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ethics

Ethical Dilemmas, Thursday, (Per 1)

After one week in the Danger Shop and one off for a trip abroad, class was once again being held in the conversatory in the creepy mansion in the woods. In addition to the regular selection of beverages, there was a selection of various delicious handpies, each platter accompanied by a discreet list of ingredients, so nobody would have to worry about allergens or dietary restrictions.

"Good morning--" a stretch, considering how early it was and how much Liliana could still be sleeping, "--and welcome back to class." Anyone who expected Liliana to apologize for canceling class while she flitted off to Argentina to get engaged was in for a very long wait. "Today, we're discussing another short story, this one called The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin. It is, in fact, very short, and I highly recommend that people read it, either before the discussion, or on your own time; I've enough copies to pass out. ( But, as a summary )

Liliana looked around the class, violet eyes dark and fathomless. "So here is your cold equation, darlings. You are the pilot. You have medicine for 6 dying men. You are the only ship in the area, there is no chance of a last minute rescue. There is a girl standing in front of you, telling you that she's very sorry, that she just wanted to see her brother, and your ship's computer is informing you that you will reach the point of no return in just a few minutes. What do you do?"

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Wednesday [06/11].

Noctra was in a creative mood that morning, it seemed, and so when Prompto brought her along with him to the shelter for work that day, she brought her little camera and Prompto gave her the task of being a wildlife animal photographer for the day, complete with a little safari hat to really drive home that sense of exploration and adventure that went with it. He also gave her a small list of things to focus on taking pictures of, his teacher instincts offering up a guide that he wasn't really sure she'd actually follow, but it would be good to get her to think about those sorts of things, you know? And then off she went with her camera, and Prompto kept one eye on her while taking care of this and that around the shelter, waiting for her to come running back to show him what she'd taken pictures of so that they could go through them together before she settled in for a nap.

So overall, a pretty good day! Even if the majority of pictures Noctra took were definitely not of actual animals, but you could tell what she was going for!

Furnado is open!

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Outside the Dorms, Very Early Wednesday Morning

One thing modern garments had going for them, Lydia had to admit, was that they were a lot easy to put back on unassisted after one had been, say, gathering plants in the woods skyclad under the light of the strawberry moon.

You know. As one did.

Now she wasn't quite sneaking back into the dorm, as she had the right to go wherever she wished even if it was at an absurd hour, but she wasn't not sneaking, either. She didn't want to wake anyone, after all.

As she approached the dorm she heard an excited little trill and hissed, "Quiet!" before she looked over to find something that gave her pause: the intern porg scribbling in its notebook. Wait. "Are you always out here in the middle of the night? Maybe that's your problem, you know. Most people are asleep right now. Oh, what am I saying? I shouldn't be helping you spy on me."

(Open to anyone else who might be lurking about the dorms in the wee hours!)

Entry tags:

summer games

Summer Shenanigans [Wednesday mid-morning]

Today's games were not being held in the park, which should have been a red flag. Fortunately, Anakin has provided a red flag!

Twenty feet up.

At the end of a very gross-looking wooden pole dangling over Serenity Cove.

"Today you're all out of for yourselves," Anakin yelled from the top of recycled scaffolding, which had a 40-foot long greased up telephone pole balanced between it about 20 feet up. "Many thanks to our local bars and restaurants for providing the lard, grease, fish guts, Crisco and bacon fat to really lube this thing up. The rules are simple," Anakin said. "Whoever gets across the pole and reaches the flag wins all you can eat at Mooby Burger for a week!" Whether Mooby Burger was a good prize or not was entirely up to the winners. "You may walk, run, or slide your way across, but you may not use supernatural powers."

"And thank you in advance for volunteering!"

Which was news to those volunteers.

"Come and grab your t-shirts Flint, Luma, Jaina, Belle, Lydia, Eleanor, Stewart, Vi, Don, Steve R., Raiden, Sabine, and Steph."

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Caritas; Wednesday [06/11].

When Tino saw what Summer had put together for this week's specials, he'd expressed a disappointment that he hadn't known about it, because if he had he would have helped by decorating the bar with butterflies to go along with the theme.

"You mean, like, cardboard decorative ones, don't you, Tino?" Summer asked, and all of a sudden, Tino didn't seem to be able to hear her. "Don't you??? I swear to god, Tino, if you fill this bar up with actual butterflies, I am going to totally lose my shit, because I know for a fact you are not getting them through ethical means!"

