Sunshine Revival
Jul. 20th, 2025 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tellshannon815Ever wished more people knew more about some of your favourite fandoms, whether that be movie, book, show, video game, comic, even band or hobby? Now is your chance to be a “carnival barker”, someone who hangs around outside the carnival and tries to promote it to people passing by.
Challenge #5
Journaling prompt: Be a carnival barker for your favorite movie, book, or show (or any other of your choice - game, comic, anything else)! Write a post that showcases the best your chosen title has to offer and entices passersby to check it out.
Creative prompt: Write a fic or original story about a character reluctantly doing something they are hesitant about.
Title: I'm Never Going Back, The Past Is In The Past
Fandom: School Spirits
Characters: Charley, Yuri, Wally, Rhonda, Janet, Quinn
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers all through S2
Summary: Charley's always avoided his class reunions, but reluctantly considers attending the next one.
Charley always avoided the school reunions when it was his year group.
He and the other ghosts had been to quite a few of the ones for year groups that none of them had been in and knew anyone from; those ones were just a chance to have a break from the routine, dance, get some decent food for a change, hang out. There hadn’t been one from Janet’s year group in the time Charley had been a ghost; he thought he’d been to one of Rhonda’s once but that was ages ago and Rhonda herself hadn’t wanted to attend at the time; he’d been to Wally’s before several times. (After the incident where he’d heard that guy talking about Wally having been no great loss because he’d been a bully when he was alive, Charley had wondered how he’d never heard about this in all the reunions Wally had taken them to; maybe Wally had always managed to successfully keep the ghosts away from anyone who’d have anything like that to say about him, or maybe that guy just hadn’t been to any of them before now.)
But the ones Charley could never bring himself to go to were the ones for his own class (not just because Emilio, as he now worked at Split River High, usually organised them, and brought his husband, although that didn’t help.) He’d avoided them because there was no one at the reunions he would ever want to see again, no one he could have ever said he considered a friend. Where Wally used to enjoy seeing his old friends again in some kind of weird way, could still laugh about old gossip and make jokes about whose stupid idea it was to sit Joe next to Jane, Charley couldn’t face the thought of seeing the same faces he’d seen in the cafeteria that day he’d had his allergic reaction to the peanut oil, making the same stupid jokes. Or watching everyone sit staring at his last yearbook picture, on display as Wally’s had been, listening to someone who’d never spoken two words to Charley in their life going into some spiel about how he’d been much missed, and the rest of their classmates coming out with something stupid about the time they’d sat next to him in ninth grade English, as though they’d ever really been friendly.
It was after he and the other ghosts went back into their scars, when Charley had seen that vision of the bullies all bearing his own face, acknowledged that he had been his own biggest bully, that Charley wondered whether he should attend his own class reunion some time. He’d regretted it as soon as he’d said it; what did he want to go back there for, spend time with people he didn’t even like? If he’d still been alive, the chances were that he’d have swerved the reunions, so why would he want to go now that he was a ghost, trapped inside the very building where the reunion was being held?
“You don’t have to,” Yuri had said. “We can skip it, get back to that reenactment of the pottery wheel scene in Ghost, or just hang out with these guys. Anything you want.” For a moment, Charley was tempted, but then decided reluctantly that he’d better not. He’d said he was going to face the reunion, he was going to stick to it.
“Then we’re all coming with you,” Wally offered. “If you do decide to leave, we’ll get you out of there. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
The day of the reunion came around, Charley walked in with Yuri, Rhonda, Wally, Janet and Quinn by his side. As he had already predicted, there was Emilio with his husband checking names off as people walked in, there were the football team of Charley’s day sat at a big table with the cheerleaders, and there indeed was the blown up picture from Charley’s yearbook, the class president giving some stupid speech about how he was a much missed member of the class despite the fact that they’d never exchanged any more than about two words the whole time they were there.
“You know what?” he eventually said. “Remember what I said to you, in the scars, about being my own biggest bully? Walking in there earlier, I realised that by making myself go to this reunion, I was doing the same thing again. Maybe you enjoy yours, Wally, but I don’t want to spend my time with this bunch of assholes I was never friends with. Let’s take Yuri’s advice, get out of here. I’d rather spend tonight with you guys, the people I’m actually friends with.”
