It was a Monday.

It had been a normal weekend.

Arthur, ergo, was in the salle, practicing his staffwork for once. He did have a battle with Mat due tomorrow which was going to be pushed towards next week due to a sudden case of the fox, SPOILERS and it wouldn't do to show up in anything but perfect fighting shape.

He made for a few impressive sweeps through the air as he practiced, showing off for his (Merlin-y) audience as usual.

[[ open! ]]

Raven decided it was safe to show her face -- no one had said anything about the gremlin bite performance, and Chuck claimed there was no video evidence (though she still wasn't sure she believed him), so she had come out to the common room with robo-baby Ariela Willow (and yes, she had found a red gem to stick to her forehead because it just felt right). She was flipping through the channels on the TV, trying to find something appropriate to watch with a baby in the room. Not that the baby was paying any attention to the TV, but still! She was taking parenting very serious, because this was as close to it as she would ever get.


[Ooooopen.]

Zack had been back on the island for all of a half-hour, now. Just enough time to wander his way from the Causeway back to the dorms, stop into his room, stick the gerbil into the hamster ball, and then ooze his way to the common room, where he immediately plopped himself down on the couch and proceeded to stare at the television.

There were a few missing ingredients in this equation, tonight. Such as the presence of mind to actually turn the TV on, and the notion that the gerbil would probably get more exercise if only Zack wasn't hugging the ball to his chest like a teddy bear.

Mr. Winkles attempted to scrabble up the side of his wee plastic prison, cursing humanity for the creation of the transparent torture sphere in which he was trapped. As usual, he was Not Best Pleased.

[Open, as common rooms typically are.]

Hannibal was trying to ignore the results of yesterday's bowling match because that made him feel better. Really, losing that goddamn match was like a death knell to him. And now he had to pay up. Ugh. To help him ignore all that, he'd retreated outside to the deck, taking advantage of the crisp but not cold weather. It was nothing some warmer weather and a baseball cap couldn't cure.

So, he was out there, sprawled in a chair, feet up and phone on his lap. He'd started sending Abigail stupid text messages earlier that day and since she kept responding, he kept sending them. If she was going to encourage him, he was going to take the bait and keep it up.

Sure, he could have been doing something productive (he'd even brought a book out there with him) but this was a lot more fun.

[deck's open!]

Okay, true believers, the last time we'd seen our mean green heroine-in-training, she'd been dancing about in her underwear and singing about homicide¹.

This evening, however, she was more clothed and less full of song. Instead, she sat on the couch, stretched out with a pint of Cherry Garcia in hand. The TV was tuned to a rerun of Mythbusters. They were playing diet cola and Mentos. It was putting a smile on her face just as much as the ice cream.

This was how the She-Hulk liked to spend a quiet Saturday night in.

-----
¹ - Last night, gremlin bite -- Natch!

[ooc: Open post! I'm testing out a more... comics-y narrative.]

A couple days ago, Jaina had learned that John was dating again. The hurt was still there, and it was largely made worse that the fact that logic kept kicking in and she couldn't be mad about any of it... Well, no, she could be mad at Nancy. That was safe for her. Mostly she just felt bad about all of it.

Then today Jaina found out that the reason she hadn't been able to get a hold of her parents was because of a close call back home. It was her parents and she knew they'd be fine because they were them, but once she'd gotten off the call having heard the story, she headed down to the gym. It'd be nice to have a reprieve. She'd somehow actually gotten used to them, just periods of normalcy in the middle of the insanity that was her life, and now that she didn't get those, things got really close to overwhelming sometimes. Maybe she'd take her grandfather up on Thanksgiving no matter what.

And for now, there'd be doing some training. When she graduated, she might have to get a new one for all the damage she tried to do to this thing.


[Bored and headachy. Play with me.]

There was the slightest of chances Beka's been spoiling the pigeons this week. They'd had to get through without the extra feed for two weeks and Beka swore Shimmer looked more hungry than usual. She crumbled some of the bread from her bag and scattered it in front of her, watching the gathered pigeons launch for it in a flurry of wings and feathers.

"You almost ate the entire bag, you loobies," she chided them. She wiped off the crumbs on her jeans afore she reached out to scratch the sleeping Pounce behind his ear. She had her diary laid open in her lap. She'd at least caught up with everything now, but her reports weren't. Writing about turning into a Terrier was easy, she was certain her Lord would see the humor of it. Twas the part about George Cooper that she couldn't find the words for.

[Open as roofs are.]

Dinah had brought her body armor, sticks, helmet, and gaderiffii to practice, and was now practicing alone, waiting for Tahiri. Once, doce, siete, nueve... all the forms, faster and faster.

[waiting for the barefoot Jedi, but open to others]

There was an army waiting to greet the members of the Magic Reserves today: an army of practice dummies from the salle, standing at perfect attention behind the refreshment table. Crepe paper had been tied around each dummy's waist, with a long streamer left hanging down their sides. More rolls of crepe paper were resting on the refreshment table.

