destinystrings | Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

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Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Who: Guybrush Threepwood. Open.
Where: Virgo District.
Summary: "Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy." - Albert Einstein
Warnings: Horrible fashion sense.

Part of him feels like he should've told the woman that no sane individual wears plaid if they can help it. But a job's a job, and he's not sure she would've understood the fashion catastrophe she was about to unleash upon herself. So, out he goes.

Of course, as one can judge by the narrative text, there's a major problem with this scenario: how does a guy who hates plaid find something fashionable IN plaid? And that's his crisis right now, ducking in and out of stores and pretty much hating all the fashions.

"This is getting ridiculous. Where's THAT guy when I need him?" he mutters. Now who could THAT guy be? More importantly, does anybody want to help him in his nigh-impossible quest?

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A walking pile of eclectic objects stumbles towards Guybrush on his quest to find something fashionable. It seems to be speaking aloud to itself.

"Memory... What the heck else improves your memory? Ginkgo biloba injections?"

It's hard to watch where you're going when you're carrying a stack of ten books labeled 'Brain Boosters Volumes I-X First Ed.!!!' Atsuro tries to peek around the edge every so often, but at the moment, he's headed for a bumpy end.

Thankfully, Guybrush is a fully attentive, careful, and oh hey all those books are scattered around the ground now, sorry. Ow.

Well, okay, more than a few of them landed on Guybrush specifically. "Oooh..."

"Gah -- !"

Not just books, either. Guybrush and Atsuro alike will be subject to a shower of books, pill bottles, puzzle collections, and computer software. The boy groans slightly as he watches a bottle roll right into a sewer drain.

"Aw, my stuff...! ...And you're not even a girl or anything; I thought this kind of thing was supposed to end with a date."

Atsuro plucks the most important object from his lost materials - his hat - and plants it firmly on his head.

"Despite the fashionable ponytail, no, I am not of the female persuasion. Anyway, I'm married." Crud, that's a lot of stuff. "What're you doing with all of this anyway?"

He resists the urge to snag one of the pill bottles and put it into his inventory. BARELY.

He busies himself slowly stacking the books back up as he answers.

"I don't know if you visited the Velvet Room, but the long-nosed guy's assistant... She asked me to find her a 'machine that would improve memory'. I don't know what kind of tech this place has, but I'm pretty sure that's right up there in the realm of sci-fi."

Given his hobby of choice, Atsuro will feel rather dim when he realizes what Elizabeth is requesting. At the moment, though, he's stymied.

"...Not that sci-fi is out of the question for this place. ...Sorry about bumping into you; I should've paid a little more attention."

"Sounds more like some sorta voodoo thingy to me. I'd say I have it easier, but have you ever SEEN a plaid shirt that's fashionable?" Ugh. "Makes me wish a certain plaid connoisseur I know was around, except he'd probably try to charge an arm and a leg for it."

"...Huh?"

Atsuro fails to comprehend what Guybrush is trying to express at first. Luckily, being around so much intelligence enhancing paraphernalia seems to have some sort of effect; he cottons on after only a few moments of blank staring.

"...She asked you for a plaid shirt? They should have that kind of thing in every clothing store in town, right? Just get her... I don't know. A shirt she can tie around her waist or something. Go for the sporty look."

"You don't get it. I HATE plaid. How am I supposed to know if I find one that's suitable enough to her purposes? Heck, what if she decides SHE hates plaid? I'll be out... whatever it is you get for these things!" he exclaims.

New World problems, man.

"...If she asks you for something she hates, that's more her fault than yours, right?" Atsuro carefully begins to balance the pill bottles back onto the stack of books. "...Why don't I help you look? I, uh... don't really have a sense of fashion, but I'll just go with the old WWYS trick."

"The whosa whatsit trick?" He doesn't exactly turn him down, though. If nothing else, it's nice to actually have someone ACTUALLY helping, instead of being a warm body that just sits around doing jack.

"'What Would Yuzu Shriek-about-what-an-idiot-i-was-and-god-everyone-knows-stripes-don't-go-with-plaid'." Atsuro explains in a perfectly straightforward and comprehensible manner. "...She's a friend of mine from home."

He carefully balances the last pill bottle on top of his carefully stacked pyramid, slides a CD between the pages of a book, and...

