I Turn, Um... Uh... Sixteen? For The Tenth? Time???? [open post]

[summerdude]

It's Magnus's birthday and he is a man with a surplus of plans. And many, many plastic recorders.

He's still a little overstimulated from the birthday party Galahad got Claudius to throw for the two of them — he loves all his friends, but that was a lot of people in one space, most of whom were also feeling many, many things about their visitors — and so it's been a quiet few days. Sunny is still a little subdued, so they've been having muted hangouts in the mornings; Galahad, also overstimulated from their birthday party, has fortunately been on Magnus's wavelength about just sailing around aimlessly on the Big Banana with many snacks and very little conversation during their daily hangs for the past few days. He drags himself to sword practice with Lancelot once or twice, has his weekly dinner at Hanguang-jun's, spends a great solo afternoon cleaning out Little John's cave in case anyone else wants to use it at some point, and lets Alex tease him into wrestling and, um, other stuff after dinner basically every night.

But on this, the twenty-sixth anniversary of Magnus's actual birth, most of his energy has returned to him. He's made birthday dinner plans with just his immediate family (and also Alex and Hanguang-jun) at their house for the evening. He's had his liveliest morning of the week. And with his newly regained energy he's found critical supplies for his afternoon: a roll of duct tape, several trash bags, eight recorders, a handful of hollow pens, and a dream. He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the Mansion's lawn, a look of grave concentration on his face, as he makes little holes in a bag, duct tapes two recorders and one pen here and there, and then seals it all up.

And then he takes a deep breath, fits his mouth to the hollow pen, and blows the bag up. When he places it under his arm and squeezes, he's gratified to find that his makeshift bagpipes work perfectly. And he still has supplies for a couple more!



I know everyone is still busy with visitor's day so feel free to take your time on this one... but I would love to ultimately have a ton of Chaos Thread Opportunities.

Comments

[summerdude]

"Oh, ummmm." Magnus glances around himself. "I'm practicing my trashbagpipe skillz," (he pronounces the 'z') "so that me and Sunny can give Hanguang-jun a concert during my birthday dinner tonight. You can't tell him that, though, it's gonna be a surprise."

[aflashbastard]

"Happy birthday. In that case, it definitely needs to be louder. You want to make sure he hears all the nuances in the, er, notes."

[summerdude]

"Okay. So, like, how should I make it louder?"

[aflashbastard]

"Is there any way you can plug it into an amp?"

[summerdude]

Magnus looks down at his trashbagpipe, which is made of trash bags and recorders and has zero electronic capacity or infrastructure whatsoever. "Um," he says. "No?"

[aflashbastard]

"Oh." Crowley frowns. "Well, that's all I've got. ... ... Unless there's some way to play your trashbagpipe into a megaphone."

[summerdude]

"Huh," says Magnus, looking very thoughtful at the suggestion. "Any ideas for how to do that? Like, where would I even find a megaphone?"

[aflashbastard]

Crowley also looks very thoughtful for a long moment before he realizes he's an idiot. "Oh," he says, slowly, dramatically polite, "why don't you let me... ensorcell one for you?"

[summerdude]

"You're going to make one out of sporks???" asks Magnus, fascinated. Unfortunately he did mishear the word Crowley used as 'ensporkle' and questioned nothing. "Yeah, okay."

[aflashbastard]

"What?" Crowley asks, then is promptly distracted by the idea. "I mean -- I could."

[summerdude]

"How would you even play that?" Magnus asks, his fascination mounting.

[aflashbastard]

"The spork-megaphone is just an amplifier for the trashbagpipe," Crowley replies, really trying to cling to the conversation thread. "You don't play it."

[summerdude]

"Oh, right, spork-megaphone," Magnus says, as if this makes a considerable amount of sense. "I was picturing, like, a spork bagpipe. For some reason."

[aflashbastard]

"Yeah. Maybe something like this," Crowley says. With a wave of his hand, he ensorcells up a spork-megaphone: a ton of sporks in a conical shape with their tiny prongs all pointed in one direction, kind of like a plastic little hedgehog. Does it actually work? There's only one way to find out.

[summerdude]

"How should I, like... attach it?"

[aflashbastard]

"You don't attach a spork-megaphone to a trashbagpipe," Crowley¹ tells Magnus. He holds the megaphone up by a single spork handle, sets one end near the trashbagpipe, and directs the other end of it away from himself. It wobbles slightly. "Here."

¹Who is suddenly the number one spork-megaphone expert of the mansion.

[summerdude]

"Okay, let's try it out," says Magnus, and tries to do a rendition of Lose Yourself. This mostly involves attempting, badly, to push out percussive bursts. He quickly switches to Frank Sinatra (in what would assuredly be the original Old Norse, if anyone were singing).

[aflashbastard]

Crowley winces, which is kind of the point. The spork-megaphone definitely, demonically makes it louder -- but it also makes it a bit buzzy, like a kazoo.

[summerdude]

"I bet Hanguang-jun is going to love this," Magnus says, grinning.

[aflashbastard]

"Oh, he's going to be absolutely thrilled. I bet he's never heard a spork-megaphone-amplified trashbagpipe this fantastic before."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, I don't think they invented sporks yet where he comes from." Clearly this is the biggest barrier to Hanguang-jun's knowledge of the instrument.

[aflashbastard]

"And I bet he doesn't know they're so great at conducting sound," confidently.

[summerdude]

"Well, yeah," Magnus laughs. "If he doesn't know about sporks, he definitely won't know that they can apparently carry sound."

[aflashbastard]

"And if he doesn't know that they can carry sound, he definitely won't know the theory of acoustics," Crowley continues, because apparently they're now detailing things that Lan Wangji doesn't know.

[summerdude]

"There's a theory of acoustics?" Magnus asks, brow furrowed. "And are you sure? He's, like, a musician. He uses the theory of acoustics to fight, right?"