#Every Day | Corduroy Keystroke

[oc-beehive]

An intro to SHOPAHOLIX (+ The trio)

SHOPAHOLIX takes place in a pocket dimension somewhere in between this world and the next - a liminal space that stretches onward into forever, trapping mall patrons in an inescapable series of hallways and stores. whether they succumb to natural causes, die by someone else's hand, or fatigue themselves trying to evade one of the abstractly incomprehensible monsters that roam the shops, they eventually fall...

... and find themselves waking up as something entirely different. Still themselves, but with no knowledge of their name, and spotty memory of their past life... And a few extra limbs, here and there. Maybe computer chips, or maybe fiberfill. It really all depends on the store your human self last stepped into. Whatever it may be, you'll be surprised to see that the twisted, hostile labyrinth of the mall has become the roots for a neo-society. Those monsters you were running from? Those were previous humans - you just didn't have the proper eyes to see what they were yet. The decades of humanity imprisoned in this mall have started from scratch, rebuilding a facsimile of the world they remember - one so familiar, yet so different.

Nobody ages. Nobody's ever left this place alive. None of them are even human anymore. But here they are, thriving anyway.

Satin Grimoire is the Mall's most recent arrival - a young adult who really just wanted to get his holiday shopping over and done with. He's understandably upset and confused when he wakes up from a fainting spell with horns and wings, being looked down on by an actual angel. Like it or not, he's gotta learn all the rules and social standards of this wildly isolated eldritch-purgatory culture... As if that wasn't hard enough back home.

Cotton Principality is one of the Mall's longest-standing residents at this point in time. Not that there aren't "older" Employees - just that most of them died on account of civil society not being fully formed yet. Utterly emotionless and intimidatingly level-headed, Cotton is greatly respected for their work in studying and documenting the history of the Mall and its humanoid inhabitants. Some of their storemates claim they weren't always that way...

Corduroy Keystroke is the only surviving Employee from RadioShack. Why? Well... It turns out it's pretty hard to breathe or eat when your head becomes a laptop. They aren't very compatible with human organs. If anything, she's a medical miracle - a testament to how far the Mall has come in innovating on previous human medical knowledge. It's inspired her onto her new career path - studying mechanical anatomy and physiology, so that one day she can save lives the same way hers was!

Their little social pocket is the lens through which the Mall is explored... Which is to say they're mostly conduits for worldbuilding. I've written guides to xeno physiology and cultural holidays for this Infinite Ikea homage. Send help.