Encino Man

[acroodawakening]

Who: Guy acroodawakening and open!
What: Shopping!
When: Maybe about two or three days after the Confluence
Where: The Mall in Central City
Content Warnings: N/A

[Even though he started out this little adventure with "pitiful and angry wet cat in the rain" energy when he first got here, Guy is feeling a little better about things. Bart was kind enough to even stay with him when he approached the Alliance. They've told him about the prospect of visiting home, if their technology works right. He hopes desperately that it's not a lie.]

[Home. He might actually be able to go home, even if it's not permanent. And he escaped returning as a completely broken person, too, the only thing he expected he'd be if he ever got to ever leave the other world. He tries not to let himself hope too hard, but he can't help but feel like his heart is going to explode out of his chest.]

[This chance to go home is the only reason he's not running off to live in the wilderness somewhere, away from future people, who he now instinctively distrusts. (Individuals might be fine, but as a whole...they're dangerous). He doesn't plan on testing the limits of the Alliance's generosity too far, though, so he decides to do some of the things they want.]

[So while he blew off the marketing people he's decided to at least stay in one of the big cities and try to do the "hero" thing. At least it sounds like he can do some genuine good? And not in the twisted way people had said he was "helping" in Panem, where his oh-so-noble sacrifice of dying on TV for everyone's entertainment somehow held society together and prevented war in some kind of really twisted way he was supposedly too simple to understand (but it really sounded like they were all just terrible people.)]

[So he's trying to fit in and delighted that he can at least choose how he does it this time. Pick his own clothes, do his hair the way he wants, not wear makeup, the works! Find a room to live in somewhere and put any stuff in it he wants. Total freedom! With a magic money card so he can pay for it all.]

[Which is handy. He still does not understand money.]

a) No Service - [1st come, first serve] [CLOSED NOW]

[There is a slight hurdle in Guy's way: the way he's dressed. The Alliance had offered him some modern clothes to start out with. Out of stubbornness and as a way of setting up a "you don't get to control my appearance" boundary, Guy had rejected them instantly. But that means he's trying to shop in his stupid Capitol caveman outfit, which was designed to play to stereotypes and accentuate his attractiveness, not to offer much discretion.]

[Understandably, security was contacted because that's what happens when you show up to shop in a loin cloth, leg wraps, fuzzy boots, and a fur cloak that barely covers your chest.]

[Another Starfallen that passes by will overhear the commotion.]

I feel like I'm speaking and you're not listening to me. I get that the rule is no shirt, no shoes, no service. I hear you. I get you. You're just trying to do your job and I bet it's a hard job, completely thankless in every way. [Best to try buttering them up a little.] But to have a shirt to get service I'd have to buy one. Which I need service to do.

Do you see where I'm between a rock and a larger, faster rolling rock here?

[It hasn't occurred to Guy to point out he's a Starfallen. The security guards just think he's some weirdo. And the fact he isn't going unga bunga bunga and sounds like a perfectly modern person means they don't realize he's from somewhere where dressing like that would be normal. (Or at least from a place where the people dressing him thought it was authentic to home.)]

[One of the guards is pinching his nose and even muttering under his breath, "For chrissakes, this isn't Times Square."]

b) Rummage Sale - OTA

[Guy has basically stopped caring at all about modern social conventions after the last world. If people don't like how he acts, sucks to be them. He's also used to a future society where even a shop keeper has infinitely more privilege than he does, provided they're a normal citizen.]

[A citizen, where he wasn't. With rights he hadn't had. Who benefited and enjoyed watching the suffering of himself, and friends, and other victims like him.]

[His feelings of generosity for them had wound up nonexistent before long. Buried deep under ground. Dried on the vine.]

[It's not that thinks this world is identical but he's been through enough it's partly broken his ability to care about more minor forms of social discomfort, especially if he's not causing any real harm. And he's stubbornly refusing to let himself be molded towards another society's rules. Nope, he's acting the way he might if his family were there. If they were there, they'd just be running around making a mess in their excitement at nosing around.]

[So he's basically dumped out a whole heap of clothes he's collected on the floor of a department store, in a relatively open space, and is rummaging through them, looking at patterns and feeling different types of cloth to see if he likes it. Sometimes pressing the outfits together to see how they look in combination and walking off to bring back accessories and jewelry to add. He isn't breaking anything and leaving the tags on, but it'll be a mess if he doesn't put some of it back.]

