Fandom High School

Fandom Library, Wednesday, April 22nd

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:59:40 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Why was Arden here today instead of, you know, at home?

Honestly, she couldn't give a good reason. Sheer pig-headed stubbornness, maybe? And there was no guarantee she was staying the entire shift, either. Goddess, considering she'd checked the clock six times in five minutes, it was possible she wasn't staying the entire hour. But nobody could say she hadn't at least made the attempt!

"...We should get hazard pay for days like this," she muttered.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, April 1st

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:46:41 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Arden glared at the gremlins who were having a hilarious time. Today she'd come in to find: googly eyes stuck everywhere; all the office equipment vacuum-sealed, especially anything with an edge; not only were books moved around but they were also put back backwards, their pages showing instead of their spines; Vaseline had been smeared on various door handles, and all the clocks had been changed to random times.

"I hate this day and I hate you," she muttered, trying to force open the vacuum-sealed scissors so she could get the pens free.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, March 18th

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 05:15:55 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Oh it was definitely springtime. Books about flowers and gardens were all over the library today, angled to show off their illustrations to best advantage. There were several papercraft books out, too, creating lovely origami flowers to decorate the library with.

Sometimes they were a little overzealous and other books needed to be rescued from being folded into a bouquet of paper roses, but Arden managed to grab a bunch of paper from the printer instead.

Uh. Hope nobody was planning on printing anything today.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, March 4th

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 07:37:18 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Listen, Arden was super-ready for spring. And if she had to manifest it by sacrifice and the sweat of her brow and all that stuff, then that's just what she was going to have to do, dammit.

Which was why anyone coming in today would see Arden deep in a spring cleaning frenzy. Windows were being washed. Shelves were being dusted. Floors swept.

She was going to be very smug about this come the weekend.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 18th

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:21:55 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Immediately after radio yesterday, Arden had vanished to her room and hid, refusing to talk to anyone (and, yes, spending plenty of time singing to herself). Today, she had ventured out to the library, replete with snacks and drinks just in case it seemed like it was starting up again and she needed to quickly cram her mouth full.

Overkill? Possibly. Worth it?

Definitely.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, February 4th

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:21:22 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Arden couldn't skip two weeks of work, even though she felt 'bitten by a gremlin' was a really good excuse for missing one, and so she was back behind the circulation desk today. With a book. And determinedly ignoring everything the gremlins did, so long as they were doing it more than five feet away from her. See if the little jerks got any attention from her for awhile.

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Library, Thursday 1/29

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 19:25:05 GMT

Posted by: noonedecidesmyfate

It was cold and Belle was rather over it. Bundled up warmly and with a very hot tea in hand she entered the library to find...

A kiddie pool. A palm tree. A small sandbox. And the heat was cranked up. Presumably fit the gremlins lounging in the sand.

"Well, that's better," she said. And then she noticed all the books set out that took place in typical climates.

"Much better!"

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, January 21st

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:24:34 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

The castle from last week was still in the library, but now it was somehow suspended, upside down, from the ceiling. Arden was ignoring it. She had also been ignoring the gremlins dueling one another with foam swords, but that had led to a little bit of a mishap.

Which was why Arden was busily affixing fake flowers to the gremlins, a bite mark visible on her hand, murmuring, "If the rose is knocked off your chest, you lose the duel."

Sometimes these things just happened, okay? Don't worry about that, just focus on the baller song playing pretty much on repeat all day.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, January 14th

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:31:38 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

The library wasn't as weirdly quiet as it had been last week, for which Arden was grateful for. She didn't know if whatever it had been had run its course, or been thwarted, or something else had happened, but it hadn't happened on her shift, and for that, she was grateful.

As for this week, the castle made of books she passed on her way to the circulation desk? Didn't even rate a mention on the weirdness scale.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, January 7th

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:41:02 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

It had taken Arden a few minutes to figure out what was off about the library when she'd walked in. Nothing seemed awry at first glance: the gremlins were there, but being an acceptable level of rowdy, the books were all in their shelves, save those she had to shelve, and there weren't any weird tableaux, weather patterns, or voices anywhere that she could spot.

So now Arden was twitchy for no good reason that she could spot. But she was definitely twitchy. Was this what going crazy felt like?

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, December 17th

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 06:49:57 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

How were they literally a week out from Christmas? Arden was not prepared. Arden was the opposite of prepared. And Arden wasn't about to get any more prepared during her shift today. Yes, the candles that had shown up today were very pretty and she loved how not flammable they seemed to be, but she didn't love how hard the gremlins were working to test that inflammability.

So yeah, her day was spent running around and keeping gremlins from trying to light the library, the books, the furniture, and themselves on fire.

"None of these things are the lights of Hanukkah, you jerks!" she seethed.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, December 10th

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:45:55 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

The worst thing about 'beverages from the pipes' day was not, as Arden was learning, the inability to shower before class. It wasn't even keeping your golden retriever brother from trying to drink mocha, despite chocolate being terrible for dogs! (And, you know, coffee was just terrible in general.) It was, apparently, keeping the gremlins from trying to start the sprinkler systems in the library so they could have something to drink.