Okay, she didn't know that for a fact, but Tino's continued silence on the matter spoke volumes.

Featured Cocktail
Butterfly Gin Fizz

Featured Jello
Butterflies!
Lemon Monarch | Blueberry Morpho
Raspberry Peacock | Lime Green Lacewing

Caritas is open!

Fandom Radio, Wednesday 6/11

Good morning. It’s Wednesday again and I’m here again because this is one of the things I do every week and have done for years now.

Let’s start with the school where in Finding New Hobbies we drew or colored. In Norse Life they played a game called…what?

*chittering* A game called hunh-something? I don’t know. A strategy game of some kind. In The Wonderful World of Art they watched a movie about…I’m not sure. The squirrels don’t seem to be either. And in Paintball Cal won again and the floor was lava but not really lava because Anakin was not in charge.

Nothing from the dorms and the porg is sad like he usually is so it’s time for the town.

Ignis was late to the diner and the staff put fancy specials on the menu because they didn’t think he was coming at all. Liliana came to visit, as usual.

Gladio had a gremlin in the claw machine at the gym and Summer did not want gremlin flavored noodles. That seems wise. Nell was there for a swim. Good idea. A nice warm pool and not the freezing ocean. Nell was also in her shop and in a very good mood. At Pixie Dust Boc was baffled by jelly shoes. Wait, what? You can’t make shoes out of that. Can you?

Charlie didn’t have anything made of jelly at Groovy Tunes and was listening to a song called ‘The Point.’ And at Caritas Kitty had to duct tape a zombie arm. Repeatedly. I’m sorry, Kitty.

And that was all the squirrels gave me from yesterday for today. Be careful of Anakin. You should always be careful of Anakin.

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Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

"...I know for certain that Pam hates the Christmas industrial complex," Adrian said, looking around at the weird holiday decor that had taken over the store, "so I can't blame her for all this. But that raises the question of where this all came from? And why?"

Not that he actually expected to get those answers. Not on this island.

And rather than waiting for the answers to appear (or Pam for that matter), Adrian went to fetch a ladder to start taking them down. Maybe he could donate these decorations to...someone else? Someone surely needed a bunch of foil garlands, imitation wreaths, and plastic ornaments to keep until Christmas.

He was not looking forward to getting the animatronic reindeer and the inflatable snowman off the roof. Or cleaning the fake snow off all the windows.

Entry tags:

library

Fandom Library, Wednesday, June 11th

The library was decorated for Halloween. Why? Arden had absolutely no idea. She'd just walked in and there had been jack o'lanterns, crepe paper bats, and cotton batting webs everywhere. Two twelve foot high skeletons were dressed up (one was a wizard in a blue robe and hat spangled with stars, and the other was a pirate) and standing behind the circulation desk.

You know. Where she was supposed to be.

"I'm so not asking," Arden said, with a shake of her head as she sat at one of the tables nearby. "I'm just going to be over here."

Hopefully nobody needed to be checked out. But she wasn't going to get involved with whatever was going on here.

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Caritas- Tuesday

The zombie drummer's arm kept falling off. This was the fourth time, and Kitty was getting real tired if going up there to fix it. She was going through so much duct tape.

She was beginning to think he was doing it on purpose.

[I had nothing today lol. Open!]

Finding New Hobbies, Tuesday 6/10, Period 1

“This week,” Stark said once everyone was settled in the classroom, “I have art supplies. Drawing supplies really. Sketchbooks, and sheets of paper, lots of different pencils I didn’t know they came in so many types, and colored pencils too. I thought we could draw. Or you can write. Or, if you like, you can just color. I have coloring books. Apparently those are good for occupying yourself or calming down or mindfulness. Things like that.”

He didn't entirely get it but he felt better when he had things to occupy his hands and mind so why not try it?

“So I have the pencils, as I said, and I have markers and crayons and oil pastels and chalks and pens. Plenty of paper in different types and colors. Please, take what you want to use. Try different things. That's the whole point of this, isn't it? Trying out things until you, or we, find something that works for us?”