[He's used to taking time to craft his clothes. Putting work into adornments. An outfit is something you build, not buy. He's treating shopping for clothes the same way.]

[He doesn't really care that the shop-keepers are looking stressed over it, though. He's also pointedly ignoring the people around him that are gawking as they edge by.]

[Having taken off his leg wraps, boots, and fur cloak, occasionally he tries on a shirt and then pulls it off, or tries on a pair of pants over the loin cloth he's wearing before taking them off again. He's gathered that the symbols mean something as to the size of the clothes but as he can't read, he doesn't know they're progressive numbers noting progressive sizes so he's having to just eyeball it.]

["Sir, we do - we do have dressing rooms you can try those on in?"]

Nah, I'm good.

[The retail worker, clearly thinking it'll be too hard to explain things to what is possibly an actual caveman, gives up.]

[After several mix ups with the guards, he already flashed his Alliance card and said he didn't come into this world with any other clothes so they've treated his clothes like they're not scandalous. And technically there's no rule about trying on clothes over what you're wearing outside a dressing room but they clearly are not getting paid enough for this bullshit.]

[After the one that speaks to him walks away, clearly fretting and stressed over whether he's going to leave things such a mess, he lets out a little "pfft" in amusement and chuckles in a way that makes it clear he's not doing this entirely out of ignorance. No, he's taking advantage of people expecting ignorance because of how he's dressed. He knows he's being a bit of a pain in the ass.]

[This level of disrespect isn't because he's an unkind person, though. He's just used to a place where the people even staffing a store hold a certain amount of extreme privilege and power over him. Were he to understand how little they're paid and how hard their work can be, he'd be a lot more sympathetic, would do this in a far less messy way, and would let them know he plans to clean up after himself.

c) False Advertising - OTA

[Guy stands with his arms full of clothes looking around the store he's in quizzically. He looks kind of annoyed, even. He'd heard someone mention this store, had tapped them on the elbow to ask where it was, and come looking. Even the logo had been promising from a distance, but now that he's here he's pretty disappointed.]

[He thought he'd be able to buy like a whole bushel of what they were selling to enjoy in his hotel room.]

[He stops an employee to talk to them.]

Okay, the name of this shop? Extremely dishonest.

[He's shaking his head in disapproval at how much it lied about what the store is.]

[He notices someone is near him, just outside the entrance of the store, and speaks to them as an aside.]

Can you believe this place? Not a single apple in sight.

d) Holding Court - OTA

[Food courts are great for the variety, but usually people don't buy a little bit of food at almost every stall, assemble it over three whole tables, and start picking at things to try them. But Guy has infinite money here and even more bountiful curiosity. The food in this world seems far more diverse than in the one he left.]

[There's also novelty in being able to just assemble as much food as he wants when he wants it, with no actual work. Even on the Betterman-Crood farm, where food is plentiful, they have to worry about tending and harvesting everything. There's work that has to be done before the ample bounty.]

[And before they reached the farm, finding things to eat was doable - especially after he introduced his mate's family to the concept of traps - but still took considerable work.]

[Panem wasn't much better. There he was provided set meals he had no choice in. There was more variety at parties but they were parties he didn't want to be at, and a lot of the food was so rich it often made him sick.]

[He asked, though, and all of this seems fairly dairy free.]

[Still, he doesn't want it to go to waste. So yes, he will flag down a random stranger. After all, back home, food takes so much work someone would instantly accept an offer of sharing it, and that's if they didn't try to just take it.]

Hey, psst. Yeah, you. [He waves the passer-by over.] You should try some of this. There's no way I can eat it all.

Can you believe you can get so many types of food in one place?

Comments

No Service

[anthropophagite]

[ kaneki is just minding his business. It's what he does best: don't look at strangers, blend in, look as normal as possible. Don't meddle into arguments, don't participate in anything like that, just be invisible. This way he hopefully won't get into trouble in this whole new world.

Watching some... caveman? arguing that he wants service while practically naked is not something he thought he'd see but also... there are velociraptors in some city. So that should be normal...ish? Maybe.

Look, kaneki is just so lost.

Somehow Kaneki ends up staring for a bit too long to the point he feels bad for this weirdo. So eventually he does say something: ]

Uhm-- maybe I can buy the things he needs? [ he is trying to be nice to the weirdo, yes ]

Re: No Service

[acroodawakening]

[Guy points at the helpful stranger.]

