Strange Trip

Decorations are Hung (OTA - Gathering post too)

2019-12-21T02:11:21Z

Posted by: st_huntermom

"Thank you, Liz." Mary smiled to the girl who gave her the last ornament for the large Christmas tree that Thor that graciously brought in. Without Carolyn, the inn wasn't as quickly transformed for the holidays, although it seemed like the inn's magic had produced an intricate Christmas village in the lobby and a large menorah display kitty corner to it. There even seemed to be some decorations for Kwanzaa, though Mary admitted not knowing too much about the holiday.

She stepped back from the large tree, now lit up and decorated and smiled. She was thankful to have her kids here, grown as they were, and a man she loved, even if it wasn't John. She had extended family too with River and some of the other kids. Life was good. She glanced to Liz who was cleaning up. "I got that. You can go relax if you like." Mary knew Liz's life was more complicated than hers at the moment, though she didn't know all the details. The fact it was a small inn made it hard not to notice the tension between her, Peter, and the new arrival named Michelle.

Liz went off with a small smile and Mary turned around with her hands on her hips. "Okay. I think the last thing this place needs is some cookies."

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Network: Public

2019-10-20T01:45:32Z

Posted by: st_okedformadden

Your fingers have fingertips, but you toes don't have toetips... but you can tiptoe... so why can't your tipfinger???

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[Loki and Liz] training or possibly venting

2019-10-15T20:18:03Z

Posted by: st_ratagem

Liz, as Loki knew very well, tended to be... not passive, per se, but submissive to what she saw as others’ needs. Eventually she broke down and did something stupid or cried or both, but this seemed like neither of the above. This was a spark of assertiveness.

He approved. He’d always thought Liz could stand to be a little less accommodating, and taking charge in one part of life tended to spread. Messily, in his own case, but things more or less worked out well eventually.

As agreed, he appeared in the lobby, ready to head out into the wilderness (such as it was) as soon as The girl turned up.

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[Backdated for Peter]

2019-10-14T02:47:49Z

Posted by: st_rongliketeflon

Maria was helping organize the bakery today. She was doing some extra duties because she basically commanded Liz to take some time off from working. Maria told Liz that if she didn't go relax in the spa or something that Liz would hear from her later. Maria knew the idea of letting down Mary in the bakery bothered Liz, so Maria was helping out today.

She replaced the brownie display when she heard someone enter. She glanced over and saw Peter. When she first got here Maria had thought she wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Brad and Peter, but it was obvious to her now.

"Oh, it's you," She said coldly as she turned back around and busied herself with the brownies once more.

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Down Girl! [OTA]

2019-10-14T00:29:13Z

Posted by: st_arlord

It was supposed to be an easy in and out to the Otherworld that went back to the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were cool and he wanted a few things from that world he knew he could get like cool fruit and some giant leaves for a specific project he was doing. He didn't plan for something to follow him back.

He stood in the lobby surrounded by three microraptors who were surrounding him on three sides. Quill wasn't sure what to do with them. He had been trying to get them back into the Otherworld for an hour now.

"Alright girls," He said with his hands up. "Let's all calm down and make our way back to the world where you belong. This is getting ridiculous."

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Distractions are my specialty (closed to Peter)

2019-10-14T00:29:01Z

Posted by: st_x5_494

Alec was getting annoyed with all the sulking and general teenage drama that was happening. It's wasn't that he didn't understand what was going on, but he thought Peter should either pick one or date both. Still, when he saw the way Peter walked around, it bothered him. He wanted to say it all came from being annoyed, but the truth was a part of him felt sorry for the kid.

It was 7:00 AM when Alec walked into Peter's room and threw Peter's Spider-Man uniform at the sleeping teen. Alec was dressed in his combat gear complete with gun by his side. "Get up. We're going to be late."

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Return of the... (Closed to Peter)

2019-10-12T02:59:25Z

Posted by: st_hotflashes

[Backdated to the day after this]

Liz was incredibly excited. She didn't often go into the Otherworlds alone because she knew most of them were dangerous in some way and while she could handle herself in some situations, if things got really intense, it was safer with someone else. Because of this, Liz didn't have access to new things a lot of the time, so when she saw that someone had brought the last installment of the original Star Wars on DVD, she snatched it up quickly to surprise Peter with a movie night.

She made popcorn and had drinks with her, the VHS under her armpit, as she approached his room with an air of excitement. When she got to his door she awkwardly knocked as her hands were full.