"Hey," Tony said. "We've got a cool activity today, but before we do that, Dinah's going to tell us about her abilities." He smiled at Dinah. "And if anyone wants to volunteer for next week, let us know."

He turned to Karla. "Wanna explain the activity?"

She nodded, before turning towards thr group. "Today, we're going to focus on the possibility that one day, we'll have to rescue prisoners and hostages from an invading enemy force," Karla said, giving everyone a cheerful smile. "While every step of an operation like that is difficult and fraught with danger, one of the most common mistakes people make is that assuming once they've freed their comrades, the hard part is over. Not only is that wrong, but it's the kind of thinking that can get people recaptured or even killed."

It was hard thinking like this in the face of enemies like carnivorous vegetables, but they had to be prepared.

Merlin shot her a slightly nervous smile as he stepped forward to add, "To keep that sort of thing from happening, we'll be running a practice at escaping with the dummies." The lovely, lovely dummies. "Whomever you are rescuing may be able to move on their own should this actually happen, but for this case we will assume the worst and they will be unable to walk for whatever reason. Which should make it--um--interesting to accomplish without being caught again."

"This is how it's going to work," Karla said, picking up the thread again. "Your dummy is your friend. Get him from one side of the Preserve to the other without him 'dying.'" She tugged on one of the crepe streamers attached to a dummy. "This is his 'life.' If this gets ripped off, your dummy is dead. Everyone who participates will also tie a streamer around their waist and the same rules apply. If your streamer is torn, you die and are 'out' for the rest of the round."

"Either singly or in pairs, people are going to try to rescue the dummies. Everyone who is not rescuing the dummy is a bad guy and will do their level best to stop the rescuers from getting back to their base. Rescuers can use whatever magic in their arsenal to keep their ward safe and to fight off attackers. Bad guys, you can't use magic--you've got numbers on your side. Feel free to use physical attacks all you want--but let's all be careful, okay? No clinic visits if we can avoid them."

"If you want to be a rescuer, but aren't comfortable using your power on other people, just let us know. We'll be happy to animate a few of these extra dummies to act as your antagonists. However, in that case, we'd be able to use magic on the bad guys' behalf, since there's no way they'd actually be able to actually fight you."

"If you have any questions before we begin, don't hesitate to ask, okay?"

[OCD up!]

A few weeks ago, Sam had been worried about being involved in so many things. Now, he was grateful to have a variety of activities with which to distract himself, which was why he was at the gym so early setting out the mats and music for practice. Maybe if he didn't act like he was grieving, he could pretend there was nothing to grieve about.

Considering how much exploring he had done, it was a miracle Jak hadn't made it up to the roof before. Of course, he'd taken the scenic route as soon as he showed up there, looking around, poking at things.

Right now? He was leaning over the rooftop garden, squinting at it, and trying to figure out why the plants seemed to shy away from him? What? He was having a good day, he'd just had a shower, everything was right with the world...

Weird.

[[ open! ]]

Liir had considered doing his work in the common room kitchen, but he'd come to enjoy the space and the utilities available up on the sixth floor.

...plus Makejoy really liked to wander around and sniff at the newly renovated floors, the new furnishing, and all the different things while he worked, which was a lovely distraction whenever he was doing something that didn't require too much of his attention.

Today's work was caramels, something he'd only really done once and even then as more of an experiment than anything. Swirling them with other things, covering them with chocolate, flavoring them with liquor; some of them came out well, while a few of his experiments just hadn't quite panned out. Either way, the sugary sweetness on the air was almost as satisfying as twisting the wax paper around the best results.

[open and HI BACK AGAIN]

After returning to Fandom in the morning, Kate had slept through most of Monday. The only major disruption to her slumber had been a handwavy visit to the clinic to get checked out in case of internal injury from the crash. She thought it was unnecessary, but she’d been persuaded to go anyway. She was okay, of course, and had returned back to her bed and blissful unconsciousness as soon as they’d let her.

So, Tuesday morning, after nearly 24 hours of sleep, Kate was wide awake, and baking chocolate chip muffins in the common room. The muffins were a make-up assignment for a missed cooking class, and would also serve well as breakfast for her and whoever else happened to wander by.

Baking also distracted her from worrying about Bobby. She wasn’t even sure whether he’d left during the weekend, or if she’d been too preoccupied with her own things to notice the note on Friday. It was worrying, all the same.

Kate wasn't sleepy anymore, but she was still kind of exhausted, which would explain why she was slumped in a chair in front of the oven, keeping an eye on the last batch of muffins.


[ooc: ’Tis an open common room.]

