| The California Chronicles: Thursday December 26th, Evening; Arrival [For the peeps invited on vacation with Shane and Natsumi] | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 16 2014, 03:28 PM (810 Views) | |
| The One True Nobody | Mar 16 2014, 03:28 PM Post #1 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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It wasn't the most expensive hotel in Los Angeles and it sure as hell wasn't the classiest, but it wasn't the worst and it wasn't even close to the worst. In fact (thought Shane, as he held one of the long line of front doors open and looked up through the tower, which granted a full view of all floors and several elevators in glass-tube shafts because why not), it looked pretty nice, although he had a sneaking suspicion he'd been right to tell everyone to bring their own damn toiletries. Apparently several hundred dollars a night wasn't enough to expect soap and shampoo to actually be provided, and brushes and toothbrushes almost never were, for semi-obvious reasons (although they probably sold them in a shop down here). Kyo Charinko, who stepped in a bit behind Natsumi Aizawa, moved off to the side where she could stand by the wall and crane her neck, trying to see as far up the damn thing as possible. Eventually she whistled. "That's tall. Think the builders were compensatin' for somethin'?" she asked, glancing back at her boyfriend and smirking a bit. Shane rolled his eyes, and brushed a hand over his (undyed and brown) hair, tucking his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants, underneath what was--today--a rather ordinary-looking leather jacket, that stopped just below the waist and everything. "They were compensating for not being able to fit six billion bedrooms in half a square mile without building a tall building first," he said dryly. Kyo poked her tongue out at Shane and turned to face the throng of people going to and fro around the place. "Right, right..." she answered dully. "For such a smartass, dude, you really do kill the mood." "Or maybe dick jokes just aren't funny-on-command," Shane replied with a shake of his head, moving to walk past Kyo and giving everyone else at the doors a wave. "You all wait for me by the hotel cafe. I'm gonna go deal with rooms. Might take a while, place seems pretty full. Can anyone here read the menus? ...I'm sure one or two of you can read the menus." It was the sensible option, Shane being the only fluent English-speaker in the group (read: no accent) and the one who'd organized the trip in the first place, so Kyo had no objections; she just returned Shane's wave as he left and then turned to face the others, grinning like a little kid in a toy store. "Man! So we're really in 'Murrica. Hollywood Town, even! There's a Universal Studios thing around here, right? Also, does, uh... does anyone remember how many rooms we've got between us? I think I mighta been distracted lookin' out the window when he told us on the plane, hehe..." As it happened, Shane had managed a whole four rooms: one for himself and Natsumi, one for Kyo and Hiroko, one for Isoroku and Hanako, and one for... well, Shinta. He was the odd man out and somehow Shane didn't think stuffing him in a room with two girls was going to do any favors for his apparent bachelor's-inferiority-complex. Shane had dodged the question whenever someone asked him how much these rooms had cost him, saying it was all going on his parents' credit card, so there was nothing to worry about... The hotel itself was large and circular. From the outside it had given the impression of some slightly overdone piece of modern art. The drill-like architecture did sort of lend a little credibility to Kyo's suggestion that the architect might have been compensating, but from the inside, it just looked overly vast and impressive, as expensive hotel lobbies tend to look until you actually go looking for a room and realize the hallways are all, in fact, simply hallways, and the bedrooms (however well-furnished) are just bedrooms. The cafe that Shane had indicated they should wait at was on the other side of the lobby, and on the other side of the totally-unnecessary-but-quite-pretty fountain in the middle. It didn't have statues, disappointingly. Kyo had been hoping for statues... It would have been a fantastic place for a nerd convention, Kyo thought! And she made a note to look up local conventions for the hell of it, once she'd hooked her laptop up to the hotel's free wi-fi. That thought, of course, set her to wondering how much money had to have gone into a router system that could provide decent Internet to this many people at once... well of course not everyone would be using the Internet at all times! After all, who bought an expensive hotel room in Los Angeles just to sit on an armchair playing Candy Crush... or deleting Facebook invitations to play Candy Crush, in her case. |