"This stuff is literally on tap!" Arden protested. "Why are you trying to wreck the library?!?"

Fortunately, Raiden was happy to try to chase the gremlins off (she was pretty sure he thought it was a new and possibly best game), while Gray napped in the blanket sling she rigged up, but anybody looking for peace and quiet should try...pretty much anywhere else.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, November 26th

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:16:56 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Arden had meant to be very productive and get everything tidied up and put away before leaving for California after her shift, but then she'd gotten distracted by some guy's weird bricks supposedly "inspired by the blockchain." Or rather, she'd gotten distracted by everyone in the comments covering their eyes and saying, "Oh no" to every new detail that came out about how this guy was building his house.

Did she know anything about engineering, or construction, or building history? Nope! But she was learning!

"Oh look! His Reddit post..."

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Library, Thursday 11/13

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 18:58:59 GMT

Posted by: noonedecidesmyfate

"I wasn't planning on reading about ghost sharks," Belle said, looking longingly at the book she'd brought with her.

The gremlin holding out a book toward her showed off its teeth and Belle sighed.

"If you insist," she said. "Were you hoping I'd read it to you?"

The gremlin nodded and plopped down at her feet.

"Very well then."

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, November 12th

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:04:09 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Huh. There were a bunch of music books out around the library. Arden found one for guitars, basses, drums, even keyboards. Books about music, books teaching people how to play the instruments, books about caring and maintaining them. Even books about cutting a demo and sending it around to record labels.

Arden wasn't sure if the gremlins were starting a band, or there was something else in the library that was thinking about it (possibly even the library itself?), but all afternoon she heard strains of music coming from different areas, sometimes just warmup exercises and chords, sometimes whole songs.

Couldn't find the musicians when she went looking for them, of course. But could definitely hear them.

"Hey!" she called at one point. "Seven Nation Army?"

A long moment of silence, and from over near the biographies section, the slow reverberations of a bass guitar. Bum bumbum bum bumbuuuuumbuuummm. Bum bum bumbum bum bumbumbuuummm...

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Library, Thursday 11/6

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 14:28:05 GMT

Posted by: noonedecidesmyfate

There was a pair of Crocs in the library. No feet. Just Crocs. And those Crocs kept moving. Not while Belle was looking at them, of course, but every time she saw them they were in a new position.

Were the shoes haunted?

Was there a dedicated and sneaky gremlin moving them?

Were the shoes simply alive?

Belle did not know. Belle might never know.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, October 29th

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:23:17 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

It was two days from Halloween and rather than try to get the gremlins to focus on books and studying, Arden had remembered that the library also rented movies and other media, too!

So she pulled down the big screen, set up the DVD player, and started playing some Halloween movies from last century. The All Hallow's Eve Tree, naturally, and The Least Good Witch, The Bad Dream Before Yule, and Abracadabra to name some of the classics from the olden days. Hopefully the movies would be able to keep them quiet and entertained and not tearing the library apart looking for candy.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, October 8th

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 06:10:42 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

The gremlins were crawling around, dressed as dogs today. Normally, this would have Arden guessing that it was some kind of weird Halloween thing, or wondering if there was some kind of uber-gremlin with venom so powerful that it affected other gremlins.

But then they started moving in clear choreography and Arden finally (and regretfully) understood what was happening there. She pulled out her phone and checked a few things and--yup. DOGS had debuted on Broadway on-- October 7th. Today was the 8th. So either they had been celebrating for an entire day or someone had gotten the dates wrong and, either way, Arden wasn't going to point it out. They were being quiet and self-entertaining and, honestly, it could be worse.

They could have been celebrating Moonlight Express and acting like a bunch of trains.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, September 24th

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:06:19 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Yeah, Arden had come in and immediately had to break up a fight between gremlins, which was a truly harrowing experience. Aggressive gremlins were bitey gremlins, and Arden was not interested in wandering around thinking she was a Southern belle again. Or whatever weird hallucination her brain and gremlin venom might cook up together.

After a couple of very close calls between her flesh and gremlin teeth, she'd finally discovered the reason behind the fight: they'd been fighting over whose music was going to be played while they were in the library today. Arden was pretty sure the answer was supposed to be be 'nobody's music, it's the LIBRARY' but there was still the fear of biting.

So instead, she'd come up with a different option and that was why the library was hosting its first ever (probably?) Silent Rave. She'd managed to scrounge up enough phones, mp3 players, walkmans, discmans, and even cassette players (okay, people REALLY needed to go through the lost and found more often) and had handed them out to all the assembled gremlins, so everybody could listen to their own music without bothering anybody else.

And hey! She got to listen to music while tidying up the library, so...bonus!

