One of those intro posts

[seismometrics]

Hi! I'm K, and once upon a time (almost exactly a year ago?!) I played Toph on the turtle under dustonmyfeet. I've been enabled/lured back again due to Avatar-type people babbling on my timeline. Life's a little crazy that way. I always loved the game, though, and I'm excited to be back!

So have one Toph Bei Fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She'll be appearing on the turtle from the exact canon point she left from, which means all her previous memories of the turtle are intact.

. . . Basically this ends up meaning you get a Toph who fell asleep one night about a year ago in the Tushan plotline and will now wake up fast-forwarded to find all her CR vanished, Malicant defeated, and actual castmates from her own time. Please bear with her as she tries to wrap her brain around the paradigm shift. XD;

Looking forward to tackling new CR and all the shenanigans! <3 (Give me all of them, plz!) Also feel free to add me on Plurk at twistofmoirae!

Comments

[seismometrics]

Hi, Pur! Yep, that was after me, I think. But nice to meet you! <3

Hm . . . My first instinct off what you've written is no, she wouldn't be able to sense the magic, but after thinking it through more, I guess I have to ask the question of if the magic is actively causing minute vibrations in the stone. Toph has no senses when it comes to magic, but if it's interacting with the physical world and causing an effect there, it's very possible.

In other words, I'm definitely interested. I probably need to understand the above first, though, to make sure it's possible.

[gistful]

That's fine! That's part of the fun, I think. :3

Some of it is definitely interacting with the physical world; the Hotel can (usually) move physical locations, so it has to be entirely self-contained. For that reason there's a whole bunch of wards which do things like manufacture water from the air, control the temperature (by spreading heat/removing heat, etc), conduct power all around the building for the lights and so on. There are a number of security wards, but they don't interact with the physical world unless they're activated, so it sounds like she won't be able to sense them ordinarily. EDIT: Well, there are some that are always active, but they're ones directed to outside the building, not the inside.

If it makes any difference to that, however, the wards are all created by engraved symbols. When completed they're invisible, but Toph might still be able to feel them by touch--or at least the ones that are interacting with the physical world.

[seismometrics]

I think Toph would be curious about the symbols, because when there were gateways to the Dreaming, there were arches carved with them.

Is the magic causing any vibrations/changes in the building or the foundation? I'm not sure she'd be able to feel power being conducted otherwise.

[gistful]

The sigils are very similar to what's on the Dreaming gateways, yep. Not the same, but they can work in similar ways.

The foundation, not so much, since Anton has disconnected the ley-wards. When he is examining them it would leave vibrations, though--like a live but disconnected wire--but he doesn't have a current reason to do that.

Things like plumbing and energy are stored elsewhere and transmitted as needed, so Toph might feel vibrations when someone turns on a tap or a light (and track where it's been turned on, from the sounds of it). Temperature control is more widespread ... that's probably more of a surface thing rather than an effect internal in the walls, so she wouldn't feel that.

[seismometrics]

Okay, that makes more sense. This definitely would make her curious, especially if she can't determine the source. She got used to water and electricity from previous dealings with Keelai, but they had a definite source and could be traced through the feel of the pipes or the wires.

[gistful]

Haha, we got there eventually; apologies. Sigils would definitely track as more all over the place than usual plumbing. Sounds good!

If you've got any other questions about the Hotel's workings, feel free to toss me a PM or use the Hotel's status page in Anton's journal here.