estoria | ( OPEN ) i don't want a mental suplex, i want quality customer service

Who: Elliot Nightray (

meriter) and you!
When: IC 11/25—11/27
Where: Residential District (primarily the CERES Gymnasium) + Shopping District (anywhere)
What: Elliot has a terminal allergy to common sense: a lesson in three (four) parts, comprised of psuedo-drowning, Machiavellian swindlers, and terrible book taste, respectively speaking.
Rating/Warning: None, probably.

1. INSERT SWIMMING PUN HERE (ceres gymnasium.)

[ In reconciliation of every self-deprecatory impulse in his body, Elliot actually shows up for lifeguard duty for the first time in two weeks.

He'd been staving off the financial necessity of having real credits on hand to buy very real things for a long while (like microwave dinners, for one thing, considering he'd survived thus far on a diet of refried peas and mashed potatoes with the consistency of clumping dirt). Monetary gain: the true motivator of any stalwart teenager in these trying, trying times. It wasn't as if he was going to turn to his brothers in some prostrated act of weakness. Just because he'd been hairsplitting nebulous concepts like coming to the gym during his technical shift and maybe staying the whole period instead of flat-out leaving whenever it suited him didn't mean he was a stranger to manual labor. Not at all.

So. It's just another routine day at the swimming pool, and by the third hour he's sweating bullets attempting to get a grip over his genteel, strait-laced Victorian morals. There are just so many exhibitionists about in the afternoons, all in varying levels of undress, and he's blistering red up to his ears keeping his gaze trained at all the patrons without turning away at the sight of scantily-clothed bodies. Literal lingerie, at that — it was nothing short of incredible that Vessalius hadn't succumbed to utter debauchery, exposed day in and day out to water-slick forms and all manner of loosened morals. He'd always been a weird kid, anyway.

But his tension reaches a culminating point hits when someone's apparently spritzing out at the deep end of pool, an arm stuck out and frantically waving him over. Reluctantly, Elliot strips off his jacket and cravat and strides over, peering down at the swimmer in question with scrunched eyebrows a stare tipped toward palpable disdain. ]

[ Too bad he doesn't have any sense of peripheral awareness to comprehend the rather peculiar grin he's shot with until the stranger's got their hand grappled around his, and then — ]

again

[ — he falls in. Panic briefly settling in his lungs, he spends a second or two in slantslide vertigo, water rushing around in some great, disorienting deluge before he kicks up, hard, breaks the surface with audible frustration. ]

I HATE THIS JOB!

2. CULTURE OF THE YOUNG AND VAIN (around, somewhere ...)

[ When his mood considerably sobers, he takes his paycheck for a supermarket splurge to refuel his stockpile of frozen dinners and comes away with several plastic bags full of cheap, cholesterol-inducing foods. Normally he'd head straight for his apartment, but Elliot decides to take the scenic route and ends up finding the kitschiest merchant stalls known to man. One minute he's minding his own business, and the next he's surrounding by a copious amount of creams and lotions purported to rejuvenate youth, like he'd just been plunked in the middle of a health ad and was ethically obligated to spout off some hypocritical drivel about the losers who'd buy into such scams. Seriously.

Well, beggars can't be choosers. Elliot wastes no time forcing his way to the front to blithely jab a finger at one of the offending vendors in question. ]

[ You know, because there's nothing wrong with waxing poetic on insurrection to the merchants. With this kind of bullheaded mentality, Elliot's lucky he isn't get his ass hauled away by security guards right this minute. ]

3. LMAO, SPOILERS (still around ...)

[ Wayward hellion of paltry exasperation that he is, Elliot Nightray can't get by without self-gratifying himself on one of the finer things in life. Namely, literature. So he makes a habit of scanning the shelves of the bookstore with a probing fixation at least once a week, turning up his nose at the YA section and heading for the classics to spend hours turning through the pages, scouring the contents for answers, or maybe just a quick read.

Only — today it's different, because he's currently engaged in some kind of weird, heated argument with the cashier. On closer inspection, it's composed mostly of angry, one-sided outbursts, like: ]

at all

[ Or: ]

Holy Knight

[ If nothing else, bystanders can at least pick up on the fact that there's a very frustrated fanboy hogging the front desk to blather on and on about the most emotionally bloated, self-indulgent novels to ever grace the Latowidge Academy library. ]

4. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (wildcard!)

~~i didn't put him in school~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Wow, Totsuka is actually really impressed. This is the sort of fury that can only be inspired when the person in question really cares about the thing they're screaming about, right? He can't remember the last time he got angry about anything. (Totsuka please don't admire the guy screaming in the bookstore...)]

I don't see how standing in line will get you answers any faster though. [Totsuka says, mildy and without the fiery RAGE that everyone else in the store is probably feeling right now. Even while he says this, his eyes rest on a particularly SAD AND FRIGHTENED LOOKING LITTLE GIRL WAITING IN LINE WITH HER MOTHER... Elliot doesn't seem to be a cold savage... Maybe he can use this. Also, this little girl is hella cute. He squats down and effectively pulls her into a brief conversation, with her mumbling but eventually answering Totsuka's questions. Whether or not Elliot's paying any attention to Totsuka the Loli Whisperer, Totsuka straightens up and taps him on his shoulder regardless.]

Are you sure you don't want to move to the side? [earnestly!! and perfectly framed by the wibbly eyes of the girl behind him] Ellen's really looking forward to buying her picture book. And I'm sure she won't take long, right?

[THE LITTLE GIRL JUST LOOKS SCARED but also hopeful as she nods... while gazing up at Elliot...]

[ WHAT THE HELL, THAT'S TOO CONVINCING; PROBABLY THE BEST ARGUMENT HE'S HEARD ALL DAY.

