Entries tagged with norman babcock

Entry tags:

Taste of Thai, Thursday Afternoon

Okay, so... there was a kink in the plans that Norman and Tip had made at the stupid vampire movie party to hang out today, eat some food, maybe plot out some kind of webseries involving interviewing ghosts? But being different shapes really didn't change the fact that they could hang out and eat and chat, so their plans were proceeding regardless. And why not? Norman hadn't even bothered going to his class or to work earlier in the week, Tuesday had been a bit of a wash while he wrapped his head around the face that he kind of looked... a lot like he imagined Aggie would have looked, if she'd lived to this age.

It had been a weird week. Getting out and spending some time with a good friend would do him some good.

"So, we don't really have much Thai food back home," he noted, smiling across the table at Tip. "What do you recommend? The weirder, the better."

Norman could do weird.

[OOC: Expecting the one, but open restaurant is open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Norman was actually in a pretty good mood today as he made his way in for his Magic Box shift. His unexpected visit from Grandma Babcock was exactly what he'd needed to get him in good spirits (ha) and actually feeling pretty good about being on the island, again. There had been smooshcookies and dancing, Grandma had even temporarily adopted his roommate so that she could have a visitor for the weekend, however dead she might be.

He felt... light. Maybe that was the word.

Humming, he fed the dog(s) and settled in to do inventory. Apparently some new stock showed up over the course of the week out of seemingly nowhere, so now he had to figure out what to do with... yew leaves and silver mirrors? That was probably some school of magic he wasn't yet familiar with. He could roll with that. At least the salt and the holy water made some measure of sense.

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

Fall Family Festival!, the park, Saturday

StuCo had been busy since folks had last left the park. What had been a very nice glittery picnic had been transformed into a (glittery) fallstravaganza, full of scarecrows and decorative gourds. Crisp, brightly colored leaves covered the ground, despite the still mostly green ones still clinging to the actual trees. The scent of melted butter and warm spices filled the air. They'd somehow even managed a corn maze, despite the distinct lack of anything resembling a corn field having been in the park before.

There were pumpkins literally everywhere.

The weather was threatening to top 90°F, but StuCo didn't care. It was fall dammit!

[OCD is up! Have at ye!]

Entry tags:

The Graveyard - Wednesday Morning

Caduceus wasn't one for making an entrance. It wasn't his style, honestly. However it's not everyday that a seven foot tall man with grey fur and pink hair just flat out walked out of a wall and into a graveyard. While on fire.

Alas the only thing to witness this fiery appearance was a small squirrel. With a hat. And a notebook.

Caduceus was panting heavily as swatted himself several times, putting out the flames on his body and clothing. "Fjord? Jester? Twiggy? Beau?"

No response.

He took a second to look around. Nope. No one was here. And here was not a room with a dragon. This was not where he was a moment ago. Not at all. Looking down at the squirrel he gave the critter a small smile and waved. "Hello, friend. How are you?"

The squirrel who was more used to being shooed away seemed a little bit surprised and chittered something back which Caduceus didn't understand but did his best to interpret.

"Oh, I'm good thanks," he said taking a moment to channel some healing energies into his arm and then leaned down so he could talk a bit more personally with the squirrel. "Listen, I'm not exactly sure what happened here. Can you tell me where I am?"

The squirrel nodded slowly in understanding. Clearly a newbie to this place. The squirrel then began a long stream of chittering and notebook writing which surprisingly Caduceus could read. The chittering? Not so much.

"Oh. You write? That's different. Fandom... Huh. Okay. This wouldn't happen to be part of a happy fun ball would it?"

The squirrel just stared at him. "Yeah. Okay. I don't know either."

Caduceus pulled himself back up to his full height and once again surveyed the area before returning his attention to the squirrel.

"Thank you my little friend. I appreciate the information."

As the squirrel wandered off, Caduceus sat down near a tombstone and brought out some incense which he lit with his trusty tinderbox. As the smell reached his nostrils he began to clear his head and see if he could reach his patron for one simple question. As he felt the familiar warmth of his diety embrace him he simply asked one question. "Why am I here?"

There was a small chuckle in response. "Well... to help people of course."