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| GKG | Mar 16 2014, 06:20 PM Post #2 |
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when ur team wipes but ur ult is at 15%
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The hotel was, to tell the truth, a rather impressive sight - not because its architecture was particularly remarkable in itself, but because it was big. It didn't stand out that much amongst the other massive buildings Los Angeles had to offer, though - well, such was America, she supposed. Natsumi was humming the tune to Hotel California in a rather ironical manner as she stepped into the hotel lobby, and looked around - she whistled almost at the same moment as Kyo, even. "We planned four rooms. I think that was the most pragmatic decision, too." she replied to Kyo's question, eyeing Shinta briefly - though, as she saw it, they'd probably end up using the rooms only to sleep, since they'd more than likely end up hanging out somewhere else. She'd used we - because Shane and her had discussed the distribution of the rooms beforehand, and she'd agreed that giving Shinta his own room was the best thing to do. Well, as long as they didn't spend too much time alone in their own room, that should be too much of a problem... She stifled a small yawn, and looked in the café's direction. They'd have eight hours' worth of jet lag (twenty-four minus sixteen, since there was sixteen hours of difference between Japan and California) to get rid of, and she'd made sure to get an amount of sleep just low enough for her to feel actually tired at the hours people in America felt tired tonight - Los Angeles wouldn't change its hours for them just because they'd come to see it, after all. It would be already noon or so in Japan... She almost turned to Kyo to state that their trip would begin by the both of them having sex with their respective boyfriend in America - not a bad way to start a trip abroad by any stretch of the mind at all -, but she realized that it would have been a somewhat innapropriate thing to state in front of the others - even if it would quite likely be true. Well, they'd have time to talk about boyfriend-fucking and other girl things sometime else... Or they wouldn't. Wouldn't make much difference either way. She started to hum Californication, for a reason the others wouldn't understand if they didn't have extremely convoluted thought processes or couldn't read minds. She was looking forward to letting go of her luggage, but that would have to wait until Shane was done with their rooms. The Japanese girl reajusted her sunglasses, which probably wouldn't see much genuine use since the weather was too mild to be truly called "sunny" - but having them on her nose deliciously reminded her that she was away from home, taking a vacation that she'd been waiting for for quite a long time. Besides, they looked nice. "[Let's check that out.]" she said in heavily-accented English as she walked in the café's direction and checked the menu - she felt like drinking a little something right now, yeah. |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 16 2014, 09:52 PM Post #3 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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Honestly? Hanako wasn't too impressed with the height. She was raised in Tokyo, after all so tall buildings weren't exactly news to her. Of course she enjoyed the view and had seen plenty of places she'd love to visit. There was just… a bit of familiarity with skyscrapers. She wasn't int too good a mood actually, she milled back and tried not to ruin everyone else's mood, but she was tired, her injuries gotten helping Masumi stubbornly refused to heal, she left behind her boyfriend and for all she knew? She might have never seen him again, meanwhile Kyo and Nasumi and their respective boyfriends were probably planning to rut like rabbits that learned the world was ending tomorrow. Also? Despite what most people would say? To one especially sensitive to light and used to a more milder climate? Southern California was bright. as. fuck. That's why the brim of her dark purple Castro Hat was tugged so low, and why she had mirrored aviators and her constant companion was a bottle of SPF 150 sunscreen. Her English was…eh, could be better, could be a lot worse though. "I want to gain a water." Cottonmouth, cottonmouth like a motherfucker after that? She'd just see what they served in this fancy hotel place and go from there? Edited by Nonsequitur, Mar 16 2014, 09:53 PM.
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| fearjunkie | Mar 17 2014, 05:20 AM Post #4 |
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Oh my God, I LEFT THE STOVE ON AT HOME!