Norse Life, Tuesday, Period 2

"Today I thought we could play at a game of hnefatafl," Thor told his students. "Hnefatafl is a strategy game, not unlike your modern chess, played with a board and pieces, and sometimes with dice. Today we will be playing a modern variation developed in Copenhagen, Denmark. I have divided you into pairs, and one of you shall have to play against me. That will be you, Steven." Listen, it might end in bloodshed but anything else would end in at least one person crying.

Thor handwavily went over the rules of Copenhagen hnefatafl, then clapped his hands together. "Now! To our games!"

Entry tags:

random dorkiness

MEME: Truth Serum

I had a rough weekend and a quiet Tuesday so let's do a meme.

Your character has ingested a large quantity of truth potion. Any questions asked of them, they have to answer truthfully, whether they want to or not! There's absolutely no way around it.

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Tuesday: Groovy Tunes

Charlie was in a cheerful mood today - please control your shock. Her music of choice today was The Point by Harry Nilsson. She loved the music and the story and would definitely be singing along.

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The Wonderful World of Art [Tuesday, 3rd Period]

The projector was set up at the front of the class again.

Once everyone had settled, Aphra started. "Sometimes the thing about art is that there is no 'why?', just a 'why not?' and that's beautiful."

"If occasionally worrying," Isabela added. "Are the Australians okay?"

Entry tags:

paintball

Paintball, Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Your teachers had shaken off their weekend cheese hangover (and the other hangover. Lord, their alternative selves had put a dent in the wine fridge) and were ready to engage in some healthy competitive exercise!

"So, this week we wanted to test out some new settings," Tony began. "So today's course is a series of jungle gyms with the old game of the floor is lava."

"We didn't actually use lava," Steve said with a quick side-eye at Anakin.

"But if you touch through floor, you're out." Which was just as bad as lava, right?

Steve nodded. "It'll be fun!"

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Tuesday: Plant Parenthood

Nell was still awfully happy about their adventure trip yesterday. Whale watching and a hike, and hot springs, oh my!

And luckily, today she just got to do normal stuff with her plants in the store and helping customers that might wander in.

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$demon marcus,
boc

Pixie Dust; Tuesday [06/10[.

Boc did not wear shoes. So Boc very often did not understand shoes. Sure, some of them made sense and were logical and he could see why people who wore shoes would find them practical or fashionable. He liked the look of a lot of boots and thought the possibilities with canvas sneakers were fascinating. Heels shoes looked more like torture than anything else, and most sandals, he was still a little unsure about.

But today he'd received a box of jelly sandals, and he did not know what to think of them.

On the one hand, his first impression was revulsion. But then he thought well maybe they were durable and therefor actually practical? But then he just thought about the plastic material and his nose wrinkled right back to disdain again. But some of them were very pretty colors. Some even with sparkles!

So he was left feeling a little baffled by them, shifting through the box to find the prettiest ones to put on display and then shoving the rest of the box behind the counter for now while he thought about how he felt about it and maybe considered asking Luma what she thought when she came in on Thursday.

Pixie Dust is open!

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Atlas Gym; Tuesday [06/10].

Good news! Last week's 'Endless Treadmill' had been fixed and was now functioning like a normal treadmill again!

Bad news! Now the crane machine in the lobby was broken instead!

Well. 'Broken.' Gladio wasn't sure he could figure out how, or if he even wanted to figure out how, but, apparently, a gremlin had managed to get itself stuck inside the machine, and was tangled up in the claw mechanism to boot. And the guy working the desk at the night shift lost the key to open the machine to make it easier to free the gremlin.

So of course Gladio asked why he didn't just call him to come down with his key to help, but apparently, the guy didn't want to interrupt him on a nice quiet evening at home! Which was pretty nice of the guy, but sucked pretty hard for the gremlin.

"Fair warning," he told him, as he fished out his keys and shook his head, "if this guy wants to bite you once we manage to get him out, I'm not going to stop him, and I can't really blame him for it, either."

Atlas is open!

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Luke's Diner; Tuesday [06/10].

When Ignis showed up for work at the diner that Tuesday late, the rest of the staff was utterly shocked. Because while it had become increasingly more frequent that Ignis would sometimes skip days entirely, he was almost never actually late, and certainly not by as great a margin as he was that week. Sure, sure, ten minutes or so here and there was expected every so often due to the nature of where they lived, but this was several hours into when Ignis usually started, and it was just throwing everyone off.

