entrancelogs | [OPEN] had a big hunch that the world was a big lie

Entry tags:

[OPEN] had a big hunch that the world was a big lie

Who: Sans and YOU
Where: The Republican National Convention
When: August 4 - 8
Rating: PG, PG-13
Summary: Sans T. Bones is a street food salesman, a dying breed in this Post-Rising world. He's here at the convention hoping to prove that street food can still be a safe, legitimate business, even when run by a sickly guy like him. If you want some vegetarian hotdogs instead of whatever crap the convention is providing, he's your guy.
The Story:

A - Day One - a tune on my lips and my quest in reach

He's genuinely happy to be here. Sure, it's the Republican Convention, and crowds make him nervous--they make everyone nervous--but everything's going so well. He was certainly leery of it all when a Republican senator invited him to the convention to sell hotdogs, of all things, but the need for business and recognition had won out. If more of these high-falutin' types can see that your old-fashioned street corner hotdog stand is safe and sterile--and tasty--then maybe things will get a little easier for him. Hell, maybe they'll get easier for all the street food salesmen.

And it's going ridiculously well so far. He's been getting customers, he's been getting legitimate questions, he's been getting short interviews from interested bloggers. He's even had one or two fans of his comedic video game streams come up to say hi--despite the fact that he hasn't updated his channel in like two months now. Prepping for the convention had taken priority. Had to make sure he had every single necessary permit, and some that weren't strictly necessary, just to be safe.

The hotdog stand looks kind of out of place in a corner of the cafeteria, but it certainly smells good. And the guy running it might look sickly, what with the facemask and the occasional cough, but he also looks pretty cheerful. The vibe at the convention might be tense, but it's clearly not getting to Sans T. Bones. He'll gladly sell you a hotdog or talk to you about how ridiculously clean his business is.

B - Day Two - wake up to show me what i could not find

On the second day, his customers have vanished. At first he thinks maybe people are just sick of hotdogs, but then one of his game stream fans comes up to give him the bad news: a senator, in fact the same senator who invited him here and was so nice and polite, has said she's going to introduce a bill to outlaw street food. Too unsafe, she says.

Well, that explains it. He understands now. He wasn't brought here to showcase his talents and hard work--he was brought here to be an example.

It's further cemented later in the day, when the senator herself shows up, followed by a few other senators and constituents. She positions herself just in earshot of his stand so he can overhear what she says to them. It's the usual fare, about how street food is dangerous, about how people like him operate under a different standard of cleanliness, about how there's no telling where those hotdogs even came from, are they even vegetarian at all? And so on and so forth.

The real clincher is why in the world is a guy like him, who's sick as a dog, a reservoir condition in his bronchial tubes, a guy who could amplify at any moment--why is a guy like him allowed anywhere near food handling?

Sans tries to ignore the whole thing, and spends the rest of the day trying not to let any of it get to him. With minimal success.

C - Day Three-Four - shoulda been sleeping the day away

When they find the needle, Sans knows it's only a matter of time.

The vibe at the convention was tense already, now it's all but panicked. A lot of people are staying locked up in their rooms where they know they'll be safe from any further needles. Meanwhile, the security forces make the rounds, searching for more needles, searching for anyone suspicious, and generally trying to hold several hundred corks underwater. The whole thing is about to boil over, and he can feel it.

He waits patiently at his stand for them to come to him. He doesn't fight or protest or argue when they ask him to come along, that he needs to be quarantined. For safety's sake. Sure. It's not like this is the first time this has happened to him. No one trusts the sick guy.

He spends the rest of the convention locked in a sterile room, wondering what's going on outside. They treat him fairly well at least, answering his questions and keeping him fed, but he can tell they're practically just waiting for him to amplify.

Later, someone deigns to tell him that his hotdog stand has been dismantled and destroyed. For safety's sake.

Looks like it's time to start investing in the streaming business. If he makes it out of here without a bullet in his head.

Threaded | Flat

No one trusts the sick guy. Unless the sick guy is already on the payroll. Tim might not know Sans well enough to be of direct help for him, but he knows him enough to make sure no one tries to subtly off him before he's been cleared to leave. He's all sectioned away in quarantine, but Tim's at least in the unique position to be able to access his prison.

He raises a hand to knock, hesitates, and raps out a shave and a haircut.

Just so he knows it's a...maybe not a friend, but at the very least an ally.

Zack's not here to agree with the senator. Publicly, he had been sent here to help with security for the event. Secretly, he may have been sent on for something else entirely...

The scene with the guy with the tubes up his nose grabs Zack's attention, though. He's standing in the back of the crowd, staring blankly at the mistreatment. He glances down at his own hands, bandaged up like the rest of him. Sure, severe burns aren't the same as bronchitis, but the scar tissue left him more vulnerable to scratches and bites. A liability to most people he literally must keep under wraps. Zack knows damn well illness and injury doesn't actually stop people from being people, and this senator is pissing him off.

No, he can't act in that moment. Too risky. Instead, he forces himself to grit his teeth and wait for the crowd to disperse before he takes a single step. Nobody's gonna come near that hot dog stand after that speech, so he figures nobody would give a damn if he walked up to the hot dog guy and slipped him a few folded dollar bills.

"Here," he mumbles in a low voice, "I'll tell 'em they're gonna to be tested for contamination."

Edited 2017-08-04 22:25 (UTC)

How in the world did they let this guy in? Street food? Seriously? And he was obviously harboring some kind of... Something. Just looking at the guy made Jean's trigger finger itch.