"...Actually, I should probably just leave this stuff here until I'm ready to go home."

"Actually, I can handle it if you want. Just... make sure to remind me which of the stuff is yours," he says. ...huh?

Atsuro blinks for a few moments at this. "...You want to carry some of it? It's fine; I can just leave someone to stand guard so no one messes around with my stuff."

"No no, I can handle it." He seems pretty confident about this.

"...Uh. Alright, thanks! Why don't you take the last five volumes then? I'll take the first few and stuff the rest in my pockets." Atsuro shrugs slightly and begins to unstack the books again.

"Sure, sure, hand them over." When Atsuro DOES hand them over... Well, you're not exactly sure WHAT he did, but somehow he managed to get all of them in his pockets or something, and either way he's managed to stuff them away somewhere. How'd he do that?

Atsuro stares. Leans in close. Ignores the concept of personal space and begins to pat at Guybrush's pockets.

"...What did you just do with all of my things?"

"Hey hey hey, stop with the no-no area touching already! I just put it in my inventory is all, geez." He tries to swat the hands away.

"...OK, I know I make game jokes a lot, but inventories aren't a real thing. ...Like, you can't put things in an inventory because an inventory just means 'items you have on you'. Which means they're still going somewhere." Atsuro takes one last poke at Guybrush's pants before backing away with a dubious expression.

"You probably shouldn't think about it too hard. It'll strain the muscles." And that seems to be the end of that. "Anyway, wanna get going?"

Atsuro continues to stare dumbfoundedly as Guybrush gets going, following a solid five seconds after.

"But -- ! You... Hold on! At least make sure you can get them back out again!"

"Geez, what's the big deal already?" He pulls one of the books out from... SOMEWHERE. "It's fine, seriously. Man, some people just don't put any faith in pirates anymore."

"...When has anyone ever put any faith in pirates?" Atsuro heaves a sigh of resignation as Guybrush waves the book around. "...Fine, go ahead and stick it in your 'inventory'. Just... don't put it anywhere weird, OK?"

It's nowhere weird! Just down his pants. "Gotcha. Anyway, let's go try to find the stuff we're looking for, okay?"

Mind, the shops are lined with all sorts of places. At least clothing stores are a dime a dozen.

"...Maybe she wants a shirt with the periodic table of elements printed on it." Atsuro sighs to himself as he catches up with Guybrush, turning towards the closest store. "We might as well go in order."

The store is pretty standard, at least. There's some pretty decent, if not exciting fashions. And sure enough, further in the back, there's a few plaid pieces here and there. "Bleah." He pulls a sleeve out with some disdain. "It'd take a real fashion model to make THIS stuff look good."

"You know, if you've got an infinite inventory, you could just grab every plaid shirt in the store and see which one she likes." Atsuro helpfully suggests as he aimlessly pokes around in the adult women section. The salesclerk gives him a funny glance as he begins to sort through the blouses.

"What about this? It goes with her glasses, right?"

Armor in the SMT-verse occasionally comes with intrinsic effects. The Psychodelic Plaid Shirt comes with +Blindness and +Fear (100% on wearer).

"I think that would be slightly in excess of what I could get away with stealing," he replies. Apparently, the idea of PAYING for all of it didn't even cross his mind.

Guybrush eyes the shirt, shielding his eyes. "How can you tell? I can barely look at the thing. Ugh."

"...Maybe we could get her sunglasses while we're at it." Atsuro holds it out at arm's length and squints before thrusting it back into the rack. Puke-green squares just didn't go as well with neon-pink stripes as he would've imagined.

"Did she say 'shirt' specifically or just... any piece of clothing that's plaid?"

The horrors of plaid pants aside, perhaps they could buy her a scarf.

"Nope, she definitely indicated a tunic of some sort." Bleah. "At least it's not a jacket. Only one guy I know pulls off a plaid jacket, and he probably wouldn't part with it without signing a lease or something."

He pulls out another one. "I don't think puce and yellow are supposed to go together like that."

"...'Tunic' is pirate-speak for 'shirt', right? We'd never find what we were looking for if we started asking around for tunics." Plaid clearly hadn't existed back in the middle ages. He wonders who, exactly, had decided the world needed a new fashion design that the vast majority of people strongly disliked.

