strangetrip | Entries tagged with lindsey mcdonald

Not everyone had a Trinket, Vex thought during a lazy afternoon tickle fight-turned-cuddle session with her most excellent bear. In fact, most people wouldn't want a Trinket, but that was because they lacked appreciation for the finest things in life. They probably would've liked him better when he was still a cub.

Aaaaaw, Trink had been so fucking cute when he was a baby.

Baby animals were always cute. Even the dangerous ones.

Whether it was a harmless twist to her brother's penchant for pranks or a desire to shake things up a little in this resort prison that was way too quiet or hint of boredom and curiosity about the limited magic Vex had, she couldn't say, but one Conjure Animals later, and her room was full of small, fluffy, cuddly baby animals... and one much larger bear sniffing at them in confusion.

Looking very pleased with herself – and okay, a little surprised at just how many fuzzballs there were – Vex opened the door to her room. "There are lots of people here. Go make friends and have some fun."

The animals tumbled, stalk-pounced, and hopped out of her room and all over the inn looking for people to play with, and just before they were out of her sight, Vex added, "And if you see my brother... you can pee on him if you want."

[OOC: fey creatures in the form of baby animals invade the inn for an hour. have fun. feel free to link to pics or gifs of the cuteness in your tags if you'd like.]

st_alksthroughwalls

Thwack.

A damp bar rag hit the wall with a wet splat and Kitty's dry hand raked through her hair, stopping at the crown and tugging. ARGH! She muttered and loosed a low, rolling growl beneath her breath, kicked a fallen napkin she hadn't yet picked up so hard it, too, hit the wall.

Closing her eyes, she gave a slow ten-count and exhaled. Her shoulders lowered visibly, and then as mildly as though she'd had nothing to do with the fabric-wall collisions, moved to retrieve them. The only continuing sign of her distress was the intermittent grumbling and an occasional snarl, like:

"Stark, I swear to God, I'm going to wring you neck!"

Or ring it, since manacles, shackles and collars were the current subject of her frustration and she simply assumed he'd had a hand in designing the ones in question.

By mid-afternoon, unless you knew her very well, or you happened to look at page after page of notes with a single, decisive hash mark through each of them, you'd never guess anything had ruffled her feathers at all.

[OOC: I'm kinda swamped, so Kitty's not OTA, but if you want her, feel free to poke me!]

st_raighttovampire

Independence Day called for joyous celebration. Caroline was up before dawn getting the last details ready. She laid out a breakfast buffet and mimosa bar with the help of her volunteers, set up games outside in the grass, dragged tables and umbrellas all over the property to make a fun little venue. The highlight of the whole business was a small stage that she'd convinced Piotr and Percy to build for her.

The backdrop of it could have various backgrounds projected onto it and, tonight would be an awesome movie screen for her triple feature: The Sandlot, Jurassic Park and, of course, Independence Day. Because nothing said America like fighting off invaders from outer space. Rey had worked a minor miracle by figuring out how to hook (and charge!) Caroline's cell phone to the speakers so there was music all day even when Lindsey wasn't up to playing.

In the storerooms, Caroline had found not just a SnoCone machine, but a popcorn cart and a cotton candy maker. Stephanie had agreed to take on running the last one, so Caroline hauled boxes and boxes of the sugar out to its location on the lawn.

A baseball game started to shape up around noon, while the scent of grilled meat filled the air.

It took a lot of work and most of the population being bullied into helping in some way or another, but on the 4th of July, Caroline was ready to declare independence from worrying about being trapped here.

The evening culminated with a brilliant lights display by two of the mages. Not fireworks, but not half bad either.

[Feel free to make up whatever activity you'd most like to see at the party. Sorry, this went up so late.]

st_andingtall

Date: 12 June 2017

After deciding that D&D is the way for Angua to make friends, Sam steals a page from Regina and leaves flyers around. He runs into Harry while he's signing up.

[Here | rating pg | ongoing | nerds being nerds]

st_arrynight

Laynia had eventually found her way to the hotel's kitchens. A few quiet words with some of the others who seemed to have an interest in the place, and she found herself left alone to bake. Not that she had any idea where the supplies to bake with came from, but right now she wasn't prepared to question the nature of her current reality that closely. She just wanted to make some damned muffins - savoury, as a preference - and share them with people. Maybe things would feel a little less bizarre then.

st_affandskull

It hadn't taken long, all things considered, for Dorian to get bored. Certainly, being a captive was exciting for a few hours, but without any sort of villainous follow-up it became a rather basic fact. The spirit inhabiting his room hadn't put up much of a fight even if it did insist on throwing him resentful looks every so often.

