Happy Hallmark Holidays

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

Who: Guybrush, OPEN.
Where: Virgo District.
Summary: Screw Animus. The true terror of February is holiday exploitation.
Warnings: Lovey dovey stuff.
All right, so he knows there's a crazy situation right now what with a bunch of other visitors missing, and what with apparently that shiny doohickey thing he'd touched back in the ruins apparently being the sign of terrible apocalyptic things to come. But the heck with that right now. He's got bigger, more important things to worry about.

Like, say, what to give his Plunderbunny for Valentine's Day.

In the past, it's been relatively simple. Go out, find treasure, loot a place, then buy something really nice for her. Preferably not with a debilitating curse, like the wedding ring. But apparently between the Seventeenth Century and the Twenty-First, something went horribly, terribly wrong.

ALL the stores are bedecked out offering tons of stuff. Chocolates, rings, teddy bears, provocative underwear... *ahem* It's not like he's got THAT much even with the money he made off deliveries, either. And some of this stuff just looks... dumb, frankly. Or cheap. Mostly both.

"Love sure ain't what it used to be," he comments, sighing. Well, no sense in putting things off. Maybe there's, like, a sword with a heart-shaped pommel or something.

Comments

[electricyousei]

From behind Guybrush there's a quiet but deadpan voice.

"Love isn't what this is. This is marketing. I guess this all has you overwhelmed?"

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Juuuuuuust a wee bit." He raises an eyebrow. "Are they REALLY selling heart-themed weed whackers over there?"

[electricyousei]

"Yes, but only idiots buy them. I don't know any girl that wouldn't be irritated at a gift like that."

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"I don't really get how some of this stuff is supposed to get girls in the romantic mood anyway. Personally speaking, I think little kids in diapers with bows and arrows is more of a turnoff," he quips, looking at a stuffed version of same in a window.

[electricyousei]

"Most people are idiots, so most things are aimed at idiots. What does the person you are shopping for like?"

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Er, rare antigues, monkeys, and not having undead pirates trying to kidnap her on a yearly basis," he replies, scratching his head.

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

Brushguy is now up one (1) angel peering around his side.

"Those sure are a lot of chocolates."

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

He scratches his head. "Man, crazy. Chocolate was pretty much a rich hoity-toity thing in my time. Now it's a bunch of crazy flavors. I mean, that box says it's nothing but tea-flavored chocolates for criminy's sake. Talk about decadent!" Yeah, welcome to the global economy, Guybrush.

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

"Tea flavored chocolate? I wonder if Lady Palutena would like that."

Pit: the world's champion at staying on topic.

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"...right." Man, he'll never get angels and their goddesses. "Meanwhile, where does that leave me? Granted, Elaine CAN be pretty adventurous..."

Thankfully, the hinted implications of that statement are left unsaid. HE IS from a PG-rated game after all.

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

"Uhm..." Pit examines the display of chocolates before them, looking a little helpless. "...y-you've got a lot of options! Does she even like chocolate?"

[ladieswhodresslikemen]

"They call this love, I don't think I want to know what happened to everything else."

Suddenly, someone was next to Guybrush. Someone with long, purple hair and an outfit and voice that didn't really give much of an indication whether he was being talked to by a man or a woman.

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Huh?"

He looks over. Huh. He doesn't recognize THIS guy. Girl. Guy? Man, what is it with the Japanese and these really ambiguous types? "Oh, uh, yeah, things are pretty crazy, huh?" He scratches his head.

[ladieswhodresslikemen]

"That's the funny thing - I've been to another world before and it was just like home! I don't have a clue what layabout could have wrecked everything so badly."

Well, technically it was the other half of the same world, but details.

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Wait, you've done the world-hopping thing before? Geez, talk about bad luck, huh?" He looks around. "Yeah, we're kinda trying to figure that out ourselves. I'm kinda trying to think about other things for now though." Because he KNOWS somebody's gonna try to blame him for the Shining Trapazhoozat.

[ladieswhodresslikemen]

"Not really. I wanted to go the last time."

The whole 'barrier city' thing was one way things had been messed up, but really it's the culture that had her confused.

"An' what's that then?"

[bestrpgmerchant]

"Ha ha ha."

There's a low, throaty chuckle nearby, and don't look now, Guybrush, but there's a man in a frog-like mask dressed in a heart-stamped sweater next to you. He's hefting a backpack on his back, with various things sticking out of it (is that a baseball bat?), and he gazes over the decorated windows, amusement present in his voice.

"Not finding the things you want, eh, amigo?"

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"...uh..."

For once, Guybrush isn't entirely sure how to respond. It's not every day you get a guy in a goofy mask talking to you like he's your best friend or something. "I... guess not? I'm not even sure what I'm LOOKING for at this point."

[bestrpgmerchant]

"Oh?"

He seems piqued, even slightly concerned, clasping his hands before him as tilts his head in curiosity.

"Is that so? Well now...what do you think the lucky girl in question needs, exactly? Perhaps I might be able to help!"

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Um, I don't know if she needs ANYTHING she can't get herself. It's more a matter of something she'd LIKE." Frankly, Elaine's more than capable of handling her own needs, which is something Guybrush has learned over a very long period of time.

[acapriciousthing]

Death has a bit of a soft spot for Valentine's Day. It was, for her at least, one of the few town shenanigans that had really worked out for her. Well, for anyone at all, even if some people didn't come out of it quite so peachy. "Every place ends up with its own twists on traditions."

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Couldn't they find traditions that aren't designed to sap my wallet?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at a huge display rack of "love medicine" candies in a nearby store window.

[acapriciousthing]

"Well, it's always best to put your own twist on things. It's how much you think about the other person that really counts, not how much you spend." She almost sounds like she knows what she's talking about. What a difference a year makes.

[a_pirate_meant_to_be]

"Well, I guess that's true. She's definitely used to me not having as much spending money as her, that much is for certain." Gee, it's obvious who has the pants in THAT family.

[acapriciousthing]

Well, for all she knows that's the standard arrangement where he's from. "So what sort of gifts would you normally get her? If you didn't have a display saying it had to be chocolates in a heart shaped box?"