"Okay, guys," Zack said, stepping to the forefront of the Reserves meeting and grinning, his hands on his hips. "Today we're going to follow the lead of the Magic Reserves, and start focusing on sharing the more specific talents of the people in this group. But with a twist! While plenty of the stuff that they have over in the Magic corps is specific to just the person giving the demonstrations, the benefit to working physically is that plenty of the skills that each of us have can be taught to one another! Maybe you've got proficiency in a weapon that nobody else here seems to know, or else you've got awesome tracking skills and think that we could stand to learn how to use them, too! Or you might have something as simple as a training exercise that you've seen put to use back home that you think we could benefit from, here. If you have something to share with the group, I'm sure we'd all be thankful that you offered up the time to teach us!"

Zack, for example, would teach the group the fine art of smuggling cookies into serious meetings of an almost militaristic nature. The trick, of course, was to leave them in his pockets and give them to people who asked nicely.

And Arthur would be onto him eventually. He was just keeping an eye out. "So if you are prepared to share, step up to us this week. You may bring your own tale to the front this week, give us a demonstration, and please come up to have a word with us if you would like to demonstrate some time in the coming weeks, or would be willing to offer your services in training, or leading the reserves through a training exercise. We are here to learn from each other as best we can, and so each other is the best resource we've got."

He gave a nod to those gathered, then took a step back. Only to take a step back later to give his own round-up.

[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]

So, last week had been kind of a weird one by Chuck's standards. Not that it took much to make it that for him. Attacking food just hit all the right criteria.

And one of the best ways (in his opinion) to counteract any residual nerves regarding killer veggies and whatever other crazy this place could throw at him, was to squash pixelated things... While eating pizza.

If anyone asked, Chuck was the muscled ninja-looking guy, and not Princess Peach.

[[The boy really needed to get out of his room for once. Open!]]

It was a warm morning, at least for November, and Jack had a little spring in his step as he returned to the dorms from a weekend visit home. After going upstairs to drop off his bag, he clattered back down to the deck with a large thermos of coffee, an apple, and a new-to-him novel of Hungarian history. It wasn't half-bad, for what it was.

He was eying the fire pit idly as he turned the pages, wondering if the warmth and appeal of a fire was worth the effort of collecting the wood.

[OOC: Open like a deck, yep!]

It was a typical Monday morning, involving no birds (thank God) or other mishaps so far. And so, Arthur (and Merlin) were in the salle, one handling a sword with deadly precision, the other... not handling a sword with deadly precision, despite inferences Katchoo may have made the previous night.

Ahem.

His sword flickered through the air, landing on either side of the dummy. He twisted and turned and struck again.

[[ open! ]]

Large bowl of Movie Theatre Butter popcorn, Gloaming Sector marathon on tv (the original black and white ones, of course), and... girl who spends more time hiding behind the throw pillows on the sofa during things like this than she does when someone's accidentally showing porn. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh God, it was the one with Chatty Cathy. My name is Chatty Cathy and I don't like you...

[Open like common rooms tend to be.]

Frankly speaking, a Mat Cauthon with too much time on his hands was a kind of terrifying thing.

Witness example number one: Mat, in a common room, juggling an apple, two spoons, and a carving knife.

At least he wasn't blindfolded?

[OOC: So very open.]

With it still looking a little too rainy to properly enjoy the roof, Alex took himself down to the common room in an attempt to find something to do with himself. After a few moment's thought, he'd wandered over to the small kitchen area and started scrounging for the things he needed to make grilled cheese sandwiches with. After mentioning it the other day, he'd found himself with a craving.

He took time out to flick the television on, finding something mindless to give him some background noise while cooked. Of course, it'd been a few months since he'd made a grilled cheese sandwich for himself so he figured he was going to burn at least one sandwich or set something on fire. He hoped for the former but wouldn't mind the latter. It'd be funny, at least.

[cr's open like cr's tend to be!]

Normally Emma would head to the roof when she wanted to escape the ennui of her classmates, but she was still feeling a bit vexed from yesterday's ethics class, and wanted to work it off.

So it was the salle instead, and Emma had her own sword with her instead of one of the practice foils as she worked her footwork and positions. Prime, seconde, tierce...

[Open salle is open! Distract me from my Friday to-do list!]

Jaina had decided to go home for the weekend, and at the moment, she was packed, caught up on everything she had to do for the moment. She came out to the common room, intent on dinner, then gave up after a quick search of the fridge and just ordered pizza. Really, she was going to spend a while eating military rations and something like gruel. She was going for something good tonight, even if there was way too much for just her.

And once channel surfing landed her on a Mythbusters rerun, she decided this was a pretty good way to spend a night before she had to go be all militaristic and professional.


[Open! Pizza is shareable and I need to do something that has nothing to do with RL.]

With a day off from classes and work, Layla was lounging on the sofa with her Chuck Taylor's and striped socks resting up on the coffee table watching watching old episodes of Seraph.

Next to her was a giant bowl of pink and green potato chips that she found on a back shelf at the local Kwik Stop that she was totally willing to share...

Though if you were smart you probably wouldn't want to partake of them.

[Open of course...]

Joan pretty much bounced into the gym. Penelope was back and she couldn't be happier.

She put on some peppy music while she dragged out the mats and got everything ready for practice.