Gravity don't mean too much to me | Open

[charlastan]

Who: Ford Pines [mviw], Stan Pines [charlastan], Rick Sanchez [wriggedywrecked], Elizabeth Comstock [uncaging], AND YOU
Where: Secret Basement Lab (Closed) and everywhere else (Open!)
When: 6/22, midnight.
Rating: PG? PG-13?
Summary: Two scientists, a con man, and a girl who can rip tears in reality walk into a bar. By which I mean they walk into a basement lab, build a portal, and fire it up for its first test...and kind of mess up gravity for a couple minutes.
The Story:

Deep beneath the mansion, in one of the basement rooms, there's a lab. That in itself isn't unusual – there are a few of them, which is useful for hiding in plain sight.

What's more unusual is the blinding blue light that bursts from it at approximately midnight, unseen to any who doesn't happen to be in the basement at the time. Their grand machine, cobbled together from whatever Wonderland would give them and protected with an odd blend of unicorn voodoo, whirs violently as though it might fall apart at any moment. And then--!

Then, everything in the general vicinity that isn't nailed down begins to float. Gravity reverses, and the effects spread far from the portal, up and up and up until much of the mansion has felt a brief weightlessness. Hopefully, it is something many just sleep through - but those who don't will find themselves and their belongings lifting off the ground for a moment or so.

After less than five minutes, the portal goes dark once more and everything that was floating abruptly crashes to the ground.

Test one, complete.

Comments

BASEMENT LAB - CLOSED TO FORD, STAN, RICK, AND ELIZABETH

[charlastan]

[They've been working on this stupid portal for weeks, shoving aside every warning Ford ever gave at home to hopefully build something that could ship everyone out of Wonderland with...hopefully minimal damage. Those working on the project care about that in exceedingly varied amounts ranging from "a lot" to "not even a little".

The thing has been ready to go for a bit now, looming in the dark waiting for them to turn it on, but they've had to wait. It had to be protected from Bill Cipher, with magic that Stan has been refusing to call anything but "unicorn voodoo" (and the title is starting to stick). Then there was the fact that certain meddling kids found out about the portal, among other drama-related complications.

But now was the time - as soon as the Dormouse made his announcement, plans went into motion. The idea was to use the looming event to hide their test run from the mansion at large - with any luck, everyone would assume it was due to the upcoming event. Gravity falling is a pretty neat trick after all. If they don't go for it now, they might not get another chance for weeks.

It's showtime.]

[wriggedywrecked]

[Rick stares up at their creation and takes a very, very large swig from his hip flask.]

I just want to restate for the thousandth time that this is a dumb fucking idea. U-Unicorn voodoo notwithstanding. I still haven't, uh, haven't managed to undo all the Bill tech yet.

[mviw]

[Ford is also tipping his flask back.]

It was a stupid idea from the beginning. We either do this now or we wait for the kids to spread the word to the rest of the mansion before the next event.

[charlastan]

Yeah, we don't exactly have a ton of time. If we wait any longer, the kids'll blow our cover to all of Wonderland before we can even test the stupid thing out.

[He's looking up at the portal too - it's always been hard not to look at it in awe. He also casually holds out a hand to Ford, making a vague "gimme" gesture - you're gonna let him have a swig, right?]

Besides, the unicorn voodoo oughta make the whole Bill thing less of a problem anyway! ...Hopefully.

[Whatever, too late now.]

EVERYWHERE ELSE - OPEN FOR MINGLING

[charlastan]

[This is just a catch-all for anyone who wants to have their character reacting to gravity going nuts but doesn't want to make a post for it! The gravity anomalies will be strongest on the lower floors (since they are closer to the portal) but could potentially be felt anywhere. It will also vary a little from place to place, stronger in some spots than others. Characters who can sense magic or power may feel something very strong coming from the basement, but the signal will disappear as soon as the gravity anomalies are over.

The whole thing should last about five minutes or so, if that. It's also entirely possible to sleep right through it.]