Yes. There you go! What if he buys me a shirt?

["You still don't have pants."]

What I'm wearing isn't much more revealing than some lady clothes. And you only mentioned a shirt and shoes.

[The guard sighs. "I guess if someone else buys you a shirt, it's technically within the rules, and you can stay."]

[anthropophagite]

[ kaneki wanted to pretend he wasn't there but now everyone is also staring at him. Butting in was a mistake, Kaneki regrets it already.

when pants are mentioned, Kaneki opens his mouth to say something, but apparently, Guy is very good at talking his way out of it. ]

Y-yes, I will buy the shirt. [ Kaneki is Helping! And he will buy the said shirt, which will be absolutely amazing. The shoes at least look normal enough.

You are very welcome, Guy. ]

Uhm- why weren't you wearing clothes? [ he wants to ask "why were you wearing that" but that sounds a lot ruder, kaneki thinks ]

[acroodawakening]

I'm from a world a lot like Earth's past. I found this out when I was kidnapped to a world where everything was in the future. They had stupid ideas about people from my time period and thought that is how we dressed.

They also had a very strict dress code created by very stupid people with a prejudice against pants.

Luckily, this version of a future world seems a little less stupid.

[He briefly stops to check his reflection out in a display window.]

Okay, can I just say that this shirt is amazing? Bright colors, breezy fabric, casual fit? Your taste is impeccable.

Where did you get this? Did they have it in any other colors?

[anthropophagite]

[ it's hard to follow, but that's because half of the things Guy says sound a lot like science fiction. At the same time, it's not the most surprising thing he has heard after he fell from the sky in the middle of protests while lightning struck.

This all might as well happen. ]

I think it depends on where you go. [ the dress code, he means ] Some places still demand you to look very silly.

[ but the true surprise is that Guy actually likes the shirt! Kaneki would never wear it himself, but he can't help but smile ] There are some more down the isle. We can go there. [ and get Guy started on this new style ]

Did you just arrive as well, during the protests?

[acroodawakening]

[His response is a little throaty. Final.]

Trust me, the dress code there was worse.

[What with each of them having every single outfit chosen for them and not having any control over it whatsoever.]

And yes. I fell from the sky during the thing where everyone seemed really angry with something. Communally. In a group. Is that what a protest is? Everyone is angry together?

[He's never come across a protest before. His entire world back home is just his family. No other people. No government. And protests didn't happen in Panem. No one dared. If they had, they would've been dead. Or avoxed.]

[Guy follows along until they get to the shirts and then eagerly starts looking through them.]

[The way he shops is different from other people. Far more tactile. He'd experienced new materials and whatnot before, but with little actual choice. Now he can actually choose for himself, so he rubs his hands on the fabrics and even rubs it against his face. And plays with the buttons to see how easy they are to button and unbutton.]

What were they so angry about? Does anybody even know?

[anthropophagite]

Yeah, that's what a protest is. [ angry people in the middle of the street is a protest indeed. Not all of them get this loud, but Kaneki hasn't been in a protest before either, so he isn't an expert at all.

he has seen them on television, however.

Kaneki patiently waits for Guy to go through the clothes. He is surprised the clothing was accepted so easily, but everyone has different styles. Hawaiian shirts are bright and colourful, and call a lot of attention upon oneself, which is the opposite Kaneki wants. He is far too shy.
But good on Guy for being the opposite!

Being bold is good. (although he perhaps doesn't realize those are bold clothes) ]

... They were angry at us. As the metas, people with superpowers. [ kaneki looks to the side a little ] I think they are scared of us.

Rummage Sale

[arach_kid]

[Okay, Pete could forgive a lack of knowledge of social cues. Uncle Gen had raised him right, though, and he knew not to give service workers grief. So, being the fine upstanding citizen he was, he'd figured it was time to intervene here.]

Hey, buddy? Yeah, I can't say I know where you came from before all this, but these guys don't really deserve you taking your issue out on them. They get enough of that from the people who already lived here.

[acroodawakening]

[Guy isn't quite sure if this is another future person or not. So he just ignores him at first, continuing to rummage through clothes.]

Look, I wouldn't want to deal with future people while they're shopping either. That seems to be like it'd be the place they'd be second most annoying.

[The place they're most annoying being at parties, of course.]

But if they don't like it, they can do something else.