That seemed to be enough for Caduceus. "All right then. Well. I better get right to it."

He looked around at the graveyard and shrugged a bit. "I guess there could be some improvements made here," he said to himself as he began to quietly tend to the nearest gravestone.

[OOC: First post for Caduceus. Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

So, Norman had a class on Tuesday mornings first thing, now, which meant that he was maybe a little bit late getting to work. Which meant that the moment the door was open, he was being bowled over by a three-headed dog who had been waiting, darn it for Norman to get there and he'd been ages and ages longer than he usually was, which meant that the first hour of Norman's shift was spent catching up on playtime with all three heads, and while he certainly didn't mind catching up on playtime - dogs were pretty great, even when all three excitable heads shared one bonus excitable butt that had a tendency to knock over displays when that tail got to wagging - it did mean that he essentially lost a whole morning of work, and he had stuff to do.

Studying, mostly. It wasn't like the magic shop was a terribly busy shop, either, with the exception of the cat who still sometimes came in to do shopping for the ghost who liked incense burned in the graveyard, even though Norman still hadn't figured out how he managed to get that incense lit.

And he was too polite to ask, really.

He did manage to get a NOW HIRING sign up in the window, though! It didn't really feel like much of an accomplishment, but it did involve him actually talking to people if anyone wanted a job, so. A+ gold star business management skills right there, right?

Right.

Man, he was really going to have to think about switching his shift from Tuesdays, though.

[OOC: Open! This week is looking extra crunchy at work, so SP is pretty much guaranteed today.]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

So, things really were back to normal, huh? Norman was still kind of tentatively hopeful that this would stick, making his way in to work and--

-- Immediately being bowled over by a three-headed dog, who had grown somewhat over the course of the summer. Norman laughed, trying to shove the pup(s?) off of himself in between a triple-face-lick-attack, and eventually managed to get himself somewhat free enough to reach for a stray tennis ball and throw it into the back room, freeing himself for the time being.

Yup, back to normal.

As normal as it ever got around here, anyway.

The Magic Box was open, beware of dog(s).

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Norman wasn't so sure he wanted to know what he and Lana had missed last week, no. Especially not when he came into work and there was a line-up of people wanting to bring, of all things, Voodoo dolls in for disenchanting and safe disposal? And not even because of what that meant for whoever those things were in effigy of, but because of what it meant for the poor dolls.

Norman had concerns. First off: the dolls? Really?

And secondly, why did so many people here have voodoo dolls?!

Fandom, you were baffling.

[OOC: Idek open.]

Entry tags:

Sunday late afternoon, the Causeway

This week had been relatively normal. Lana didn't trust it. Or to be more precise, she didn't trust Monday.

So, she'd packed up a few things and made a reservation on the mainland, then sent a text out to everybody she knew:

Headed to the mainland so I can see what's going on next week before wading into it. Anybody's welcome to join. Meet me at the causeway.

Then she waited. If it were just her, then so be it.

[Open post! Lana's sitting out this BDE; anybody else who wants to get stuck in fishless Baltimore for a week is welcome to join her!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Man, it was nice to have a normal week again. Norman settled in for a shift at the Magic Box with a smile. Everything - almost everything - seemed to be in order around here, save for some missing pearls and ammonite fossils that he'd been positive he had in stock with the semi-precious stones.

If that was the strangest thing he'd deal with today, he'd happily take it.

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Norman had almost not come in to work again this week. Sure, he could swim just fine, but the ghosts around the island this week seemed a little more, um, bashful than usual, so he couldn't even ask them what the safest route was via... weird green pipes. He'd just turn toward one and they'd blush and cover their eyes, holding still until he pretended to be looking away again.

It... wasn't super useful.

But he'd figured it out, eventually. Sure, he'd been jumped at by a few fish, but... they were fish. He'd been thrown around by a screaming poltergeist who could rearrange reality itself once. He wasn't going to sweat it too much over a few fish.

Anyway, when he finally made it in to work, no thanks to the ghosts, he kind of frowned at the stock.

"I... hope people like mushrooms, I guess."

A beat.

"Wait, is that a flying carpet??"

Clearly Norman was going to have to poke at his stock a little more thoroughly before actually selling anything today.

