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Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

Okay, so the washing machines and the kraken drill had happened, but those hadn't been directed at him so much as the island in general, and work had behaved itself for the past few weeks, so Adrian was feeling pretty confident that he'd survived the island's weird hazing and come out the other side.

What Adrian had forgotten was the phrase 'pride goeth before a fall' and how important timing was in comedy.

Anyway, that was probably why instead of a witch behind the counter today, there was a pot of hollyhocks on the counter and a very exasperated Boston attempting to water it.

"This is not proper witch-familiar behavior," he muttered, spilling more water on himself.

...And then batting the cup off the counter in aggravation.

Entry tags:

library

Fandom Library, Wednesday, July 16th

Arden got into the library and discovered that it was absolutely trashed. Gremlins were running rampant, Bookapalooza had apparently happened overnight with a ton of books laying around with a pile of musician autobiographies in piles on the table, and the bats were back and divebombing anything that moved.

"Oh, definitely not," Arden said, shaking her head. "I am not dealing with this. I'd rather go to Shenanigans than this. I'm not your mom, I'm so not picking up after you."

And as if the island had heard this and decided to help, where there was once an Arden standing there, arms folded, glaring at the mess, there was suddenly a brightly-colored finch perched on the circulation desk and preening her feathers.

Maybe slightly overkill, but Arden appreciated the backup. Or something.

Fandom Radio, Wednesday 7/16

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, again and I’m here, again. So let’s get this over with so I can try to avoid Anakin.

At the school, the large fabric eagle took students to a park in Maine. The Beach! class watched a very familiar movie. On the beach. And then Paintball! was a disaster where I lost, Cal won, and there were slip and slides full of paint. At least that’s over with.

Nothing from the dorms, as usual. The porg remains, it seems, resigned to his fate. So now there’s the town.

There was a beach in Caritas or maybe just a lot of sand for Kitty to deal with. Remy brought his cats to work with him at Needful Things. They were not eaten by the hyena in case anyone was worried.

And above Needful Things in Harley’s apartment Marc went to visit Harley with breakfast and they had a conversation about not being angry and not leaving and it seems like it was tense but the squirrels may just have been worried about the hyena? I don’t think he’s eaten any of them either. Yet. I hope everything’s all right.

That's all from yesterday for today.

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Infinite Consortium, Wednesday

Quinn had done a perfectly good job destroying the giant head costume all on her own, this week, so she had no need of any of the magical items in the shop to take it out for her.

She'd saved one of the eyes, for some reason. It was furred around the edges with choppily cut foam and fraying fabric. She tilted her head at it once she'd settled behind the desk, then looked around for a spot to put it.

What? It was clearly cursed. It basically belonged here. And she was wondering what her boss would do with it when she noticed it. How long it would take her to notice it.

Hmmm. Tucked in behind that crystal ball looking thing? That could work. . . . The ball's curve distorted the eye, making it look even creepier.

Quinn decided she liked it there. It could stare at any customers who decided to show up. Maybe scare off shoplifters.

She sat back down behind the counter, kicked her feet up, and idly fantasized about ways to get revenge on Skywalker.

[open!]

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summer games

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday mid-morning

Anakin was still not a cat! And he had ~~stolen~~ requisitioned the slip 'n slides from Paintball yesterday and set them up in roughly a triangle shape.

With bases between them. Because Anakin also still didn't know how baseball worked.

The bad news? The slip 'n slides were covered in baby oil and mudslide cocktail mix (because his order for mud had been misinterpreted. Watch out for the squirrels who'd definitely been licking the slip 'n slides.)

The good news? Your teams are in costumes made to protect you as you slide!

Well. Sort of. Anakin had gotten into the Japanese mascots again.

"Today we shall be playing slip 'n slide kickball!" Anakin told the unfortunates caught in the park this morning. "Listen for your names!"

Team Uesama (a hyperrealistic head on legs who promotes Sof’ ice cream.)
Quinn (pitcher)
Luma
Henry of Skalitz
Lydia
Rey
Vi
Remy
Steve R

Team Jumball the Third, King of the Watermelons (the mascot of Nyuzen Town, Japan.)
Stark (pitcher)
Belle
Isabella
Eleanor
Flint
Steve M
Thor
Raiden

(Even More)American National Park Tours with Sam Eagle

This week’s trip was to Acadia National Park because it was first alphabetically and therefore the first one Sam saw when looking at the list.

“Follow me, class,” Sam said, waving towards the portal. “We are going Maine! To visit Acadia! Home of Cadillac Mountain the highest mountain on the Atlantic Coast! It is the first National Park to be established east of the Mississippi!”

“You will have a chance to visit the coastline! See forests! See mountains! Lakes! Ponds! A beautiful place in this fine country.”

