entrancelogs | It's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart

Who: Stan Pines, the ghosts of his horrible past, and YOU
Where: EVERYWHERE
When: 12/23!
Rating: PG-13 because everything is horrible.
Summary: Stan gets hit by the Christmas Carol event! He'll be largely keeping to himself on days two and three, but on the first day his dirty laundry will be aired out absolutely everywhere, for the entire mansion to see.
The Story:

[The day's already off to a pretty bad start. Stan was woken up by the laughter of children that don't belong to him and sat up screaming, but when he looked out into his room he saw where the laughter was coming from - ghostly images of himself and Ford, no more than ten or so, using their random day out of school as a bully-free off-season day at the beach to themselves. Everyone else was off celebrating their own dumb holiday and He can sort of see Glass Shard Beach too if he squints, ghostly sea grass sprouting up from the carpet and he can almost hear the waves in the distance. He remembers it like it was yesterday, and would swear to anyone that it sounds different from the waves in Wonderland.

Stan's not totally unfamiliar with what's happening. He ran into the kids already, and John. These are some weird...Christmas apparition things, completely wasted on someone who doesn't even celebrate the damn holiday. But with that in mind, Stan figures this is no big deal. He'll just shut these ghostly children in his room and ignore them and they'll go away without anyone else ever having to see them. Easy!

Except, it doesn't occur to Stan that they can be found in multiple places...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh, Alex is annoyed. He's actually shot right past "annoyed" and graduated directly into "pissed," because he has not been having a fantastic holiday and this is just the cherry on top of the shit holiday sundae.

He's been huddled in the stacks in hopes that the goblins he's been dodging for the better part of the week won't be able to track him down, but he's beginning to wonder if throwing in with the little shits would be better than listening to this stupid repetitive commercial jingle from hell.

A flung book passes right through the apparition poised atop the table, followed by another, and another.]

Oh my god.

[...and another. And another. And another -]

Shut the fuck up.

[The thing about these apparitions is that...well, they're apparitions. They're no more than ghostly images, so the books sail right through Stan's ugly mug as he laughs and laughs and laughs...

...and at least two of them smack the real Stan in the head.]

OW! Quit it!

[He rubs his head and looks around for the culprit, eventually spotting this jerk.]

The hell do you think you're doin'?!

[Oh hey, it's a guy who looks suspiciously like the hologram shouting bullshit into the library void. Alex isn't inclined to treat him any nicer. He scowls, unimpressed, and gestures wildly at the repeat commercial in frustration.]

Can't you shut this thing up? Libraries are supposed to be quiet, asshole.

[Stan scowls right back, happy to fight that justified anger with EVEN MORE anger.]

No, I can't! The dumb thing just spawned on its own, and I've got nothin' to do with it! You're just gonna have to get used to my mug around here, pal.

[Of course, even if he could do something about it...he probably wouldn't.]

Besides, y'know how expensive interdimensional advertising probably is? Very expensive, I assume! So I'll take all the free ad time I can get.

[Not to be outdone, Alex stands, purposefully employing what little height he has to his less-than-impressive frame in an attempt to...loom, possibly, except he can't hope to be very imposing against a man who's clearly much bigger than he is.]

Advertising? [He scoffs. He's had a rough couple of days, all right, so he's about ready to take out some misdirected anger on a random bystander. The fact that this bystander happens to be irritating the hell out of him is just a convenient excuse.] At this rate you're just gonna start pissing people off. Who buys this shit?

[Aw, that's adorable that he thinks he can physically intimidate Stan. He stands his ground and doesn't budge.]

Ha! You'd be surprised. Suckers'll buy anything if you sell it right. Every year I get some poor morons runnin' into the Mystery Shack crying 'cause they forgot to buy someone somethin'. Don't lecture me about advertising, kid - I've been sellin' stuff longer than you've been alive.

[Granted, a good chunk of those years weren't exactly successes, but he got the hang of it eventually! ...By moving to a town full of complete idiots.]

[Well fuck him sideways he doesn't know a thing about marketing. He's got a decent eye for quality ~~or so he thinks~~ but that's not gonna be terribly helpful here.

Alex snorts, clearly still scornful.]

Mystery Shack. And people fall for that?

[Like Alex would ever be so stupid.

Except that he would mOVING ON]

How 'bout you take your crap advertising somewhere that's else? Some people are actually trying to get stuff done here, so. [Important stuff. Things!]

'Course they do!

[Honestly, he gets a surprising amount of business for some weird place in the middle of nowhere where everyone's seen his tricks hundreds of times - but hey! Stan's not complaining.]

And I told you already, I couldn't get rid of it even if I wanted to! These things've been poppin' up all day and I don't know how to make them disappear.

[He's not exactly trying at this point though, so sucks to be you Alex.]

I got a great idea: what if you turn around and leave and see if your crap ghost goes with you?

[It's far from a perfect solution, but if it gets one of the two out of his oxygen, then he'll goddamn well take it. He's not inclined to be polite at this point. Or ever, really.]

Eh. This ain't the first one I've run into. I already know it ain't goin' anywhere, so why bother?

["To give this guy some peace and quiet" would be the polite answer, but Stan is admittedly not even a little bit polite. The fact that it bothers him jsut makes him want to stick around more.]

[Alex shoots him a hard look. Then, slowly, deliberately, without once breaking eye contact, he slams his own open book shut with a pointedly loud bang.]

Fine.

[He scrapes his chair back, stands up, and hefts up the largest, heaviest tome he can find.

Then he wings that big sucker of a book right toward the asshole's center of mass, like a friendly little game of catch gone wrong.]

Enjoy your goddamn holiday.

It's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart | OPEN

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