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Maria | OTA

2019-10-07T03:46:44Z

Posted by: st_rongliketeflon

Maria was agitated. Someone had ordered a sundae and she was making it, but there was no finesse to it. When she delivered the sundae, she slammed it on the table and walked away. Maria was supremely unhappy with what was going on at the inn lately and she knew her best friend was once again in the middle of it all. Can't Liz have a break for once? God!

She stopped by an empty table and uncorked a small vial of essential oil. She sniffed the lavender and tried to calm down. While the lavender smelled nice, it wasn't doing anything for her nerves. Someone from another table politely called out "excuse me" and Maria snapped.

"Go get your own food!" She said exasperatedly.

Maria walked over to the serving counter and began to angrily fill the sugar dispensers.

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Sleep Interrupted (OTA)

2019-10-07T03:46:41Z

Posted by: st_huntermom

For the last several days Mary had been plagued with bad dreams. She wasn't unaccustomed to bad dreams, but these ones woke her up in a cold sweat and were keeping her up at night. Last night had been no exception and she found herself at the bakery early in the morning - earlier than normal. She was kneading bread. Kneading bread helped her with her frustrations, only she was so tired that the simple act was taking a lot out of her. She took a break from the bread to go fetch the bread that should be done in the oven. It should have been natural to put on oven mitts before grabbing for the bread pan. The unfortunate thing about being sleep deprived was that you missed simple steps.

Mary picked up the bread pan with naked fingers. The pan instantly seared her. She swore loudly as she dropped the heated metal. The pan clanged to the ground, bread breaking on the ground. There were angry welts on her hand now, too. She went to stick her hand under cold running water as she swore again to herself.

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Backdated to Early September - In My Life [Closed to Tony]

2019-09-30T20:05:34Z

Posted by: st_arkintern

"Moment of truth," Peter says as he plugs in the phone. The screen lights up and an outline of a battery fills the screen; green rises up within the battery icon, then resets and rises again steadily.

"Bingo," Peter says. He turns and grins at Tony. This was the second time they had to fix his phone, the first being the first time he was at the inn; now, this was an entirely different phone that arrived with him from back home, cracked during impact with a fast-moving train. With the assistance of Tony's lab (and once or twice Tony himself), he managed to nearly restore his phone back to its original condition pre-train collision.

Almost.

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Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble [Closed to MJ]

2019-09-27T04:48:57Z

Posted by: st_arkintern

Peter's hands are sweating.

They tend to sweat when he's nervous, like right before an Academic Decathlon competition or when May dropped him off at Liz's and he discovered her father was the Vulture. Given all he has been through, it doesn't make any sense for him to feel nervous about seeing MJ again.

But here is, standing outside of the door to MJ's room, trying to will the courage to knock.

Peter takes a breath and then raps and for one single moment, irrationally hopes that she doesn't answer the door.

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strangetrip @ 2019-09-27T11:44:00

2019-09-27T01:44:55Z

Posted by: st_mj

So this place isn't that bad. Hi, I'm Michelle and I've just recently arrived here.

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[GP/EP] Check-In Day: Pastabilities

2019-09-16T01:02:01Z

Posted by: st_arkravinghazelnut

The last check-in day had come and gone as quietly as most other days, but Tony had made it a point to linger around the lobby every two weeks. It was tradition, after all. You could only be cynical about a pink eldritch prison for so long before you felt the need to inject some decorum, however half-assed.

During a quiet trip to a Wisconsin suburb Otherworlds, Tony had snagged an old Harley-Davidson calendar at a garage sale (why not), unique in that the previous owner had filled every single square with national holidays. Today was National Linguine Day. Truly, the most hallowed of all holidays. To celebrate, he made an order to the kitchen to bless the inn with trays of pasta, inclusive to all diets. No gluten or dairy for him, see how long that lasted.

Despite the swift approach of fall, San Luis Obispo boasted sun and 70 degree weather, so Tony arranged a chair and table outside and fiddled with a little mechanical orb the size of a jawbreaker. He prodded at its insides with a screwdriver while his half-eaten pasta dish sat ignored, his glasses magnifying the orb's internal features.

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Patterns (Open to all!)

2019-09-07T15:11:55Z

Posted by: st_okedformadden

Jason was standing in the lobby. At first it might just look like he had paused and was staring at his feet - maybe his shoelace was undone? But if you watched long enough, he didn't move. He didn't bend down to tie or fix anything or to pick anything up. In fact, if you looked closely, his eyes were moving around the pattern on the carpet with extreme concentration. His lips were pressed together and he almost looked like he was constipated.

And so he stood and stared.