[He assumes they've chosen this because of some kind of perk. Free clothes. Knowing the latest trends. The ability to say they're trendmakers. Something shallow. Something stupid.]

[His concept of a city is that it's the fancy place where all the fancy people live, while the normal people being taken advantage of toil away elsewhere.]

[The idea that some of the people here would be trying to meet their needs, when they're not a super obvious slave class like avoxes, hasn't occurred to him.]

[Maybe because he's a little too burned out to try to care unprompted. Not without cause.]

[arach_kid]

If they could do something else they wouldn't be working here. Fancy place like this, they're probably making more than minimum wage, but not by much. Maybe just enough to get by. And that's a pretty big maybe.

Nobody works in the service industry willingly unless they're crazy.

[acroodawakening]

[That makes Guy look up instantly, his face filled with sudden concern.]

But we're in the city. That's where all the rich ones live.

...right?

[He just had assumed it was the same because of all the shiny buildings and seemingly well-dressed people. Maybe they didn't dress as fancy but this world didn't seem to go as crazy with their clothes.]

It was where I just came from. They were all rich, and all the people that had to work to survive, that they enslaved, were out in the districts. Other than the avoxes, but you could tell they were slaves from how they acted.

They couldn't talk.

[These people seem a little too normal.]

[arach_kid]

Yeah, I can see how that'd skew things for ya. Good news, slavery's illegal. Bad news, paying someone way less than what they're worth ain't.

[Pete paid the people that worked for him back home fairly, but he knew he was an outlier.]

And they have to pretend to like it on top of that.

[acroodawakening]

[Guy's expression changed to one of extreme alarm at that, as understanding suddenly sunk in. Maybe they weren't outright slaves but if they could barely afford enough to live they may as well have been.]

[It made them more like the Districters or the avoxes than the Capitolites.]

[Even more worrying, it means anyone he speaks to could be one of the haves or the have-nots. Geography hasn't set them apart.]

[But it's "And they have to pretend to like it" that topples him right over into action.]

[He immediately stands up and trots over to where the employee started folding clothes on a table, looking stressed.]

Hey. Hi.

Sorry I've been making such a mess. I've never shopped for clothes before.

I just wanted to let you know that I plan to clean up everything when I'm finished. Once I decide what to buy, I'll put the rest back where I found it. Folded and on the - the hanger...things. I remember where it all goes.

[He nods at her in a way he hopes is reassuring. The employee nods back, looking less upset to hear it. It's not typical that someone making a mess would come up and reassure a retail worker that they'll clean it up.]

Just so you know you don't have to worry about it.

["You can just put it on the rack outside the fitting room -"]

No, it's my mess. I'll clean it up.

[With one last gentle look that's mirrored back by one of gratitude, he walks back over to the piles of clothes, rearranging them into something a little more neat, that'll be easier to put back when he's finished choosing.]

I can't believe I didn't think of that, that it might be different. I just assumed... [He's clearly agitated at the fact he just assumed it was okay to treat someone badly. He threads a hand through his hair, so tight he's pulling on it a little in frustration.] What's wrong with me?

[arach_kid]

At a guess? Culture shock and coming in from a heck of a bad situation. Anything more than that's between you and your therapist.

[Pete had seen more than his fair share of bad situations, but very few worse than what little he'd heard indicated. He didn't blame the guy for being messed up.]

You're not a bad guy. You wouldn't have gone back and apologized if you were. You've just got a lot to unpack.

Name's Spider-Boy, by the way.

[acroodawakening]

Spider-boy?

[He looks very confused by the name. It's a weird one for someone who doesn't look like a spider.]

I'm Guy. Guy Crood.

[The other man is right on both fronts. Culture shock and yes, a bad situation. Guy then asks a question that speaks volumes, considering the situation he was talking about earlier.]

What's a therapist?

[arach_kid]

Not my real name, it's just the one I used when I'm dressed up like this. I really only use my real one when I need a break from the whole superhero thing.

[And Guyxs whole situation sounds even worse than Pete had though, though not an unexpected worse. He'd had an explanation ready to go just in case.]

A therapist is a kind of healer, but for your mind. They're trained to talk to people to figure out their mental and emotional issues and help fix them. Or, if it's something that can't be fixed, they'll help find healthy ways of coping with it.

[acroodawakening]

[He says brightly.]

Like a brain doctor.

