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?