You see, over the course of the last three hours, Elliot's systematically destroyed all forms of resistance: students trying to switch-out their old textbooks for new copies, fellow nerds systematically ripping their hair out after he out-yelled them into submission, every adult in the room giving him the death glare before a good quarter of them left en masse. There hadn't been any children, though — to be blunt, he hadn't even noticed that little kid huddled behind her disconsolately livid mother until Totsuka brought that woebegone little girl into his line of sight.

Game over.

Elliot's doing his best to hold his ground, but like anyone under the influence of cute children, he's utterly defenseless. Is Ellen her even her real name? Is she a genuine child or just an incredibly youthful-looking midget? In the end, all outside variables are inconsequential because he's been completely annihilated by a loli in pigtails plaintively staring up at him like a deer in headlights. Goodbye, perseverance. His gaze stutters between them for a few blinking seconds before it skitters along the adjacent wall in utter mortification. ]

I — ... well, she didn't say anything.

[ PITIFUL. WHAT A LOW BLOW. Nevertheless, Elliot has enough ingrained decorum to move to the side and allow the girl to pass. ... He hasn't stepped out of the line yet, though?! Incredible. This is truly desperation at its finest. ]

[incredible… Totsuka slides to the side as well, watching as the little girl (TRULY, no one will ever know if she’s a little girl or a midget) gives a wobbly ‘thank you’ to Elliot… while her mother looks Relieved that her life will finally move on.]

I’m sure she wanted to, but she was probably too frightened. [NO OFFENSE ELLIOTO] You’re rather intimidating, you know? It's perfect against people who've done the wrong thing, but it's intense for everyone else!

[laughs... elliot is sure still in the line but if he can move for tiny girls then he'll surely move for similar damsels in distress...]

[ And life continues on, although Elliot continues to look completely blindsided, like he's staring straight into the sun even though it's just Totsuka being a good Samaritan. Clearly, he wasn't ready for this treacherous battle if he's upended so easily by one measly child.

Then again — ]

... Intense? I was just speaking normally. It's nothing to be intimidated over.

[ YELLING IS NORMAL FOR HIM, bless his emotionally-stunted head. If Leo caught word of him causing trouble for retail workers everywhere, he might've knocked some sense into his cerebrum hours before his temper hit its expiration date, but alas, his valet isn't here to curbstomp him into reluctant politeness this time around. ]

You didn't seem afraid, either.

['speaking normally' 'speaking normally' Where's Yata... Totsuka found his younger brother.]

That's because I know a lot of people who speak just like you! [an entire gang of thugs, for example. Unfortunately, Totsuka is not the official headpuncher of the group, or he'd probably dish one out for Elliot's sake. Instead, he's mister GOOD SAMARITAN. There to pacify and there to skedaddle if things get too heated.] The kind of people who get angry a lot, but don't mean any real harm. None of them read many books though.

[they all dropped out of school for a Reason.] Which reminds me, what's the book you're waiting for? Knights...?

Well, it is normal.

[ Never mind his proprietary relationship with shrieking his lungs out, he might've been insulted just now. Elliot squints at him, like maybe he could ferret out this guy's motives with enough hutzpah, but no, he's just falling back into cycles of vicious hypocrisy. Better hope Totsuka has sufficient peripheral awareness to dodge a thrown table, because it's probably going to happen at some point. ] I didn't mean anything by it. It's an assertion of my rights. No more, no less. Isn't that obvious?

[ Looks like he didn't dodge that bullet, since he's set Elliot on a one-way express trip to the realm of unrepentant fanboying. ]

Holy Knight, for your information. Don't be daft. It's not just any negligible book about knights, it's an entire series revolving around the trials of nobility and maintaing honor even in the most preposterous situations.

[ So, like, Elliot might be self-inserting himself as the character or something ... look, everyone has their dirty secrets, this is his ... ]

[Totsuka will get hit in the face with the thrown table and die... is that what you want, Elliot. At the very least, he seems to be interested in the beginning of Elliot's fanboy obsession with this series, someone tell him to run for the hills.]

Ehhh, that sounds cool! [The most Totsuka reads is manga, but trials of nobility?? knights?? maintaining honor??? that sounds sufficiently Western and foreign enough to be really intriguing?! And while his interest is genuine, he might also be hoping that this might result in less yelling for everyone.] Preposterous situation -- like during kidnappings or chasing after runaway animals?

[ Yes, that's exactly what he wants. More innocent blood on his hands. Seeing how Elliot's nothing less than the benefiting party in this interaction, he'll be more than happy to completely bypass remaining on glaring terms with the increasingly exasperated desk clerk to prattle off at Totsuka, like this is nothing new. If he plays his cards right, maybe he can even get this quasi-Victorian dummy to finally get out of the way of all the actual customers and do something productive for once. ]

Of course! In my humble opinion, it's one of the best series ever written! [ LISTEN ... he's been sheltered and suffers from at least three different types of mental repression, okay, this is like one of the only real joys in his life. ] In a sense.

The protagonist, Edwin, is nothing less than remarkable when handling the pratfalls that constantly plague him. He lives his life with genuine pride and no regrets. But why is it that all of the attention becomes focused on Edgar?! He's only his valet, but nothing in his life is remotely worth an ounce of admiration! Edgar actually ends up dying for his own self-satisfaction. Ridiculous! Can you believe that kind of hypocrisy?! What kind of dumbass would throw his life away with such ease like that?!

[ As it turns out, Elliot has zero qualms about spoiling Totsuka or ranting at him about a series he hasn't even read. ]

( OPEN ) i don't want a mental suplex, i want quality customer service

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