I've met the other kind of doctors. The ones for everywhere else. They were all good people. They just wanted to help.

[Hmm. He may need to look into this therapist thing at some point.]

They tried to explain what superheroes are.

Why do you have two names while doing it?

[arach_kid]

All sorts of reasons. Some people do it so they can be a symbol to inspire others to be better. Some do it create something that criminals fear.

[He liked Dark Claw, really, but the man had an entire subscription's worth of issues.]

There's people that do it to protect their families from retaliation. And a lot of people do it just because it's what's expected at this point.

Me personally? I do it because it attracts attention.

[Which was the reason for all the bright primary colors. They practically screamed "Look at me!".]

If everyone's looking at me, then they're not looking at any innocent bystanders behind me. So to speak.

[He didn't normally explain that part. It would defeat the purpose if everyone knew that was why he was doing it. But it felt like Guy was owed the explanation.]

[acroodawakening]

[Guy looks over at him thoughtfully.]

...Is that going to be a recurring thing with this superhero stuff? People actually caring about innocent people?

Because if so, people actually having morals here, fun! [He says it like a cruise director pulling out all the stops to sound enthusiastic while trying to hype up a lackluster cruise activity.]

[He at least is smiling a little at it.]

Even the other people I was stuck with in the last place, who weren't all rotten monsters like the people who lived there, were usually busy keeping their heads down and surviving. It was a situation where you usually protected your people first. It got a little tribal.

People who tried to protect anyone innocent on a general basis didn't last long. [A pause.] That's not an insult by the way. It's good other places leave room for that to exist and it's bad a place exists where that's impossible.

C

[daybroken]

[ Guy was not the first one to make that mistake, and he probably won't be the last.

Still, even though he'd come in a few weeks ago expecting fruit, Link did enjoy the figety little games on the phones. Since then, he stops in every now and again to mess around with the displays.

One day, perhaps he'll learn he can install them on his own phone.

He smiles when he hears Guy's comment, though, and looks up from the soothing color-sorting game he's playing. ]

If you're looking for apples, I can show you a couple places to find some decent ones in the city. But for the good stuff, you've gotta go to Little Love.

Re: C

[acroodawakening]

I keep hearing about that place.

[He's probably going to check it out, see if it's worth settling down in. He's sure that a modern farm is probably different from the farm back home, because the plants are different. Less colorful in this world, from what hes seen. But a farm's a farm. At least it'd be a place where maybe he could be surrounded by some green.]

Are you one of the Starfallen? Like me?

[People have said they tend to look out for each other. An offer of being shown where food is definitely is a kindness.]

[daybroken]

[ Link sets the phone down, game forgotten, and approaches with a warm smile. ]

Yeah, just got here a few months ago. Little Love is a little quieter, with fewer streets and more crops. Reminds me a lot of home. Actually have the space to grow apples, instead of shipping them in from... wherever the shops here get them.

[acroodawakening]

I live on a farm back home. The first one, as far as we know. But I was in another world with machines for nine months before I got pulled here.

[He looks around at all the little beep beep bloop machines.]

There's still kind of a learning curve.

[A pause, as he considers he isn't quite sure what that phrase means other than that learning something takes time.]

I don't know where the curve part of that phrase factors in but I'm assuming if you don't learn about the curve first you go careening off something. So it fits.

I'm Guy, by the way. Guy Crood.

[daybroken]

[ Link's face lights up at the word "farm." ]

Hey, me too! I'm Link. I grew up in a farming village, kind of like Little Love.

[ Link looks around at the tech around them. ]

We had machines back home, but nothing quite like this. They were... bigger. And louder. Although someone from my world's future was here briefly, and he seemed to understand a lot of this stuff easier than I did.

[ He looks back to Guy. ]

But I do know a thing or two about farming. It's something you grow up learning from your elders. I can't imagine being the first farm. You're just figuring it all out as you go along?

[acroodawakening]

Well, Phil and Hope have a pretty good system. Phil's...really smart. And they've been building up the farm for years and years.

They did it to protect their daughter Dawn after -

After losing some friends.

[He neglects to mention those friends were his parents. New meeting with a new person. Kinda dark to bring up. Now that he's not cowering in a park he's not as inclined to just be open about past sad things.]

I was with my mate and her family when we found the farm. So we came into the picture later.

I knew Phil and Hope when I was growing up. Our families were part of the same band. When we were all nomads.