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, September 10th

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 07:30:05 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

With all of the pictures from yesterday's trip, Arden was spending today going through them, deleting any of the ones that weren't great, finding the ones she liked best, and even doing a bit of color touch-up and editing. It was not easy to do on a tiny phone and she found herself wishing for access to programs that would make it easier.

"Except they're all stupid expensive," she muttered, trying to get rid of a glare. And then she paused, considering. "Huh. Maybe I'll have a whole Christmas list after all."

Something to seriously consider oh, in November, maybe. But that wasn't going to get this set of pictures looking as close to professional as she could possibly get them, so less wishing, more working, Arden!

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, September 3rd

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 06:17:11 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

It was still technically summer, so Arden was really confused by the creepy snow monster that had tried to attack her on the way to school today. She'd been alone, so she'd grabbed as many chords of magic as she could and shoved them at the monster - which had poofed into bitty snowflakes.

Which, in retrospect, might have been overkill. Especially since she was immediately hit by the exhaustion that came from using up most of her energy at once. She managed to drag herself the rest of the way to the library, but now was doing her best not to pass out at the counter.

She also wasn't moving from this chair, because if she did, she was pretty sure she'd end up falling over flat.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, August 20th

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 06:07:03 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Twas the last week of classes and all through the room,
The aide was found cleaning, with dustrag and broom.
The books were all shelved with precision and care;
In wait for the new year which soon would be there.
The surfaces were scrubbed, now all sparkly and bright;
The gremlins in timeout for starting a fight.
Whence from the stacks there arose such a clatter,
The aide jumped three feet, yelling, "Yo, what's the matter?"
Suspicious as always, towards the clamor she crept,
Was it perhaps her big brother, falling down as he slept?
Or maybe a bat gotten lost in the sauce,
Or perhaps 'twas a student, or Belle, or her boss!
More noises came, a thump, a SLAM! and a rattle--
Perhaps were some alots locked in battle?
The aide peeped 'round, and saw at 5 feet at most,
None of those things, but a terrible g-g-g-ghost!
She squeaked out a curse, her eyes open wide,
And flew to her desk, away that spectre who'd died!
She turned and she fled, with the ghost right behind;
"Slow down," it moaned, "I'm paying a fine!"
The aide shook her head, and to a halt she did skid,
And turned and looked closely, "Why--you're just a kid!"
"Yes," it wailed, "and I find I can't rest,
"Not until I've paid off, all ten of my debts.
"I loved to read greatly, any book fell to hand,
"The libraries worked constant, to keep up with demand.
"But returning the books? Oh I was quite bad at that,
"And it turns out that heaven is run by stern bureaucrats.
"Who denied me my entrance till I had mended my way,
"Till all books returned and all debts be repaid."
"Goddess this island," the aide said, hand on her chin,
"Bring me your books and I'll check them all in."
The ghost cheered, "Yippee!" and brought her his books,
And waited with breath baited and upon tenterhooks,
To hear the sum total the amount that he owed,
And was shocked to see all the numbers zeroed.
"Wait," cried he, "You mean I owe not a dime?"
"I can move on--you mean it, it's finally time?"
"Sure is," said the aide, "so go with my blessing,
"Well, once you pick up those those books you were messing."
"Too late!" cried the spirit, "Bye now, I'm gone!
"You're on your own now, good luck, bye, so long!"
And the aide watched the soul vanish in bright light and rhymes,
Shook her head then grumbled, "I hate this island sometimes."

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Library, Thursday 8/14

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:39:21 GMT

Posted by: noonedecidesmyfate

The gremlins were making blackout poetry today.

"You can't write in the books!"

One gremlin held up a book and showed off the DISCARD stamp inside the front cover. They weren't wrecking anything new! At least not at the moment.

"You could make copies of the pages too," Belle suggested. "If you wanted other books to use."

She was going to be keeping a close eye on those gremlins. Very close.

And maybe doing some blackout poetry of her own.

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Fandom Library, Wednesday, August 13th

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 04:18:11 GMT

Posted by: afraid_of_marshmallows

Some days Arden was on the ball, shelving books, checking out and returning items, making sure that the gremlins stayed relatively decent...

And then other days, she'd just downloaded a new game onto her phone and it was all she could focus on.

She was bent over her phone, quietly yelling at her phone as she learned a new plot twist. "You can't be serious!"

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Library, Thursday 8/7

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 18:19:57 GMT

Posted by: noonedecidesmyfate

Why did the library smell faintly of peanut butter today? Belle didn't know. Belle wasn't going to spend too much time investigating, either. She did a quick pass through the space looking for any signs of odd gremlin activity or abandoned indoor picnics or any other obvious reason why the smell of peanut butter lingered in the air.

There was no clear cause. That had Belle feeling a bit concerned but not overly so. A smell of peanut butter was a pleasant one at least and there was a package of peanut butter cups waiting for her on the desk. It was well sealed so not the source of the mysterious scent but it was certainly appreciated.

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