"OK, here." Atsuro holds out what appears to be a plaid sweater-vest. "Warm and serviceable. I bet she'll love it." Clearly, he was trying to sabotage Guybrush's task so he could get the better reward.

He eyes the combo in disbelief. "I'm pretty sure there's NO era where a sweater-vest has ever been fashionable, let alone a plaid one," he replies. He pulls out one on his own. "Hmm, this looks... tolerable? Maybe?"

((Sorry for the lateness; I attended a wedding this weekend. Feel free to drop if you'd prefer!))

It takes great restraint for Atsuro to refrain from making a quip about hereditary color-blindness. He approaches with a skeptical expression. "...Uh. Yeah, sure. That one looks perfect."

Four shirts and he was already tired of shopping. How did Yuzu do it? "Better snag it now before someone else does. How's the price?"

Guybrush looks at the price tag. Guybrush gawks at the price tag. "Uh... is there any chance inflation has rendered this price anywhere in the realms of reasonable?" he asks, showing the tag.

"...You know, that's probably in old Turkish lira. Hinoto-ri is definitely the cultural equivalent of Turkey, right? One yen would probably cover it." Atsuro nods sagely as he quickly thrusts the shirt back at Guybrush.

"Hey, the ones over there on the 90% off racks are cute, right?" He drifts in that direction, ignoring the 'Toddlers and Infants' sign as he passes. "I bet we could stretch these after they went through the wash."

Guybrush picks up one and holds it up to him. "That'd be one stretchy material," he says, a tone of disbelief in his voice. Man, this is the pits.

"Or glue two together. It could be like layers, built in to the shirt already." Fashion advice from Atsuro was so innovative that it was a wonder he didn't have his own television show yet. He abandons the Toddlers and Infants section after noticing the salesclerk stare at him with an even more uncomfortable expression on her face.

"...Wait, aren't pirates supposed to have tons of treasure? You've got to have at least a few doubloons in your infinite inventory, right?"

"You'd think so, but you'd be amazed what sort of contrived reasons the universe finds for ensuring I have the least amount of money possible at the beginning of any given adventure," he replies, eyebrow raised. "Anyway, I've got nothing." He sighs. "Where's a suitably naive employer who pays in advance and hires without interviews when you need one?"

"Somewhere in the store with the nice plaid shirts and the memory-improving devices." Atsuro sighs a bit. "...Hey, OK. I've got some yen notes on hand; I'll pay for half of this now if you'll help me pay for half of my 'memory-improving device' whenever I find it. Odds are I never will, so..."

"Hey, really? That'd be swell, thanks! But gee, I'd think you future guys would've developed SOME sorta fancy technology to ram a better memory into someone's head," he says, flitting through his rather sadly thin wallet.

"I know, right?" Atsuro digs around in his pockets and for the eighth time or so since he arrived, wishes that Macca could be used to purchase more than demons. "It's not like people are computers. You can't just buy some circuits and upgrade your -- "

His words trail off as he pauses, a frown settling on his face.

Guybrush looks crestfallen. "Aw man, don't tell me you don't have the dough."

"...Huh?" Atsuro shakes his head. "Nah, I've got enough for a large pizza." That probably makes sense to someone somewhere out in the world. He continues. "...I'm just wondering if she ever said who the memory was for."

He thumbs through his wallet again and pulls out the bills. "There. Lucky for you, I was planning to go shopping the day everything went down."

Guybrush manages to pull out some money -- somehow -- and it's a shirt get. Phew. "So what, one moment it was hit the shops, the next it was crazy guy telling you about things in your head?"

"What...?" Atsuro shells over his portion of the money and blinks. "Oh, no, I meant the day everything went down back home, back a few weeks ago. My friends and I were gonna go hang out at the mall." Not that his arrival into Hinoto-Ri had been much better timed.

He scratches the back of his head. "Gee, things must've gone real crazy where you're come from," he says, putting the shirt into that strange mystery zone he calls an inventory again. "You should've been a pirate. EVERY day is strange and crazy that way. It's great."

Atsuro tries not think about the fact that Guybrush had just apparently tucked his shirt into his shirt, whereupon it had immediately vanished. Perhaps he was wearing it underneath now.

"I do my best to avoid strange and crazy, thanks. I think it's probably better for my lifespan." He pauses. "...My memory, too."

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Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

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