Alphys | 2nd Floor Hallway, OTA

[sciencelizard]

[Despite it being the middle of the night, Alphys has... never been one to keep a consistent work or sleep schedule. She much prefers to do her tinkering in the middle of the night. In the meantime, she had slipped out and down to the kitchen to grab an armful of potato chips and soda to continue her most-of-the-night building session when next thing she knows, her feet aren't on the ground and she's pretty solidly ass-over-teacups in the air.

She's also, you know, screaming, even after she drops to the floor amid all her snacks. So she'll probably wake somebody up.]

good lord

[punful]

[Yeah he definitely heard that, and that definitely sounds like Alphys. Trust her to be awake at weird hours of the night. Scientists literally never have normal sleeping habits.]

[He heads off down the hall, scrubbing sleep out of his eyesockets. The dull ache in his left eyesocket is already fading, thankfully. He knocks on Alphys's door when he arrives.]

al? guessin' you felt that too.

help this lazard

[sciencelizard]

[She skittered back to her room at top speed once everything was over, leaving potato chip crumbs in her wake. When she answers the door, she's got a blanket over her head, glasses askew, and is still holding a half-empty bag. Sans can probably see at least two empties behind her on the floor. She's absolutely stress-eating.]

A-Are you okay? Did anything serious, uhm, h-happen to you?

[A pause.] ... Did I w-wake you up. I'm sorry.

[mettatonvevo]

[After being so rudely awakened by whatever magical/scientific shenanigans is going on, Mettaton is a mad robot looking for someone to blame. So when he hears Alphys screaming, he immediately thinks 'She did it. She must have messed something up and started panicking.'

So he marches out of his room, straightens his slip, and confronts her as she... screams on the floor surrounded by snacks???]

ALPHYS!! Did you do this, this, gravity reversal, thing????

[sciencelizard]

[She shrieks again as soon as someone starts yelling her name and actually attempts to hide under a bag of potato chips before she notices it's Mettaton. Okay, she can deal with this, it's not her fault this time, don't scream. Don't just scream at him.]

N-NO IT WASN'T ME I DON'T KNOW WHO IT W-WAS IM SORRY IM SORRY IM SORRY!!!!!

[failed step one.]

Sans | semi-open

[punful]

Sans is the kind of guy who could sleep through the end of the world, and probably has. But he's also the kind of guy who can snap from completely unconscious to completely awake on a freaking dime. Sleeping is kind of an adventure when you have to constantly be ready to dodge.

He's dead asleep and dreaming vague dreams about hanging out in Grillby's. Then gravity decides to stop being a thing and Sans is instantly awake.

He's also floating. Not just floating, rising. Right toward the ceiling. It's not just him, either--everything in his room is floating. He kind of mentally scrambles for a bit and wheels his arms, trying to figure out what the actual fuck is going on. There's none of the heaviness that comes with having your soul turned blue, and there's no sensation of magic...

Wait, there is magic. It's...distant. But powerful. Like the hum of the Core. Coming from below...?

He teleports from the air back to the floor, but as soon as his feet touch carpet he's rising again.

"well, shit." He watches the floor fall away from him, trying very hard not to panic. "and i always heard that gravity increased when you're in bed."

Jokes even when no one's around to hear them.

Sans bumps his head against the ceiling. He sort of tries to brace himself on one of the light fixtures. A fall from this height won't kill him, but it won't be pleasant either. It's the total lack of control over himself and his movements that's actually...frightening. Control over yourself and your immediate surroundings and your position in the world is very important when you have 1 HP to look after.

Abruptly, the distant feeling of magic fades and gravity snaps back into place. Sans teleports, lands on the floor at the same moment that all of his belongings come crashing down. The noise makes him sort of loses his balance and falls over. He ends up lying on the floor for a minute, staring at the ceiling.

Okay. That was definitely a magical gravity anomaly that just happened. But...more than that. There was something else. There's a dull ache behind his left eyesocket, almost as if he'd been using the eye. He frowns and reaches up to his face, poking the edge of his eyesocket. The eye is inactive. No glow. He hasn't used it in...what, months?

Okay then.

He gets to his feet, flicks his light on and goes to step out into the hallway. He blinks against the sudden light and peers around, looking exactly like a skeleton who was just very rudely awakened. He's wearing an oversized shirt that says I Find Math Puns Derivative and boxer shorts with tiny skulls on them. Humor never sleeps.