It wasn't even as 'exciting' as camping in the Fereldan hinterlands had been, as he knew exactly where his next meal was coming from and was in absolutely no danger of freezing to death. Even being really warm again for the first time in months at least didn't occupy his attention the way he'd thought perhaps it would.

That being the case, it was time to start investigating travel possibilities. He'd started, early(ish) that morning by walking out into the desert to see how far it really extended before dumping him back at the Inn, as he'd heard it would do.

Some hours of walking later, he had that answer but no others. How the travel worked, how it could be taken apart, broken, repurposed, all of that remained a mystery.

In order to break something properly, you first had to understand how it worked. Therefore, that would be the first order of business: figure out how to move things the way the Inn-land border moved people.

Which was how he came to be outside with a box of overripe melons, an oddly brightly-colored hoop (likely a toy of some kind), a table dragged out from the interior, and a small stack of tacky notebooks and pens (they contained their own ink!).

The hoop he placed on the ground, then positioned a melon in the center. The melon had a crude sort of face drawn on it courtesy of the wide variety of self-contained-ink pens. At that point, he started pulling and twisting magic, not on the melon, but on the hoop. Once the magical framework on the hoop 'looked' the way he wanted it to, Dorian reached out with more commonplace magic and tried to yank the melon out of the hoop.

It exploded in a sticky orange mess as soon as it hit the hoop's border.

"Well, damn. There goes that idea." Dorian sighed and made a few more notes in one of the notebooks, already mostly filled with what looked like mathematical and geometric notations. And swear words. Lots of swear words.

st_ereoscopic

Abby wasn't sure if the semi-regular happenings of arrivals would continue today, especially after Songrun, but just in case she made her way to the cafe. It would be the perfect spot to see the lobby if anyone new didn't make it as far as the cafe seeking answers. It also gave her lots of room to spread her "project" out.

There were bits and bobs but mostly it was a couple of tubes, lens, spring and nobs. Abby was determined to make a microscope. It might not be especially useful around the hotel but it was a comfort to her. Besides it kept her mind occupied and she was finding that, that was more important as time in the hotel went on.

Time seemed to fade around her, which usually happened when she focused on her work, and it was the protest of her back muscles that had her stretching. It was then that she noticed more people trickling into the cafe and some unfamiliar faces. Which meant it really was check in day today and she stood to greet friends she hadn't met yet. In Abby speak that was practically everyone. No one was a stranger - at least not for long.

st_arkcrowblack

Even before she knew for certain that it was the first of a month, Snow’s body had started bracing for it. She was wary and tense, preparing to cope with yet more people in the space of the hotel. It seemed that no sooner had she adjusted to whoever had showed up the last time, there was someone new again.

She didn’t want anything to do with the lot of it. That was what those busy women on the welcome committee were for. She didn’t think the committee was a stupid thing, not at all. Focusing on settling new people in kept the lot of them busy and away from her, and that was where she wanted them. They terrified her.

Snow White had only come into the main building to forage for food. The original plan was of course to turn right back around and escape before the expected rush (small or large) of new people to flood in.

But that was of course not what happened. When a universe was a pocket, it had less to focus on and fewer people to fuck with, and so Snow was entirely certain it was fucking with her when she was the one in the lobby when a new face came through the door.

st_aff

None of the guests noticed when the spiky-haired man-child in jeans and purple t-shirt, wrists wrapped in cheap leather and metal bracelets, arrived at the Madonna Inn a few hours before midnight on February 13. That, in itself, wasn't all that surprising. Eros, otherwise known as Danny Valentine, had millennia of experience doing his job without being spotted.

What was surprising was that the dude at the front desk did see him. Tall and Nondescript waved him over and then gave him a room number 'in case you wanted to rest'. But Danny didn't.

Want to, or rest. He spent the time before the clock struck midnight polishing his love gun. Not like that. He'd find a girl to spend his nameday with. He always did. No, this little beauty was made by Hephaestus himself. It shot love darts that disappeared on contact.

At midnight, kitted out with more love darts than there were people in this pink and gold monstrosity, Danny left his room and shot the first person he saw--and didn't wait to see what would happen.

No point getting a slow start. He had a lot of work to do.

st_andingtall

"Eugene Thompson," repeated the Innkeeper, when Sam finally broke down and stopped searching for the wheelchair guy to ask. "One moment, please. Do you need any--"

"No. I have plenty of towels." What the heck was it with the towels, anyway? Sam shifted his weight to his other foot and tried not to screw up his face too much. The guy was just doing his job. Even if that was literally all he could do. "Um, but thanks."

