[OPEN Mingle] Happy Anniversary and Happy Holidays!

[robintohood]

Who: Mingle post! Jason Todd robintohood is also available in a separate top-level comment
What: Festivities at the Descendant Karaoke Bar and Lounge
When: Week of November 27th and throughout December
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: N/A for now. Will edit if needed.

[By god, the weird (and only sometimes shady) New Jerseyian karaoke bar in the middle of Michigan has made it. The Descendant Karaoke Bar and Lounge has hit its first anniversary. To celebrate, there are special discount rates for customers and even deeper ones for the repeated loyal clients.

Because Descendant’s birthday is also at the very beginning of the winter holiday season, the whole place has been decorated to reflect the occasions. There’s the usual colorful tinsel, wreathes, Santa hats, and fake holly plants but there are also special additions the Descendant’s staff did. There are hidden Santa Gritty figures and decorations throughout the building. More blatant are the Christmas trees throughout the building adorned with Gritty baubles. Instead of an elf on a shelf, behind the bar on the top shelf is a Gritty figure next to the maneki-neko figure Mayuko gifted Jason last year during Descendant’s grand opening. Both figures are there all year round but for this time of the year, they’re rocking Santa hats too.

As for the Descendant’s owner, his presence is oddly sparse despite his business hitting a milestone. Jason’s still monitoring daily operations and is still making sure tasks are being properly delegated but during these last weeks of the year, he’s not at Descendant as often as he usually is. He can still be contacted though, namely if there’s an emergency.

Meanwhile, if one were to carefully eavesdrop on some of the Descendant’s more shady customers, one might hear that the Backbreakers gang and their leader, the Red Hood, might be having… problems holding their remaining territory. The rumors have been going since mid-November after the mysterious bombings to several of the Backbreakers’ safehouses.

So come in from the cold and celebrate, be it Descendant’s birthday or a winter holiday. Have a holiday drink like a spiked eggnog, a gingerbread martini, or a wassail. The karaoke machines are full of holiday songs to sing to as well.]

((OOC: Mingle post! Go have fun, folks. Jason’s own top-level is right here. My contact information is on this journal's profile and I'm in the game's Discord server. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns as well. I also have a feedback post.))

Comments

[robintohood]

[Jason snorts]

Thanks. I just needed a little rest.

[It helps when he’s in a symbiote bond. Jason then sighs]

And thanks for letting me know about this. Can’t say I’m happy about it but it’s important.

[levelshift]

Only a little?

[He's raising an eyebrow at that. The older Jason had been a total wreck.]

Whatever, not the first time I've had to deal with this kind of thing.

[robintohood]

You had ways to counter it or you just had to live with it?

[Based on what Jason was told about Accelerator’s home, the latter seems possible]

[levelshift]

It was a part of daily life. The city made some of it public, like if an esper wanted to fuck off on holiday or see their family there were certain medical procedures that were required.

[Trackers injected into the bloodstream, is what he means.]

Some of it was a hell of a lot less public, because people would be really pissed off if they knew.

[robintohood]

How invasive did it get?

[The place certainly sounds extreme by Jason’s standards]

[levelshift]

[Accelerator snorts.]

Take the most invasive method you can think of and multiply it by ten.

[Academy City is nuts.]

[robintohood]

[Dryly]

Must be big fans of 1984.

[levelshift]

[Pfft, yeah.]

Lately I've been thinking the board chairman used it as a guide.

[robintohood]

It’s fucked up how many think it’s a guide instead of a cautionary tale.

[levelshift]

Well, I've been learning the board chairman is a fucked up person, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

[robintohood]

You ever thought about leaving somehow?

[levelshift]

[Accelerator leans against the wall, snorting.]

What makes you think that's an option?

[robintohood]

[Jason shrugs]

Depends on how resourceful someone is.

[levelshift]

Tche, being resourceful has nothing to do with it. There're a lot of reasons why I can't, and they're all complicated.

[robintohood]

Such as?

[levelshift]

.....

[He purses his lips, deciding how much he wants to get into it. But... some of this is public knowledge, at least, and he doesn't want anyone to think he cares about other parts.]

To start with, espers are proprietary to the city. One drop of my blood probably contains more intellectual property and industry secrets than some super-confidential military project. No sane organization is just going to let that kind of thing walk away.

[robintohood]

[Jason frowns. None of that sits right with him. Accelerator is still so young and a person should never be considered property]

It’s still not right.

[levelshift]

You're not the only one who thinks that way.

[Which is a very polite way of saying the older Jason finds all of this abhorrent, too. It's annoying.]

Anyways, the other thing is where the fuck would I go if I did leave? I don't have any family outside the city.

[robintohood]

Plot with friends or allies to escape? Anything to get away from place that just thinks of you as property and not a person.

[levelshift]

[Accelerator raises an eyebrow.]

What makes you think I have friends or allies?

[That's... a bit of an exaggeration, given Yomikawa and Yoshikawa, but he still has trouble thinking of them like that.]

[robintohood]

[Jason snorts]

By some miracle, you’ve managed to hang out with the turtles. Pretty sure you’re capable of friends.

[levelshift]

[Accelerator stiffens, his expression shifting to a glare.]

They aren't my friends. Those two are just some idiots I know.

[robintohood]

[Jason doesn’t flinch from the glare. He’s faced much worse]

How do you put up with them?

[levelshift]

They put up with me when they shouldn't.

[They really shouldn't. He's a horrible person.]

That's all.

[robintohood]

You make it sound like you’re a rash to them.