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Spiderling and Spider-Man [Closed to Peter]

2019-09-02T03:02:48Z

Posted by: st_ayedhidden

Annie was excited to see Peter. When he disappeared, she had been very scared for him. When he returned, she was happy to know he hadn't died back home. While he was gone, she had taken the liberty of taking the web shooters Peter had made for her and practiced. As she marched through the halls with vibrating excitement, Annie couldn't wait to show Peter what she had learned. Her own practice combined with the various lessons from Loki made her feel very confident.

She stopped in front of his door and knocked. She decided to dress up for the occasion in her usual homemade costume. This time she had her web shooters on her wrists too.

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Quality Time (closed to Valkyrie)

2019-08-22T00:30:49Z

Posted by: st_ratagem

One of the advantages, and there were several, of having other worlds constantly available was that trade became a very entertaining and useful way to pass time. The massive hides that Valkyrie so enjoyed delivering could be cured, cut down, used, yes... but they could also be cured and taken to the floating city, exchanged for new books, specialized medicines for the infirmary. The odd steam-focused world was good for metal and glass, and the weirdly short dwarves of the ancient world were very impressed with the potency of Asgardian liquor, meaning precious metals, gems, various cloths? All were accessible if you were willing to put the various kinds of work in.

The medicines of the floating city were what gave him the idea to evaluate the plant life of the ancient world, see if there might be something useful there. So he'd opted to accompany his fiancée on one of her hunting trips, albeit without any real intention to assist her in bringing down prey. Valkyrie didn't mind and didn't tease - they enjoyed each other's company whether or not they were occupied by the same project.

At the moment, Loki was inspecting a brilliant and oddly fleshy red flower. A succulent of some kind, perhaps, though the rest of the plant didn't look like one. Pretty, if too large to be readily decorative in the Inn. Valkyrie was nearby, but the question of whether the bright red was an indicator of poison or an eat-me invitation occupied him enough that he'd lost track of Valkyrie's movements.

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[August 17] Fee Fie Foe Fum (tag Peter)

2019-08-21T12:59:17Z

Posted by: st_x5_494

Alec had spent the last two days outdoors in the wilderness. The inn felt restrictive and being outside helped him cope with it. That and Clarice, who had been invaluable for keeping him from retreating too much back into himself.

He needed a shower and a change of clothes in the early hour of the morning. He slipped into his room and almost missed the form sleeping in Peter's bed.

Annoyance flared up inside him. If someone was pulling a prank, he'd have to kick their ass. He grabbed the end of the duvet and yanked the whole thing off of the sleeping form.

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This Deer Was On Fire - OTA

2019-08-19T05:16:26Z

Posted by: st_unaligned

Bo should really keep cooking to the professionals. The thing was, she had been getting so tired of chicken that she was desperate for a steak or something. Dyson had brought in deer meat and she decided she was going to make a steak with some of it - she really was good at burning things.

She walked out of the kitchen that was slightly smokey with a very black and crispy steak. She had hoped the new lighting of the restaurant itself would have give new life to the deer meat, but it didn't. She sunk into a nearby chair and sighed. Maybe there was some meat salvageable on the inside?

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[Backdated August 16] What goes around (Closed to Peter)

2019-08-19T05:15:09Z

Posted by: st_hotflashes

Liz sat on Maria's bed listening to the sounds of some indie band Maria liked. The words weren't registering, but the mood spoke to Liz with its slow, low tones. She had skipped work today, not that it was real work, and Maria had just left to go do some of it probably because she wanted to give Liz some space. Liz had told her she'd go back to her room soon, but she knew her best friend wouldn't mind if she stayed a little longer.

Her eyes slowly scanned the ceiling of Maria's room as if trying to commit it all to memory. Her stomach growled and she remembered she hadn't eaten since breakfast. Still, she couldn't find the will at that moment to move too much. She'd get Maria to bring back a smoothie or something and it'd be fine.

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August 16 - I ate a lot of pie (closed to Peter)

2019-08-18T20:47:50Z

Posted by: st_guyinthechair

Ned was on his second pie today which didn't seem like a lot until you realized he was eating all of it on his own. He was working on his laptop this time, so he was using the whole 'brain fuel' thing as an excuse, but the fact was he had been designing the text-based game with Peter before he left so the whole thing was still basically stress eating.

When he took a break and checked his journal - not that he knew why, no one really wrote him anymore - he dropped the book when he saw there was a new entry from Peter. Peter. Leaving his laptop in the cafe, his face still having evidence of the cherry pie he was eating, Ned ran all the way too Peter's room and knocked. Of course, now he was doubled over and out of breath.