Ignis, of course, was going to show up and head immediately toward the coffee pot before getting things going, as he always did, with no acknowledgement to his extreme tardiness except for a cool question: "So...what have you all decided to do with the specials board?"

Greg, after a pause where Ignis could only assume they were all silently conferring with each other, cleared his throat and answered:

Today's Specials
A Fancy Burger with Fancy Fries
Some Fancy Vegan Dish
A Fancy Dessert

Ignis felt the compulsion to argue that not all of his recipehs were all that fancy, but he sighed instead. "Yes, of course," he allowed, "but which ones specifically?"

No, no, he misunderstood. No specifics. Just fancy. Which was fine, he could work very easily within those parameters if anyone ordered it, but then one very important question came to his mind:

"Wait. Is that always what you just put on the board when I'm absent?"

Oh, he was definitely going to need more coffee.

Luke's is open!

Fandom Radio, Tuesday, June 10th

Hey there Fandom, it's ya girl, Arden Finch, hoping everybody's properly over the nonsense that hit us this weekend. I'm totally not still feeling spiteful about being a forest for the whole weekend, honest.

Anyway, we still had School because we're not about to take it off for something as silly as being other people - or other landscapes! That's quitter talk! Teamwork had us crossing scary bridges, standing on seesaws, and trying to get out of boxes, all of which had to be done as a team. Which makes sense, considering the name of the class. Creative Problem Solving was very quiet due to 'hangovers from people who should know better.' Yeah, no wonder you recognized the signs, you furry, drunken miscreants. The Art of Conversation wanted to talk about the weather all class. That sounds terrible. Luma and Professor Sims managed to have a whole conversation about the weather, while Luma and Mr. Blackwood talked about why small talk exists. Professor Sims seemed to think it was because people liked it. Yeah, I'm gonna go with probably not, Professor. And then National Park Adventure Team visited Beringia National Park, where there was a ton of stuff to do, including whale watching! Guess what I did!

The expected no notes for the Dorms, but Town was busy bright and early this morning. At IX Serendipity Place, Professor Fel returned from being a car, and Professor Solo-Fel managed not to mention it to him for a whole five minutes. Hey, did he turn back with clothes on? Because if he did, I need to speak to the island's manager, what the BLEEP! MCA #0 also had a wakeup, complaining about how Officer McGarrett had eaten all the food over the weekend. Hey, at least you both were still people, okay? Professor Fel gets me. I woke up naked at Selkie Cove, but Raiden rescued me by bringing me clothes and making me an amazing breakfast.

*coughing* ANYWAY, MOVING ON TO PEOPLE ACTUALLY DOING NORMAL MONDAY THINGS! The Infinite Consortium had its usual lunchtime visit from Professor Scientia, who challenged Professor Vess to a guessing game. Why are there smirky emojis all over this note? Professor Argentum was at the Photo Hut sniffing himself and I'm not even reading the rest of this note, we're just gonna go to the next one, thanks. 'Turtle and Canary National Earl Day'? What the BLEEP does that mean? Earls like the name? The rank? The--I'm thinking far too hard about this, next note. Something sane, I hope.

Well, it looks like Ms. Nell spent the morning chasing down expensive flowers at Covent Garden Flowers. I hate that my first guess is that her flowers were suddenly ambulatory today. Because that's something that absolutely could happen here. I'm not sure that it didn't. The Magpie Emporium got the paints and flags out for Pride, with Steph coming by to give the store robot a flag to carry. After his breakfast was delivered, Officer McGarrett went in to work at the Trooper Station, even though the squirrels are firmly convinced he should have stayed home. Sorry, Officer McGarrett, but when even the squirrels think you're being dumb about something, that's probably an important sign. After being a total hero, Raiden opened Pizza Planet while arguing with Castor about the provenance of art. Uh-oh. Professor James Stark asked about everybody's weekend at the Clinic--why would you do that? Fortunately, Mr. Northman was doing the exact opposite of that at the Devil's Nest, trying not to hear anything about Tiny's weekend. Hopefully Ms Blake's text was a good distraction, she was letting Mr. Northman know that she was...trapped in LA? Okay then.

Anyway, that's it for today's notes. This is ya girl, Arden Finch, signing off and leaving you with another song for Pride, Honey by Halsey.