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Thank god Shinta brought sunglasses. He didn't bother trying to sleep soundly on the plane, instead alternating microsleeps and reading through a translated copy of Stephen King's post-apocalyptic door-stopper, The Stand. He was actually able to keep his eyes wide open. He was humming too- albeit, a more obscure song, Los Angeles Is Burning by Bad Religion. As for Hiroko? Well... "Gah! Sonuvabitch that's bright! Holy hell, turn off the goddamn sun!" the teen cursed in Japanese so as to not offend any English-speaking littleuns. Hiroko squinted 'til his eyes were almost shut and groaned. "I'm jet-lagged, my eyes are killing me, and the sun is like, three inches from my face!" "You're not gonna melt, Hiroko-san..." Shinta said dryly. Edited by fearjunkie, Mar 17 2014, 05:25 AM.
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| Prince Arjuna | Mar 17 2014, 06:47 AM Post #5 |
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-insert something witty here-
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Isoroku sighed. She sure felt a little sleepy due to the jet lag. Due to some reasons, her boyfriend didn't come with her, which was fine with him, considering that he had to train a few students at the dojo. Isoroku had already anticipated the brightness, and as a result, she put on a pair of sunglasses. It was the first time the part-time model to go to somewhere outside Japan, and she could only hope that her English was good enough to keep herself from embarrassing herself in front of the locals. "Oh, you're just exaggerating, Hiroko-san..." Isoroku rolled her eyes, but no one could see that considering that she wore a pair of sunglasses. Somehow, he felt a little envious to both Kyo and Natsumi because they had their respective boyfriends with them. Well, sex wasn't exactly the thing in her mind while thinking about this, but it would be better if Kakeru could come with them. Alright, there were things more interesting other than boyfriend and sex, Isoroku thought to herself. After she's done thinking about it, she walked towards the cafe before she checked the menu. She was having quite a hard time reading through the menu, considering that she wasn't used to anything that wasn't Japanese. |
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| The One True Nobody | Mar 18 2014, 01:32 PM Post #6 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Kyo's thought processes were, to put it lightly, beyond convoluted, or perhaps she just recognized the song and had a dirty mind (that was more likely). She couldn't read minds, but she started giggling almost as soon as Natsumi began humming. She wasn't about to explain the joke to anyone else, though, and Hiroko's complaints about the sunlight drew her back to reality more than quickly enough. Shane would have told them all that they were babies, because he was weak to light and wasn't having any problems (granted he had sunglasses that he could summon with a thought, so that was a thing), but Shane wasn't here right now. So the task fell to Kyo, who looked dubiously at her boyfriend. "It's not that hot," she said dully. "In fact it's kinda comfy out. Like, nice and spring-like. Yeah, sorta like early spring. Or late fall. Definitely not winter-cold, thank God." Once they were at the cafe, she stepped up to the counter (there was a pretty annoying looking line between them and ordering any food... it didn't seem like this hotel's lobby cafe did waiters and waitresses, either), and squinted a bit at the menu on the other side of the counter. "Dammit, when I get back, I seriously needta see the eye doctor," she mumbled. "Well, it looks like they do... all the standard America things, yeah, looks like they do. Lotta stuff's pre-made... I guess the really fancy-schmancy food's either room service or some other place in the hotel." She looked back at the others. "Y'saw there's a skybridge connectin' this place to a mall on the other side o' the road, right? I think it'd be better t' eat there once we're all settled in. That said, I might order some fish n' chips here. Just wanna ask a friend o' mine for his expertise before I do that." Her phone was already out, and she stepped aside, typing out a Bedlam PM while giving the others more than enough room to order. The "cafe" was a combination of cafe and food stand, as it happened--quite long, good selection, but a step beneath an actual restaurant. It looked sort of like a very expensive cafeteria, really, or perhaps a rich man's convenience store deli. The others could order whatever they wanted, but Kyo had a very important question she needed answered first, one on which held the fate of tourists everywhere in the balance... |
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| GKG | Mar 18 2014, 03:03 PM Post #7 |
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when ur team wipes but ur ult is at 15%