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Today was... absolutely, completely, utterly normal, so far as Norman was concerned. And that made it kind of abnormal, so far as things had been going, lately. Sure, there had been some mention of something about sex on the radio? But...

...

Well, that really didn't change anything where Norman was standing, anyway. Unless one counted the people coming in asking if he had books about lifting sex-related curses, in which case, hey, today was going pretty crazy. On the upside, he was doing great business, though? He was a little bemused, he was a little bright pink in the ears, but he was doing great business.

Of course the first time people came in looking to lift curses was when it had something to do with sex, instead of the monster transformations or the attacks-from-zombies-that-were-wrong-even-for-zombies. Priorities, people. Priorities.

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Norman's usual contingent of Helpful Fandom Ghosts seemed to be in decent spirits (ha) this morning. They'd cheerfully informed him that nothing was lurking outside looking to kill him outright, though he might want to give any standing bodies of water a wide berth. They had no idea what that glow was all about, but they figured it would be better safe than sorry, right?

Norman was inclined to believe them, especially considering how sick Del had been. When the embodiment of insanity was practically turning inside-out about this place, erring on the side of caution seemed like the way to be.

Whatever this was, he didn't like it. And so he'd come in to work mostly to do some obsessive reading, to see if maybe any of the books could give him some insight as to what was going on out there.

[OOC: Open! And I'm done with the spam now!]

Entry tags:

Luke's Diner, Saturday

Miguel arrived to work to find the staff arguing about which vegan dish they should serve.

Miguel gave them all a look, went into the freezer, and grabbed a package of meat.

The busboy looked at him like he was a monster.

"This meat's been in there longer than this week, guaranteed," Miguel told him firmly. "Whatever it was," he looked at the package, "it wasn't talking when it died."

He assumed. He wasn't going to say that.

"Now cook or get out of the way."

Today's Specials:
Nerf burgers
Nerf tacos
Vegan mac and cheese

Luke's was open!

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

It had actually been kind of a relief when class had been cancelled yesterday, at least to Norman, who was having... a time of it, this week. The ghosts around the island had changed, from whimsical jello dragons into giant, scaly, gargoyle-like monstrosities with bony protrusions coming from their backs and giant curling horns on their heads. The deer were... kinda horrifying two-headed cows, and the scorpions...

...

Actually, the scorpions hadn't changed one bit. And now there were living ones to match.

Norman would absolutely have refused to set foot outside today, no business was worth that kind of danger, if not for the fact that a few of the ghosts (some of whom looked more like zombies, which on its own was messing with his head) had promised to keep an eye out, to guide him down only the safest streets in town. There was, after all, a dog at the Magic Box who needed to be fed. Norman was gonna be the kid to do it.

He didn't bother looking too long or hard at the stock in the shop, though. When he passed by his first shelf of old, rusty tin cans, he was kind of resigned to the fact that there wasn't going to be much in the way of business, today.

That said, he wasn't really in a hurry to leave, either. He was going to hunker down here with the dog(s) for a while, first, because out there was all wrong.

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Rox, Tuesday

Norman squinted dubiously at the sign as he stood outside the magic shop today.

That... couldn't be right, could it?

But there it was. Magic Rox, the bottom of the 'R' jagged and uneven, like something big and toothy had taken a chomp out of the usual 'B.' Norman didn't trust it. He really kind of didn't trust most of what was going on around the island this week, admittedly. Dinosaurs were cool, but maybe the tiniest bit out of his league.

And then he stepped into the shop for his shift today and sighed.

Okay. So everything in stock had been changed to stones. The crystals were largely the same, particularly the ones that had been formed by volcanic activity, but a lot of the rest of what was there, from wands to books, had been replaced with carved, chiseled rocks.

He glanced toward where they kept the tarot, a little dubiously, and was actually kind of relieved to see that most of the fortune-telling cards had been replaced with baskets of carved pebbles, instead of carved tablets or something. At least some of what was in here was still practical. Ish.

Just... rocks.

"Sure."

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Tuesday

Threat or no threat, Norman had a shop to run, and it was a new semester. So... So he was here. Even if the possibility of certain people coming through the door today made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle a little.