Someone else must have felt that, right?

[ooc: open to anyone on the second floor]

[fulllifeconsequences]

There's a muffled, sharp "thud." Not the sound of a floating body landing, because gravity's already turned itself back on. It's more, if I had to be specific, of a "preteen walking into a closed door at full tilt" kind of thud.

They were floating. Weightless. Couldn't reach anything, couldn't tell if they were solid or not. No wind howling around them, whipping at their hair and their outstretched hands as they rush headfirst into the abyss, but...

Maybe it was just a lack-of-sleep thing? Maybe they were a little out of their head. Imagining things that aren't really happening. Maybe nothing actually happened, and they're just crazy. That's Chara, right? Unstable, loopy, abnormal. But a worrying, terrified something clenches in the hollow of their chest, plants itself in their head:

What if they're the one who isn't real? What if they've become nonexistent again? A name nobody calls, a voice nobody hears, a presence that nobody will ever see. They hit the floor, they land again, but it doesn't feel like enough. They don't feel grounded. They don't know if it's real. So they lurch towards outside, but the door stops them. Solid. Real.

Ow.

Chara opens the door and staggers out into the hall, one hand clutching their face. Nosebleed? No, not bleeding. Just a bump. Kind of stupid, Chara. Why are you like this, Chara?

Not alone out here. Sans. They look up with wide eyes, have to be sure, have to make certain. "Can you see me?" They blurt, before they have time to really consider what a dumb question that is.

[punful]

They almost crash into each other, though fortunately both of them are alert enough even on a bad day that it doesn't happen. Sans starts to ask if Chara's okay at the same time that Chara speaks.

"--wait, what? can i see you? sure i can."

Jeez. Maybe they hit their head during the drop? They're clutching at their face after all. Maybe a concussion or something? Can those make you hallucinate? Skeletons can't get concussions so Sans isn't too sure.

"are you okay? didn't fall too far, did you? i think the whole floor was affected.

Mettaton | Open

[mettatonvevo]

[Mettaton hadn't been sleeping, per se. He was merely in Sleep Mode, his body charging and his mind drifting in what was the closest approximation to sleep you could have for a robot of his caliber. All in all, a normal night for him.

Until his proximity sensors alert him to the sudden removal of his charging cord and the rapid approach of the ceiling. Which he hits with a startled yell as he is wrenched into full consciousness.

He scrambles against the ceiling until the five minutes are up and then falls to the ground with a resounding crash followed by some colorful cursing. When he is standing up again, his beautifully decorated room in shambles, he is not. Happy.

So out of his room he marches, his hair a mess and his pink polka-dot slip falling off his shoulder, ready to start a fight with whoever he can find and blame for this mess.]

((ooc: this is open to anyone and anywhere in the mansion because Mettaton is going to walk around until either he happens upon someone, or finally turns around and stews angrily in his room.))

Frisk | second floor and also garden

[determinedest]

They're floating! They're really, actually floating!

For a few minutes, maybe.

Sleep has been fraught with fitful nights, the usual assortment of half-remembered scraps of dreams and nightmares, and in any case, Frisk wasn't tired. It's a good thing they weren't, too, because otherwise they would've missed this!

They grope for their phone, only to strike it at an odd angle and send it spinning through the air - right for the open window.

"No!" squeaks Frisk, swimming ineffectually through the air in a fruitless attempt to grab it, "no no no no - "

They manage to get the heel of their foot up against their bedside table and use the momentum to launch themselves triumphantly at their phone. They grasp it for a brief second, fingers flying haphazardly across the keys.

And then gravity switches back on again.

The phone plummets.

And so does Frisk.

They're lucky they live on the second floor, which isn't too high up, and also that there's a rather large bush beneath their window. Frisk yelps as they go streaking toward the earth in a free fall, visions of golden flowers flashing briefly through their head.

With any luck, the bush will break their fall, unless someone else gets there first.

JESUS CHRIST

[punful]

He got a weird text from Frisk and they didn't answer, so Sans heads toward their room. Or floats there at least, sort of climbing his way from door handle to door handle. This is all so stupid, and that ache in his eyesocket is starting to become annoying.

