alicornutopia | Entries tagged with form: sandbox

Akibel Mowar is on his way home from the blacksmith's when he spots it. People are shrieking and fleeing from it, which seems reasonable, as it's a fuckoff huge snake with a mirror for a face. A big mirror.

Kib can't so much flee. He can shriek - he can lurch in the direction of the nearest house and try the door - it's locked. He can amble briskly...

He can break into a run when the snake gains on him and fall flat on his face.

And he can get eaten up.

And it's too bright too bright too bright and he flings his arm over his eyes.

cross_and_bow

(prologue)

Bella slips into the school by a side door; she just saw a thing and she thinks she's seen it in a book before and thinks it's supposed to be mostly harmless but before she wakes Giles up over probably nothing or kills a likely neutral demon she wants to check.

And she pushes into the library.

alicornucopia

In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".

purposeful_glory

Loki is not technically banished. This is just - giving her mother space. To think. About what to do with her wayward child. She will be called back in a few years for a more permanent decision. Midgard's nice enough, anyway, and Sigyn's coming along.

The Bifrost lights up in all its colors and -

- this might be Midgard, but it is not a part of Midgard she ever saw and not the place she was expecting to be dropped, and there is no Sigyn with her.

She holds Lævateinn ready as a glaive. Maybe her mother feared her sorcery and thought she'd best be sent somewhere deadly under the impression she was meant to survive the trip -

keep_busy

Annie is on her trike on her way to school.

This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.

The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.

Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.

There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -

- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.

She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.

dark_light

Here is a bar. At it is a girl, late teens - ? - dressed in wide bands of black silk tied ragged edge to ragged edge in a neat pattern. There's a small owl on her shoulder and a stack of napkins at her elbow and she's nursing a cup of something steaming and spicy.

middlingalong

Karaoke is a charming old Earth pastime in which music which normally has lyrics is played without them and supplying vocals is left as an exercise to the participant. Ivan was coaxed into going by a local handing out drink vouchers for the bar which offers the activity, and there he got slightly tipsy, sang the only three Barrayaran songs in the entire catalogue, made out with a somewhat drunker girl, got her number, and stumbled home while some Earthling was stumbling through interminable verses of some song. It has not been a bad evening.

chanuphis

Miranda and Sadde were both promising enough in Potions last year that Slughorn has consented to run a junior alchemy tutorial for them, once weekly, on top of their other course load. He informs Sadde that if Sadde's other grades are as uninspiring as they were last year, the alchemy tutorial will be the first thing to give to allow him more time to complete other work; but since Slughorn thinks this is a failure of motivation and not competence they can try with the Alchemy section anyway. (Miranda's coursework is impeccable.) One other second-year from Hufflepuff and two third years also fold into the class to make it somewhat more worth Slughorn's time. They are supposed to read four chapters of a book called Ye Alchymeste's Waye before their first class on Friday evening and the entire book is written like that, but then on Friday they are going to - without any direct wandwork - turn a whole oyster into a pearl, so.

This year also sees the two of them invited to something called the "Slug Club".

ertia

In a bar, there is a girl.

She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.

imeanforever

He's moving her to a different court to see if it'll improve her attitude. She's allowed to fly. It's been a long, long time since she was allowed to -

She is only allowed to fly to her destination, not anywhere else. She notices that she is not where she should be, that she cannot progress to where she was told to go, and she careens out of control when her wings won't flap anymore, and she crashes.

---

with Miles (kappa)

with Minus (kappa)

alicornucopia

Several meta layers up, there is a... room.

As a courtesy to those of its occupants who prefer rooms, it does have a modality in which it presents itself that way: a room, with as many chairs as it needs, and a bulletin board, and a vending machine with candy and chips and concepts sold for nothing to anyone with the right prerequisites.

On the bulletin board, if one chooses to perceive it as a bulletin board (and not as a wiki or a flower or an ineffable cloud of information or an eternally malleable clay tablet) people whose only common trait is that they get to come here leave each other notes.

Notes about physics, about magic, about grand sweeps of narrative. Notes from people desperate to fix a never-ending heap of problems, smug about the condition of their homes, curious about the wider omniverse. Signed with names and sigils and "you ought to know who I am". Terse or verbose or nested with as much meaning as interests the reader.

In the vending machine, if one chooses to perceive it as a vending machine (and not a basket or a fruiting tree or a file repository or a crystalline fractal) are many things... and they have notes connecting them to their reviews on the bulletin board.

This one, for instance. She (it's usually, but not invariably, a she) has fairly glowing reviews from most of her previous purchasers. Here is what you need to install her; here are some things that are recommended for best results but optional especially if you just want to use her as a beacon for her other instances; here are some things she comes with as add-ons you can take or leave; here is what she is good for. The reviewers who don't like her are annoyed that theirs was too good at it, if you read between the lines. Well, that and the fact that if your universe is unpleasant enough sometimes these critters figure out how to flip you off and leave before they figure out how to solve all your problems. (There is a tangent thread about alternative solutions to similar problems which come bundled with stronger irrational attachment to their homes, but they have more stringent installation requirements.)

They come in these colors and styles; you will need to compensate for the following standard-issue drawbacks in some way if you require services of them that intersect with those areas of disability; they are only rated for upbringings of the following severity and are less likely to hate you if you stay thoroughly under that limit and less likely to fail at important goals if they are given opportunity to self-educate; if you have a way to generate them as instant adults they can begin work immediately but on the standard trajectory age six is the absolute earliest and teens is customary...

There is a chart (if one chooses to perceive it as a chart) of template interactions that have been tried before, but a lot of the more interesting accessory and companion templates are out-of-network for some visitors. What a pity.

hatchedplan

It is a lovely Saturday morning. Feathered children are watching cartoons; furred adults are eating brunch; scaled teenagers - one scaled teenager in particular, actually - is arguing with the proprietor of a magic shop.