“Come along, students! There is much to see!”

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Needful Things, Tuesday

So. Remy had three high energy, intelligent cats. And lived in a small suite in a boarding house.

He did not do a whole lot to try to rein in his cats' tendencies to want to roam. That was hard to do when you tended to relocate at a moment's notice due to any manner of events, up to and including the entire school/building/city he was living in being taken over by evil.

Plus, like. Even if he did try to make them indoor-only cats, the little bastards had this amazing tendency to find themselves embroiled in the drama of other superhero-adjacent animals all over the multiverse, whether he wanted them to or not.

You know how they say that pets and owners tended to resemble each other after awhile? Yeah. Well.

All that to say that when Lucifer (the cat), Oliver, and Figaro decided to follow him to the shop today, he didn't get a whole lot out of telling them "no" or "stay". Even "there's a hyena that lives there and I don't know what Harley feeds him" didn't hold much weight.

Hopefully Bruce -- and Harley -- wouldn't be too put out by the cats joining him at work. They mostly stuck near Remy, at least. And they . . . probably wouldn't try to mark too much of the inventory as their own personal property.

He was going to end up buying himself a cat-hair covered cushion or two by the end of the day, wasn't he.

[open! Mind the cats. . . .]

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Caritas- Tuesday

There was sand all over the floor. All over. Kitty didn't know if it was a Fandom thing or if it was a Tino thing and you know what, Kitty didn't care as long as it was gone by tomorrow.

At least until she went into the back room and found a giant beach umbrella propped up in the sand. That just felt excessive.

[Open!]

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beach

Beach! [Tuesday, 2nd Period]

Class was in the Danger Shop rather than on the beach like last week, set up as an open air cinema on the beach. The neon pink beach, look certain teachers had really broken that setting and trying to fix it had only made it even more pink. Somehow.

"Last week we covered some of the more traditional activities you could take part in on a beach." Sure you could say that. There was no way of stopping people from saying inaccurate things. "Today we're mixing it up a bit by engaging in a bit of outdoor movie watching."

They would not be mixing up the movie, however. What did you think this was?

Paintball! Some More! [Tuesday, July 15, 2025]

There were a series of slip and slides on the course this week, each with a different paint color. How had they managed this? Why had they managed this? Don't ask silly questions. Just enjoy the paint.

"Today we're doing something different," Tony said. "Players get to have some fun in the paint.."

Yes, nothing said fun quite like being fully yellow or red after sliding around in it.

Steve's combination of being a dog and missing the laundry strike might've had something to do with the set-up, too.

"After you are tagged out, go have fun on the slides," Steve said, nodding.

"And, sorry folks, no powers until the end again," Tony added.

This was definitely opening the door to people being Force-shoved onto slip and slides, but that was a later-in-class problem.

"Suit up!" Steve said with a grin.

Fandom Radio, Tuesday, July 15th

Hey there Fandom, it's me, ya girl Arden Finch, still loving having clean clothes once again. I mean, I've got a tour at a national park, some time at the beach, and paintball coming up today, so who knows how long that will be true for, but it's true right now and that's what's important.

Speaking of classes, let's talk about School! Teamwork was cancelled, but 2 Problem 2 Creative made up for it by having both their teachers instead of one teacher and a cat. Normal amount of teachers for How To Waste Time On The Internet, but also they learned the opposite of doomscrolling, which is apparently 'timeline cleanse.' And Destiny and Free Will met up at the pond to learn divination practices.

No Dorms, no surprise, so Town it is! Professor Tony Stark was thrilled when Professor Rogers, except for then he had to explain why they suddenly had three dogs and also the name of one of them. Pizza Planet had to deal with a gremlin breakup in the closet and that just sounds terrible, while Ms. Nell was dealing with poorly-delivered flowers at Covent Gardens.

*squirrely booing*

Well, did y'all deliver the packages correctly? No? Then the phrase poorly-delivered seems appropriate! The Clinic had everybody enjoying cold drinks or cold snacks, good call though I'm horrified to discover seafood ice cream. I'm far less horrified to discover that yesterday was Bastille Day, which Captain Flint made sure to celebrate at The Ink Spot. And we circle back to Ms. Nell, enjoying her hot tub time, with Professor Amicitia sitting nearby to chat with her.

And it looks like that's all we got, folks! So it's ya girl, Arden Finch, signing off for the day! Leaving you with Romeo by Dove Cameron to get your day started off right. Have a great day, Fandom!

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classes

Summer Session II Workshop Rosters

Apologies for the delay, I spent the last week computer-less!

Here's the roster of workshops; let me know if I left anyone off!