Challenge #5
Journaling prompt: Be a carnival barker for your favorite movie, book, or show (or any other of your choice - game, comic, anything else)! Write a post that showcases the best your chosen title has to offer and entices passersby to check it out.
Creative prompt: Write a fic or original story about a character reluctantly doing something they are hesitant about.
Title: I'm Never Going Back, The Past Is In The Past
Fandom: School Spirits
Characters: Charley, Yuri, Wally, Rhonda, Janet, Quinn
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers all through S2
Summary: Charley's always avoided his class reunions, but reluctantly considers attending the next one.
Charley always avoided the school reunions when it was his year group.
He and the other ghosts had been to quite a few of the ones for year groups that none of them had been in and knew anyone from; those ones were just a chance to have a break from the routine, dance, get some decent food for a change, hang out. There hadn’t been one from Janet’s year group in the time Charley had been a ghost; he thought he’d been to one of Rhonda’s once but that was ages ago and Rhonda herself hadn’t wanted to attend at the time; he’d been to Wally’s before several times. (After the incident where he’d heard that guy talking about Wally having been no great loss because he’d been a bully when he was alive, Charley had wondered how he’d never heard about this in all the reunions Wally had taken them to; maybe Wally had always managed to successfully keep the ghosts away from anyone who’d have anything like that to say about him, or maybe that guy just hadn’t been to any of them before now.)
But the ones Charley could never bring himself to go to were the ones for his own class (not just because Emilio, as he now worked at Split River High, usually organised them, and brought his husband, although that didn’t help.) He’d avoided them because there was no one at the reunions he would ever want to see again, no one he could have ever said he considered a friend. Where Wally used to enjoy seeing his old friends again in some kind of weird way, could still laugh about old gossip and make jokes about whose stupid idea it was to sit Joe next to Jane, Charley couldn’t face the thought of seeing the same faces he’d seen in the cafeteria that day he’d had his allergic reaction to the peanut oil, making the same stupid jokes. Or watching everyone sit staring at his last yearbook picture, on display as Wally’s had been, listening to someone who’d never spoken two words to Charley in their life going into some spiel about how he’d been much missed, and the rest of their classmates coming out with something stupid about the time they’d sat next to him in ninth grade English, as though they’d ever really been friendly.
It was after he and the other ghosts went back into their scars, when Charley had seen that vision of the bullies all bearing his own face, acknowledged that he had been his own biggest bully, that Charley wondered whether he should attend his own class reunion some time. He’d regretted it as soon as he’d said it; what did he want to go back there for, spend time with people he didn’t even like? If he’d still been alive, the chances were that he’d have swerved the reunions, so why would he want to go now that he was a ghost, trapped inside the very building where the reunion was being held?
“You don’t have to,” Yuri had said. “We can skip it, get back to that reenactment of the pottery wheel scene in Ghost, or just hang out with these guys. Anything you want.” For a moment, Charley was tempted, but then decided reluctantly that he’d better not. He’d said he was going to face the reunion, he was going to stick to it.
“Then we’re all coming with you,” Wally offered. “If you do decide to leave, we’ll get you out of there. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
The day of the reunion came around, Charley walked in with Yuri, Rhonda, Wally, Janet and Quinn by his side. As he had already predicted, there was Emilio with his husband checking names off as people walked in, there were the football team of Charley’s day sat at a big table with the cheerleaders, and there indeed was the blown up picture from Charley’s yearbook, the class president giving some stupid speech about how he was a much missed member of the class despite the fact that they’d never exchanged any more than about two words the whole time they were there.
“You know what?” he eventually said. “Remember what I said to you, in the scars, about being my own biggest bully? Walking in there earlier, I realised that by making myself go to this reunion, I was doing the same thing again. Maybe you enjoy yours, Wally, but I don’t want to spend my time with this bunch of assholes I was never friends with. Let’s take Yuri’s advice, get out of here. I’d rather spend tonight with you guys, the people I’m actually friends with.”