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[Backdated August 15th - Closed to Peter] It Won't Be Like This For Long

2019-08-17T06:38:48Z

Posted by: st_arkravinghazelnut

Tony was no less busy than he usually was, and with the advent of working facilities that he kept in the research building, he managed to keep himself busier than ever. However, the building boasted perhaps the most important function of all that his humble room ("Lab Edition .00001") did not--social amenities. The residents could come, linger, and contribute while Tony tinkered with his latest project or worked to expand the growing facility. Egalitarianism, thy name is Stark.

Today wasn't one of those days. It was a party of one in the wide open lab, and Tony distracted himself from the quiet with Aerosmith, which was fine until he began feverishly nitpicking the sound mixing. When FRIDAY adopted her customer service voice he elected to make do with the sounds of nature and a cup of decaf.

Loki and The Lieutenant are getting married--what was the date? Did they pick a date? What gift do I even get? If I get Loki a knife and The Lieutenant a bunch of mead that'll just be gauche. I should ask Thor. What's Thor doing? What is everyone doing? God, it's quiet. When Tony pulled his palm from his cheek, it stuck for a moment. He frowned and rolled his shoulders back and his back pinched in protest. Yep, feeling his age. Time to move those bones some.

He rose from the window-side table and paced the halls, judging the interior and making small mental notes on what to update or adjust. At some point, he was outside, and the large sheets of wood that laid in various states of process stared back at him. Right. The cars. A work space by the building for two.

Tony looked away and his armor spread out from his chest, and he took flight. If he couldn't think straight, he could at least fly straight.

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[EP] Trying to Cook | Open To All

2019-08-14T12:52:04Z

Posted by: st_rongliketeflon

"Nope. I should definitely leave the cooking to professionals." She spoke to herself as she looked at the burned pizza.

Liz promised that the pizzas she pre-made and put in the fridge would be easy to reheat, but Maria discovered they were not. She had newfound appreciation for what Michael did back home. God I miss Michael...

Maria took another look at the ruined food before taking the smoking heap of waste to the garbage and dumping it. With her hands on her hips and a sigh, Maria turned back to look at the kitchen.

"Okay... there's got to be something I can make," She said, then glanced at the hotel cook. "That's not chicken. No offense."

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Not Pink Enough (OTA)

2019-08-14T12:52:00Z

Posted by: st_ellargoddess

She liked the pink of the hotel a lot. If she had to guess, she'd say that whoever built the place kept her aesthetics in mind. Still, there were some places were pink was lacking and on a hot day like today, the pool was one of those places. Clad in her bikini, she was lounging on a pink shell floaty with sunglasses on and an umbrella drink in her hand. She casually touched the water and the water instantly turned pink like she had dumped a bunch of pink food colouring into the water.

Aphrodite let out a relaxing sigh. "Much better!" Smiling, she sipped her drink.

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Back to the drawing board (tag Stark)

2019-08-12T19:29:10Z

Posted by: st_hotflashes

Liz had started to deal a little with Peter's departure. There was still an emptiness in her chest and she was still sleeping in Maria's room, but she had gone back to her shifts at the restaurant. People seemed not to bring it up to her which she was fine with. On her downtime, though, she struggled with what to do to keep her mind off of it. If she thought too long on Peter's fate back home, the green energy around her would form and things would happen that could hurt other people.

Today she was told to stop hanging around the clinic and the restaurant. She ventured into her room to change and somehow came across her sketchbook from when Piotr was at the inn. She walked aimlessly around until she decided to sit in one of the halls and begin to sketch the hallway. It had been Piotr's first lesson - perspective.

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[Otherworlds] Android Diaries (Tag Mia)

2019-08-10T18:52:06Z

Posted by: st_abilitylost

Redundant.

That was the word that kept recurring in Connor's mind until it permeated action he took in the day-to-day. Willfully filtering it out where unnecessary--something that should have been one-and-done--paradoxically made it call more attention to itself. The nagging aberrations in his consciousness had been steadily building for every time he neglected to perform a self-scan, which were in themselves redundant. The virtual landscapes he'd used for such things were inaccessible to him, even if the mysterious inn had the proper infrastructure to host them.

No, instead, Connor had turned to the novel. A plethora of tasks to perform had opened themselves up in the wake of the mass departure for him to take up for no other reason than he could. The 'redundant' label abated. He listened to the stories of whoever was in a talkative mood. He reflected on his brief time as a human almost endlessly. A memory that should have, at best, been filed away as a baffling but fleeting experience warped into a mystery meriting further investigation.

Connor was built for mysteries, even the most foolish.

'Redundant. Human. Android. Warmth. Taste.' He wrote where he lounged in the library. He'd taken to recording in a journal once a day. It was perhaps the most unnecessary feat he'd ever performed as a mechanical being with a sprawling internal database, but it was novel.

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