The Ink Spot, Monday evening, July 14, 2025

So Flint had come down with a slight case of parrot again (which he was telling no one) and so he'd transferred back to himself sometime in the mid-afternoon. It had taken a few hours to figure out what day it was, another few to figure out how to correctly work the phonograph he'd unearthed from the back (still a hundred plus years ahead of him, but try to teach him about Spotify. Go ahead).

He opened the door to the shop and blasted (for phonograph definition of blast) La Marseillaise.

Yes, it wasn't freedom from England, per se, but Flint deeply approved of the future France's way of dealing with nobility. Happy Bastille Day, Future!France.

Nodding firmly to himself, he retreated to his normal seat inside the shop.

Fandom Radio, Monday July 14th

Good morning all, I trust we've all recovered from having our sleep so cruelly interrupted the other night. I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that all of the action yesterday was in Town.

Raiden was concerned whether they had enough potatoes and eggs at Over Easy. Steven and I stopped in, and I was introduced to the concept of brunch. Clever idea, that. Raiden greeted us and Steven congratulated him on his new business, while Raiden and I discussed the possibility of gremlins stealing headwear. Stark was also there and filled Raiden in on the kraken drill and discussed the restaurant's opening with Steven.

Elsewhere, at Stark Industries Miss Skywalker was dealing with telephone calls regarding broken washing machines. Still? I thought that issue was resolved.

And finally, Steven and I ate dinner together.

That's all that the squirrels claim to be newsworthy yesterday. Have a good week, everyone.

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internet for dummies

How to Waste Time on the Internet, 3rd period

Jon looked a little better this week, though that meant his professional demeanor and dress were probably a bit much for this class.

That wasn't going to stop him.

He nodded to the students. "One of the more popular ways to waste time on the internet is by what is termed 'doomscrolling' - scrolling through social media, particularly involving current news and events, in such an endless way as to invoke a sense of doom. We are going to attempt to scroll through social media in a way that does not invoke doom."

Largely because Jon had no intentions of feeding off his students. But also it was probably bad for their mental health.

He cleared his throat. "One of the better ways to do this is to open the social media site of your choice - today I will be demonstrating with Bluesky," he pulled out his phone and opened it to show the app, "and search for 'timeline cleanse'. This will, unless people are being horrid, bring up things such as cute animals, good news, and generally positive things. This will also work on Tumblr, if you prefer that. You can also just search for it on a search engine. I do not recommend it on the site formerly known as Twitter, as that place is a hellhole regardless, and also supports Nazis and Tories."

Jon had feelings about things.

"So today let's each do that. And share the best thing you find so we can all enjoy it."

Teamwork- Monday, 1st period

Jaina had left for home yesterday, and Jag had gotten caught up with meetings, which meant before class an email went out.

Class will be canceled today and will resume next week.

Short and to the point.

[I am in hell. Hopefully next Monday is less hell.]

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stark

Fandom Clinic, Monday 7/14

Mondays meant clinic shifts as they had for years now. Clinic shifts meant coffees for the nurses and himself as they had for years now.

Hot weather meant iced coffees even though the clinic's air conditioning worked quite well. He even brought a Crab Cup with him from the Perk for Stabby. It was just like a Pup Cup only with a tiny frozen fish stuck in it instead of a tiny dog biscuit.

"Enjoy?" Stark said uncertainly as he placed it on the tiny picnic table inside Stabby's tank.

The nurses, at least, were going to enjoy their drinks. And so was he.

The clinic was open, the crab was having whipped cream and fish, and the alien was in.

Penthouse Apartment of Stark Baby Tower, Monday Morning

Tony was regretting the number of dogs he'd ended up with here. Mostly because he was presently covered in them as he tried to go through work emails. Tried was the key word there because they were being needy and competitive for the attention he could provide.

"Steve, you can turn back any moment now," he just sighed as he was up to his neck in fur.

It'd be so nice if things worked that way, wouldn't it?

[for the husband!]

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Monday: Covent Garden Flowers

Nell spent a lot of time on the phone today, dealing with deliveries that had somehow gone awry. Whose idea had it been to hire squirrels to deliver flower arrangements? Certainly not hers.

And now she not only had to apologize to disgruntled customers, but also find a way to politely suggest to the squirrels that their talents might best be served doing other things. Someone come save her!

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43 unicorn,
hot tub

Monday evening: 43 Unicorn

Nell had spent a very long day at Soulwood on Sunday, working the land and setting out everything that needed to be take care of. Today, before and after work, she'd done more planting and digging here, which meant that by the end of the day she was amazingly grateful that there was a hot tub she could sink into to ease her tired muscles and joints.

Yes, it might be ridiculously hot outside and yes, she'd be grateful to be back inside in the air conditioning afterwards, but for right now she was content. Though she'd be much more content once Gladio got home.