"How did these items get made if there's no way to learn magic? Are the magicians homeschooling their children and not writing any books? How did you learn?"

"Half this stuff is antiques," says the shopkeep. "Look, asking me a dozen times isn't gonna make the answer more to your liking. I don't have Hogwarts in the basement, deal with it."

"But where do you get the stuff that isn't antique - who made the Avalon itself? - isn't anybody panicking about the medallion supply? -"

"Kid, nobody knows how to make medallions."

"But some people apparently know how to make luck charms and protection amulets!"

"I'm not going to give out my suppliers' personal information. I wouldn't do it even if you weren't annoying."

"There have to be books -"

"Does this look like a library to you?"

chanuphis

This is not a shouting match, but it could get that way any moment now.

"I'm not impugning your quality, Mr. Ollivander, but if you don't want to sell me a wand -"

"I have sold you a wand, Miss Swan, and if you say it does not suffice for your purposes I do not see how else I could possibly interpret you."

"Only in quantity!" she says. "I just want two."

"With an attitude like that you might one day find yourself in possession of two pieces -"

"That's exactly the sort of reason I want a second! If you won't sell me one -"

"I have sold you one, good day, Miss Swan!" Ollivander turns to the next customer. "Pardon her. What can I do for you today?"

purposeful_glory

In the largest city on Asgard is the second-largest marketplace. (There is a smaller city with more of a commerce focus. Still.) In it, Asgardians are buying and selling objects. The aesthetic is premodern but the technology is high and the magic subtly prevalent; everyone is LARPing their very hardest that they are primordial forces of nature with only pointy sticks and their wits, and the electronics are gracefully hiding while the spellcraft props up the illusion.

Here is an Asgardian with a pointy stick, her wits, and more magic buzzing along in her than any other person for miles around. This is particular notable because she's a she. The more conventional amounts of magic locally had are all found in men.

She's not doing any magic right now, though, she's talking to a paper-seller.

onceandforall

This. This is a good bar.

She does not mind taking counterfeit currency and she sells everything.

Bella is going to exploit the fuck out of that but first she is eating really, really good pad thai and finally talking to a person who is a) interesting b) not someone she has already talked to a lot in the last... several years. Lovely friendly bar who makes a lovely delicious pad thai! Bella will have to try opening that door at that moment again in the past.

imeanforever

Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.

Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.

She sets out.

She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -

go_meta

This is a weird thing.

"Are you sure it's not just artificed folded space?" Kayam asks again.

"I'm sure. It's not completely unlike it, but the flavor's different. I think there's an artifact around somewhere but it's not doing your thing, it's doing - something else. I think ravelers must have worked together on this..."

"...and none of them was a folder."

"None of them was a folder. I've never seen the thing this is before. There's got to be an artifice -"

Shara takes a step closer.

She trips.

"MILADY -"

And then Shara can't hear the rest of Kayam's scream, because she's somewhere else, too quick to reravel or even start to try.

if_at_first

The bar is unusually empty. Just one girl, sitting on a barstool, reading one of a rather large stack of napkins.

point_b

Bella finds it.

"Alli!" she twines. "C'mere."

"You c'mere. Easier for you."

"No, you need to come look at this, seriously."

"Okay, fine, where are you?"

"Garage."

So Alli comes out to the garage. Their parents aren't home; Charlie's working, Renée is volunteering with some of the refugee kids at a shelter, trying to find which have parents who just wound up somewhere else, which need adopting, which are going to wind up coming of age adrift in the bursting-at-the-seams system. It's just them, not attending school, recovering.

"Whoa," says Alli. "So when you said you were at the garage, you meant that you were at the freakish restaurant that someone put in our garage."

"This isn't somebody's idea of remodeling," Bella says. "It's too big to be the garage."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"I think one of you should go in first, for sure."

"We don't actually know if I work that way," say two Alli voices, but Bella pushes one of them towards the door anyway.

Nothing happens.

The Allis converge, inside the bar. Bella follows.

cross_and_bow

Bella wakes up in a house she's never seen before that has to violate six building codes and an air quality regulation. There's furniture - abandoned, crappy furniture - but she's on the floor in the plaster dust among shards of glass that miraculously haven't cut her. She's got her cross on her neck but no crossbow, no stakes, and she feels like she's moving through gelatin. She's not sure if she could stand - she used to be able to stand! - let alone walk, let alone kick a vampire in the chin.

Oh, fuck, what happened, the last thing she remembers is -

- her birthday magic teacher clearly not being Giles's present after all, stupid, stupid -

- she doesn't seem injured. There's a tender spot in her arm but no bruise, just - is that a needle mark. Oh, powers that be fried on a stick.

She shuffles on her knees over to the door, slowly, slowly, sneezing. She tries the knob. It doesn't work - she thinks that's a lock and not her kittenish weakness. Well, of fucking course, you don't dump incapacitated girls in houses and leave the door open, but she had to try. She tries a window. It is also locked, what the fuck kind of house locks from the outside like this, and painted shut to boot. She could punch right through the glass if -

She can't punch through the glass.

Maybe among the debris on this floor is something she can improvise into a lockpick. She's acquainted with the theory, just because she keeps having to break doors down -

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Alicorn Sandbox

Entries tagged with form: sandbox

the stork drops, the snake swallows

yeah that happens if you turn into a vampire

worth an oat

leave of absence

hazmats

laws what laws

miles to go before i sleep

high temperatures

delta v over delta t when there is no t

blood sweat tear

break room repair world

no field to revolutionize

double witch

princex

counterfeit

secret identity

zhoop

fourth time's the charm

the place to be

in spite of a nail