been writing in it, only to shut it as soon as the group formed. It was the most comfortable subject that Yumi could think of, since she was familiar enough with writing to start a conversation with it. She leaned forward a bit to get a better look at the book. She wasn't sure why, since it was already shut, but it had her attention regardless.

"Hey, cool." She said, peaking around her usual medium-low decibel level. "Is that something for sssssss..." Her tongue felt like it was caught in a vise, and she struggled to release it. "S-suh... skuh..." The word was there, but it was trapped in her throat. She felt like nearby eyes were slowly turning to her, and her enthusiasm for her statement drained the longer she wrestled with it. "... School?" She finished, but looked newly self-conscious. There were new people at the table. People that she hadn't talked to before, and she didn't know how they would react to her difficulties in the art of speech.

Yumi put her head down and picked up her toast, retreating into her own little spot at the table.