He can hear Frisk's voice from within and then it...grows distant? It's also rising. Did Frisk just...

Gravity switches back on and Sans hears Frisk yell.

It's a very good thing that Sans is so good at guessing.

He teleports and lands outside before he can even hit the floor of the hallway and, lo and behold, there's Frisk plummeting to Earth from about twenty feet in the air and holy fuck this is happening why is Frisk in midair.

"shit."

He can't exactly catch them since even teleporting won't get him there in time, and in any case, there's no time to think. Gravity's a bitch; moreso these days.

He doesn't have time to warn them, either, before he turns Frisk's soul blue, and damn catching a falling soul is a bit harder than just throwing a small child around a room, so Frisk stops about two feet from the bush.

He heaves a very audible sigh of relief holy shit made it in time, he never makes it in time, never, then he refocuses and floats Frisk very gently to the grass. Then lets go. He leans over and braces his hands on his knees.

"kid, don't scare me like that."

SORRY SANS

[determinedest]

There's the abrupt ping of their SOUL turning blue, and then they're floating again. It's the oddest sensation, not quite as much like hovering as it is like simply being unable to fall for the rest of the way. For a moment Frisk's stomach twists in mild terror, realizing that they're completely and wholly at the mercy of someone who's used this very same power to skewer them on lines of bones time and time again, and their heart's already racing from the near miss this was.

But then the pressure on their SOUL eases, and they slide to the ground, feet touching grass. Frisk's eyes are still wide, their heart still pounding, but their phone is lying a few feet away and they're alive and Sans is here, and that's the important thing.

"I didn't mean to," they sputter, and stumble forward on legs like jelly. "Are you - are you okay?"

Dipper and Mabel | closedish

[krmvgivv]

[Even with his room warded, Dipper has been spending a lot of time not sleeping, so he's awake at midnight, drawing up plans for how to find and dismantle the portal.

When all of a sudden, he finds himself suddenly lifted into the air.

Well. He didn't move fast enough apparently.]

Mabel! [He flails, reaching for the wall.]

We have to find the portal now!

[powerofmabel]

[Mabel is fast asleep when she drifts out of her bed and Dipper's yelling only makes her yawn and roll over in midair.] It's in th' middleofthenight. [she reaches over to grab her blankets and finds herself fumbling at thin air, which bolts her wide awake.] What the pistachios?

[krmvgivv]

Gravitational anomalies, remember? [Dipper frowns, then uses his bed to propel him to the wall. He kicks off it, pushing himself towards Mabel, reaching out his hands to grab her.] They turned it on. I can't believe it.

Carolina | fourth floor hallway | ota

[coverme]

[ Not one to sleep easily or early, Carolina isn't in her room. She's only just heading there now, after taking a quick nighttime jog out on the grounds, and manages to reach her floor before things are...off. Gravity, in this case. The feeling of weightlessness isn't one she's unfamiliar with, being a space marine and all, but when it's happening inside a mansion that's presumably on a planet somewhere that obviously has gravity, it's a little concerning.

Before she can make any effort to try to keep her feet on the ground, she's floating upward in the middle of the hallway. There's no flailing from her, but she is looking around in confusion and a fair amount of alarm. Damn. If only she was in her armour, she could be using her grav boots right about now to march down the hall. She doesn't care about the mess her room is going to be in when she gets back to it--it's already been messed up once this week and most of it had been turned into dark matter. It's since been replaced with things she pulled out of the closet, but some mess caused by a lack of gravity is easier to clean up than dark matter.

After the experience earlier in the week, however, this turn of events doesn't thrill her. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with whatever the dormouse had been babbling on about so she's not sure she believes it's event-related. Not yet. And she's certainly not heard of the gravity just disappearing once in a while in Wonderland.