"You're welcome." The Innkeeper did something that was probably smile, but Sam couldn't have described it, or his face for the life of him. "Ah, yes." He tapped a finger against the rounded black monitor screen that was as almost as old as Sam. "Mr. Thompson has checked out."

"Huh?" Sam's felt the surprise overtake his face and he had to work hard to plant his hands at the edge of the counter instead of reaching across to grab the guy by the collar. "I thought you said we couldn't leave."

"That is correct."

"But Flash--"

"Flash Thompson has checked out."

"How does that even make--" Never mind. The lyrics of Hotel California came to him. "So, you're saying he's dead and I should look for his ghost?"

"I have no record of His Ghost."

Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Okay, yeah. Thanks."

After he'd stalked away from the front desk, Sam dropped into one of the round red leather booths in the Copper Cafe and pulled out his cell...which was absolutely fucking useless and he still forgot half the time. "Great. The Innkeeper's useless. Flash has 'checked out'. And I can't text anyone to tell them about it."

Oh yeah. Life in the days before instantaneous communication sucked. And blew.

st_alksthroughwalls

Fifteen days into this particular strange trip, Kitty had redistributed alcohol supplies between the cafe, restaurant, and night club to make it possible to easily tend bar wherever people decided to gather. Today, as most days, she settled into the lobby cafe after chivvying the cook into chicken tenders and french fries (after convincing him it was a single plate meal). It was the closest she could get to "bar food" from him and someone would probably arrive sooner rather than later to make something else.

A few people trickled in after awhile, but none of them demanding. Like her, they drank coffee from the samovar she'd put out. And also like her, most of them had something else to keep them occupied. At the moment, Kitty had a notebook open (from the gift shop; she kept her school notebooks separate in case she made it home during the term) and was sketching plans to upgrade the hotel's computer technology. She needed more raw computing power to work out the energy requirements to do what Illyana did with a thought.

She lifted her head periodically to check for new customers, and had just seated herself at the end of the bar after refilling the samovar when the first new new customer arrived. Immediately, she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook and headed it "Day 15" and made a hash mark for one new arrival. Then she looked up from her notebook and offered one and all her best bartending smile.

st_aff

None of them planned it.

It just happened.

After a week of nothing but Iron Chef: Chicken, Sam had gone to the Copper Cafe to make himself a salad and found Steph already there making waffles. Dean joined them when he couldn’t find Sam in the room and immediately started pouring draft beers. Snow crept down a little later, apparently planning to make mashed potatoes to go with her chicken, and found Steph already peeling them.

With promises of alcohol and no questions, they convinced Snow to stay. And then, to their surprise, she not only helped Steph with the potatoes but overheard Dean bitching about a bakery with no pies and rolled up her sleeves to make one or three. The Chef drifted in a bit later, made fried chicken without talking to any of them and left them to their demented, sad but drunkenly social New Year’s Eve “party”.

By ten they were bored of draft beer and Sam and Steph went and raided the Steak House coolers for champagne—Steph because she wanted it and Sam because it was entirely plausible that an insurance investigator/estate appraiser would know something about what was decent champagne. But when they found a room service cart, they didn’t stop at champagne.

Why should they? They couldn’t go anywhere. They had nothing to do except when Sam and Dean could sneak off to bust the odd ghost or Steph to crawl the odd roof and Snow for a horseback ride. No reason they couldn’t spend the next three days drinking in the Cafe if they wanted.

Which was why when the new guests started arriving in groups of threes and fours, they were still there, drinking, listening to whatever crap music Steph on her phone and ready to share their booze for consolation. There wasn’t any way for people to get out of the lobby without seeing them, either, so they ended up consoling a lot.

Of course, there were four of them and eventually like twenty-six new people, so pretty soon it was less you’re stuck, it sucks, I’m sorry and more have a drink, grab a chair, have some pie. Some stayed in the wood-and-red leather cafe with its copper fittings, and some didn’t.

Whatever they chose, not one could say it wasn’t an interesting New Year’s Day.

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Strange Trip

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave

Entries tagged with lindsey mcdonald

[GP] puppies and kitties and buns, oh my!

[GP] Check-In Day!

Summer Kick-off Festival (and Independence Day Celebration)

[Linkdrop] Gamers Wanted (Sam, Harry, etc) backdated to June 12

EP - Muffins (OTA)

EP - Fun with fruit? (OTA)

[GP/EP Check In Day - May 1]

[GP/EP] You're not clear of story out here

[GP] Shoot that poison arrow

[EP] What a nice surprise

[GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

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