Mostly, he was just parked behind the counter anyway, the dog(s) dozing at his feet, occasionally waking up to play for a while before getting right back to snoozing again.

There was a sign in the window: NOW HIRING.

Which was kind of like progress for him, since advertising anything meant he had to actually communicate with other living people.

Maybe it wasn't too late to quit his job and go ask at Caritas about being a full-time zombie maintenance guy slash roadie for the band...

[OOC: Open!]

Entry tags:

The Magic Box, Friday Morning

Norman... couldn't bring himself to go back to his room after his time spent at the trooper station yesterday. He could still here Amaya's enraged snarling, the dull thud of body against bars, echoing in his ears. And sure, things were fixed now, but that didn't mean he hadn't messed up.

Didn't mean he hadn't had a hand in people getting hurt. Badly.

And so he'd avoided the dorms. Went back to the Magic Box and kind of barricaded himself in the back room, where he sat himself down on the floor with the dog(s) and mulled over what to do next.

He wanted to go home. Needed to stay and make amends. Kind of wanted to just fade away like Aggie had done, years ago now. Couldn't really do any of that, could he? So for now, he was just hugging a dog and sitting in the quiet, alone. Mostly alone. There were always the ghosts, but for once, not even they knew what to say.

[OOC: Magic Box door is locked, post is open. ETA: That Nina stopped by is for broadcast, contents of conversation NFB, please.]

Entry tags:

Trooper Station; Thursday Morning [05/02].

Rosa wasn't planning on just hanging out at the trooper station for long that day; there was too much to do, too much going on, too many people still unaccounted for. But there was one she'd managed to find yesterday ~~oh-so-handwavily because blarg, arrggh, brain~~ that she at least needed to check in on before anything else.

"Has she really been like this all night?" she asked, frowning deeply as she glanced over to the trooper on watch that night, then back at Blackstone in the holding cell, snarling, growling, clawing and pulling at the bars in a vain attempt to get through them, occassionally reaching out in the hopes that someone might actually get close enough for her to grab. And the worst of it were those eyes: she'd always had those bright blue eyes, and they could pierce you as sharply with intelligence and cleverness as one of her blades. But now they were still bright, but nothing was there behind them, nothing of the woman she knew and actually liked, nothing but a driving, insatiable, desperate sort of hunger.

Rosa almost couldn't look at her, but she did, stepping just close enough to stay out of reach. "Amaya," she said, "we're going to get this figured out, okay? I know you're probably not even in there, but I wanted to let you know, anyway. We made some progress yesterday, we got an idea of what's going on. It's only a matter of time before we get this cleared up. But I want you to know, if it takes any longer than that....I'll let you eat Calvin."

"Hey!"

She straightened up a little. "Oh, you think I'm joking," she said, turning toward the troopers. "So chop-chop, boys. We got work to do."

[[ Rosa's not there for long, but definitely open if you want to catch her, as well as for all your trooper related neeeeeds! ]]

Entry tags:

The Causeway, Tuesday Noon-ish

The dome had been up for a few hours, more or less. It had stayed there, unbroken, the whole time. Nothing had appeared, nothing had attacked, no one had gotten brainwashed.

Without warning, sometime near noon, it suddenly evaporated.

The group of tall, blue-eyed vampires rifling through the pockets of a prone man laying on the other half of the causeway... blinked owlishly, a few times. Then one screamed, and the others joined in.

They rushed the causeway.

[[ want to get bit and turn into a vampire? Want to kill and/or beat up some moddable vampires? Have at. They're strong and fast but certainly not unkillable. ]]

Entry tags:

Around Fandom, Tuesday Morning

It was, all things considered, a perfectly normal day. A few clouds drifted along the blue sky. The birds were singing. The causeway was quiet...

... for a little while.

Suddenly, shortly after sunup, there was a noise. A woosh, like the wind just blew up and over the island.

A forcefield flickered into being, perfectly dome-shaped, a gentle yellow-orange that let no light in from the outside world. It covered Fandom, and IKEA, and even their evil/adorable spawn, but it cut off the causeway from the mainland, right down the middle.

Nothing else happened.

[[ for two ]]