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Seemed like Kyo had gotten her joke - well, not so surprising, what with her being Kyo Charinko and all. The complaints about the sun sounded worse than complains to her: they were whining, because the weather was actually fairly mild, just like Kyo had said, and also for the simple reason that for fuck's sake, they'd just arrived at their destination, they could whine about completely inane things when they'd actually settled. Goddamnit. "Don't think we're gonna have enough money to eat at the fancy stuf. Well, more than once, at any rate." she replied to Kyo's statement - she'd brought a respectable amount of dosh with her for the trip, dosh that she planned to blow on clothes and souvenirs and other kinds of stuff she liked. She was pretty sure she could find physical copies of a lot of CDs around there... Dinner time was nigh, and she saw no point in ordering something to eat right at the moment - best wait until they were actually at this mall. Instead, the brunette ordered what was possibly one of the most American drinks in existence: |
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| Nonsequitur | Mar 18 2014, 04:52 PM Post #8 |
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Yellow Bubblegum
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Hanako offered her bottle of sunscreen in sympathy. She didn't really complain from what she got of the day, at least not verbally. She was still visibly uncomfortable though, so that was more or lss the same thing in the end, though. "So, Natsumi? I'm sensing a pattern here, what's next? California Girls, or perhaps some Dre and 2Pac with California Love?" Yeah, she got the play on words of what that song she was humming about. She just…eh. The word 'fornication' didn't do it for her, humor-wise. Though, she definitely was getting more aware of pop culture. Both though her own research and osmosis being around people like Kyo. She wondered if soon Natumi would have gone to specific cities in Cali after she ran out of songs about the state itself? Sinatra? …Newman? 'Sir Mixalot?' …huh? 'Well, he did rap about girls with "An LA face and an Oakland booty" didn't he?' Luckily, covering her face so well meant it would have been hard to see that Hanako was just dumbfounded by Medusa's reference. Oh, now that she thought about it? Her Grammar was off, too, wasn't it? "No, I mean I want to get a water, sorry. A sliced pork sandwich would be good, too, maybe." 'Ham', the word she was looking for was 'ham.' |
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| fearjunkie | Mar 18 2014, 08:28 PM Post #9 |
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Oh my God, I LEFT THE STOVE ON AT HOME!
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"My Persona doesn't like heat." Hiroko said quietly, eyes darting left and right. "Dude, relax. We're not gonna get lynched here, this isn't Nagashima. Hell, most people in America speak English. Shocking, I know. 'Sides, if someone found out about us here, we'd probably end up with a TV show or at the very least a circus act..." Shinta said flatly. He resumed humming 'Los Angeles Is Burning' ~When the hills of Los Angeles are burning, palm trees are candles in the murder wind So many lives are on the breeze, even the stars are ill at ease~ Aaaand now it was stuck in his head. Still, there were worse songs he could have gotten stuck in there. If anyone were to catch on to the tune, some might have found it a tad creepy that he was humming to a song with apocalyptic California imagery about the sensationalist media. When talk of money came about, he looked down at his feet, embarrassed. "I dunno about your financial situations, but I'm gonna put it out there that I'm probably the most strapped for cash..." he admitted sheepishly. |
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| Prince Arjuna | Mar 23 2014, 06:43 AM Post #10 |
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-insert something witty here-
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Isoroku was definitely having problem reading the menu, considering that she really wasn't used to read English. Her knowledge in English was between 'passable' and 'cringe-worthy', something that Edward once mocked her for that. Well, there was nothing she could do about it, and she wouldn't let that thing to stop her from enjoying herself in this vacation. Using her 'passable' English, she ordered ice cream soda as a drink. She didn't feel like eating anything at the moment. The others were talking about American songs which seemed to be kind of obscure for Isoroku, and while they were talking to each other about that thing, Isoroku felt left out while having a confused look on her face, at the same time sipping her ice cream soda with her straw. "Dear, you should at least broaden your view and start looking at things other than books. At this rate, you're going to get yourself left out and confused at everything people around you are saying..." Penitent Gretchen chided gently from inside her head. "Y-yes, I'll remember that, Gretchen..." Isoroku replied to her Persona mentally. She made a mental note for herself to study more about all these things so that she wouldn't be left out. |
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