It's obvious Jean is a security guard. One of the lower-level clean up types. His hair is bone white and his skin is rough and scarred from constant decontamination. Having survived as long as he had has made him bold, but he's not about to let things slip either. He approaches the stand with practiced confidence.

"Hey, you. What year is it?"

It was the first question he always asked. Forgetfulness is one of the first symptoms of amplifying, and if someone slipped up on such an easy question, he was quick to pull his gun. Better wrongfully dead than left alive to amplify in a populated area.

[The street food controversy is so fucking stupid George doesn't know where to begin. Would it kill these people to fact check even a little? She read an article about street food a little while ago. It's not like you can operate one without a shit ton of permits. And then there's the reservoir condition shit. Sure, they don't know a ton about what reservoir conditions actually do, but they don't make it any more unsafe to handle food than anyone else. She should know. For obvious reasons, she's done her own fucking research.

She doesn't have much interest in the guy on the first day when everyone else is talking to him. It's not until the controversy strikes up that she steps in. As always, when lies and propaganda rear their ugly heads, Georgia Mason is fucking here, ready to pin down the truth and lay it out for everyone to see.]

Mr. Bones? [She approaches, recorder in hand, and tilts her head, eyeing him through her sunglasses.] Georgia Mason, After the End Times. Do you have time to answer a few questions about your business?

[There is only one answer she'll accept, of course. But it's polite to at least offer the illusion of a choice.]

It's a practiced maneuver at this point. Follow along with Mom and Dad, do everything they say, stay quiet when he's not being spoken to and politely introduce himself when he's brought up in conversation. Then they start to discuss candidates, and they're really only repeating what the popular right-wing blogs say, and it's completely pointless BS and Angus finds it's all too easy, then, to wander off.

His parents may make it seem otherwise, but with any large gathering of people, there are points of interest to be found. Leads to follow. Stories to be told. His typical fare is cops and crime, and the Republican National Convention is a far cry from that (though not as far as you'd think), but he definitely still writes politics on occasion.

But a politician isn't the first thing to catch Angus' attention. It's someone a bit more novel than that.

A man, not much taller than Angus, in a medical mask, selling hot dogs at a stand. God, those aren't meat, are they? They can't be. He doesn't exactly look like the type of person that'd be allowed to handle food in the modern age, and food stands aren't exactly popular anymore. Angus doesn't remember before the Rising, wasn't alive for it, so everything about this hot dog man is intriguing.

He walks right up to the stand and inspects it curiously. "How much for a hot dog, sir?" he asks, to start.

Some people were thrown into quarantine, while others were taken into custody, and Jay wants to know why these specific people. Short of talking to the decision-makers, talking to the prisoners is Jay's best bet.

Good thing he's got a friend on the security staff.

"Hey," Jay whispers, knocking insistently at the door. "Jay Merrick, Marble Hornets. 'S fine if you don't know the name. We don't--we don't exactly get the hits the big names do." We, Jay says, like the staff is more than just Jay and his legion of tiny cameras. "But, I mean, never mind. Not here to talk about me."

Jay lets out a nervous hiss of breath that might be a laugh. "Can't be here too long, but security's gonna leave us alone for now. So you can say anything." Anything he doesn't mind being posted on the internet, that is.

"You know why they threw you in here?"

[Lapis would be lying if she claimed she wasn't bothered at all by the idea of buying food from someone who seems to be falling apart slowly. Fortunately, she doesn't especially mind lying. Any distaste is purely a knee-jerk instinct -- she knows perfectly well that getting clearance to sell street food or to work this event isn't easy, never mind both. From a certain perspective, a little dodginess just makes a hot dog feel more authentic, really.

Also it's late and she's hungry. Again: Lapis is not a journalist. It therefore follows that she must be here to enjoy herself. Simple and unassailable logic. So her attitude, as she pulls herself up to the stand, is faint amusement more than anything.]

Opportunistic, are we? [He brings to mind weeds in the sidewalk, seemingly straggly but colonizing harsh conditions nonetheless.] I'll take one.

Seth has come back and forth a few times, checking on those that have been quarantined. Mostly it's a break from searching, from listening to the protests and the complaints, but it's still doing his job.

Taking a long time, watching Sans for a long moment before he chuckles.

"Seriously though, what even were you thinking with that thing?"

Nope, not nice at all but he is curious. Who thought a food cart was the way to make a living?

As the Senator's speech winds down someone new enters the "impromptu" political rally. Mettaton, darling Mettaton of famous Fictional/Irwin blog Death by Glamour, saunters up to the food stand, his camera crew loyally catching all of his best angles.

"Ohhh, what's this?"

He turns to his cameras with a delighted look and he pushes past the Senator's little gathering to go right up to this man's stand.

"Hotdogs? Oh, how delightful! How much for one?"

He's smiling, but anyone facing him can see his eyes slide for a moment to the side to check out if the Senator is listening. And she absolutely is.

"She sounds like my mother." Peridot has been observing this spectacle from a close distance but somewhat behind Sans, so it looks like she came out of nowhere. She was just here to have some food before she went back to hide with her laptop, and then this... clod.

"I've seen her polling numbers, though." She flicks a wrist dismissively. "She's so completely outclassed. I heard Lucifer Morningstar called her out on not checking her facts in an interview weeks ago. And when a crook like him calls you out on inaccuracies, you know you've lost."

Edited 2017-08-07 04:59 (UTC)

Threaded | Flat

day 3

day 2

day one

day 2

day one

day 3-4, at some ungodly hour like 2 in the morning

Late Day 1

day 4

B! Day two!