With an air of someone who has obviously dealt with this kind of thing before, Carolina gets herself closer to the nearest wall and grabs on, shifting herself so she can get her feet against it before she pushes off, propelling herself down the hallway. She has no idea how she might find the source, if there is one, but she's annoyed and ready to give someone some shit if they're involved somehow. Thus, she continues down the corridor, occasionally launching off a wall again to regain some speed, passing by her room in favour of the staircase. ]

meanwhile in another part of the basement, ota

[interspatial]

[ out on the beach, a row of spikes LIGHT THE FUCK UP and send a metric shit tonne of data back to a different basement lab where jane is fervently trying to push back toward her equipment which is difficult because she's floating in THE AIR PLEASE STOP POKING THE BEAR PEOPLE THIS IS HOW YOU GET MORE DARK MATTER EVENTS.

so you know. much yelling. angry scientist down the hall??? ]

Library + Surrounding Halls

[nascensibility]

[Evelyn doesn't sleep well, which would only be an inconvenience were she not physically incapable of requiring it. (Life as a dead person is strange.) For this reason she decided to spend the late evening and early hours of the following morning in the library, reworking the code she had fabricated with the assistance of Cecil Palmer that it might better withstand attempts to decrypt it.

On her third construction of a long sentence that currently resembles a handful of arbitrary letters she notices a curious thing: the book before her has begun to hover. Its journey upward is followed by the spontaneous lift of everything around her, including herself, and Evelyn abandons the pen in her hand to cling to her chair. Looking up she is treated to a vision one might only see in dreams: every text on every shelf is floating in mid-air, a strange and entrancing sight in the half-light of her work area.

It doesn't last long.

Shortly thereafter everything drops with a tremendous, resounding chorus of THUDS, each book's flight cut as they plummet to the ground.]

Oh. My God.

[Immediately following the unanticipated excursion - only a metre upward, but certainly enough to be jarring - Evelyn is faced with the daunting prospect of reshelving every single book, sudden frustration winning out over shock. Clad in an evening robe and out for blood Evelyn storms away from the stacks to find the culprit.]

A little while later

[charlastan]

[Stan waits until the response to his post dies down a bit, as people start heading back to bed. It's almost one in the morning by the time he's meandering back to his room. Ford's elected to stay downstairs in the portal room, so Stan heads back alone. He keeps his face stony, but inside he's squirming.

"YOU TURNED IT ON?"

No. No, he's not going to let a thirteen-year-old get under his skin. He did what he needed to do, and the test went pretty well, all things considered. Sure, the gravity anomalies spread pretty far but...eh. That probably just means it's working, right? He'll leave the science to the resident nerds.

Still, he needs a couple minutes to just clear his head, so maybe he can still get some sleep tonight. He changed back into his suit after his broadcast, because it would be weirder to get caught taking his suit out for a walk in the middle of the night than for someone to assume he got dressed. Plus, he's honestly curious about the amount of damage they caused, which is enough reason for him to swing by the library.]

Eesh. Looks like an earthquake hit in here! Or a bomb.

[Which is, of course, totally something that someone who wasn't responsible for this would say. He has no idea if anyone is there or not, to be honest - he's just prone to talking to himself when he thinks he's alone.]

[Not here- probably]

[ghflskhu_ph]

[There. Is. Just. No. Way.]

“AhahaAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHA”

[Bill doesn't have to be connected to Wonderland's Mindscape to register to massive gravity anomaly that just took place. He would know that energy signature anywhere.]

“THEY- THEY ACTUALLY-- HAHAHAHAHAHheh-eheh-AHAHAHAHA”

[Somehow, somewhere in Wonderland a device that breaches worlds has just been activated-- even more likely, it is one of HIS design. Even if some factors have been altered, it's such an obvious familiarity there is no way Bill WOULDN'T recognize it. They did it. Those fools really did it, after all the griping they JUST did in the timeline he came from, it would seem the Pines family REBUILT THE PORTAL. Bill pauses to wipe a tear from his eye.]

“HAHAHahhhhhhh. H O W I N T E R E S T I N G.”

[Did they really believe he wouldn't notice? And if he did notice, was it a trick where he was supposed to? Could it REALLY be ANYTHING else??? Bill straightens his tie, staring down at the latest network post on this development.]

“OKAY STANLEY PINES, YOU'VE GOT MY ATTENTION.'

[Perhaps its time for a visit.]