fandomhighdorms | Dorm Lobby, Saturday Afternoon

A trip to Japan might not have ended in some wacky adventures on a normal day, with people who weren't from Fandom or inclined to getting roped into insanity. It might have just ended with some sore feet from walking around and bad souvenirs being purchased.

But that was not to be for the group who had just returned from their little visit. Stan wearing very different clothing than he'd started with, Butters in what appeared to be a maid's outfit and some kitty ears, Toby missing a shoe and his shirt, Jim having some skillfully applied Kabuki make up on and Sam with a glittery eyepatch.

"You know, I've learned something today," Stan said, arms crossed over his chest. "The future may seem pretty cool with all the robots and cyborgs running around. But I've learned that they're just the same douches that have always been around. No one is better because they live in some fruity little cyber-punk world where people ask you what you'd do if you saw a turtle in the middle of the road. And just because you have the technology to heat Pop Tarts instantaneous in someone's chest cavity and create holographic images of sexual fetishs that no one needed to know existed, that doesn't mean you should. Because it's just freakin' weird and everything should be taken in moderation. Besides, it's just going to bite us in the ass in about ten years."

A beat.

"So let's never do this again. Ever. Ever."

Yes. That was a good moral, Stan.

[[For the guys with him, but open like a public place!]]

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That got a little shudder from Stan. "I'm still trying to block that out."

Jim wrinkled his nose a little at that.

"So, remind me to add Pop Tarts to my brand new list of local wildlife to never take home as a pet," he requested, wide-eyed.

"They don't normally walk around after being in the toaster," Stan assured him. "Or talk."

Oh god, the talking.

And there was where the look of trauma came across Jim's intricately painted face.

Oh, the horror.

"I've never heard words like that," he shared, his voice a terrified murmur. "Ever."

And they got all types at the Benbow. All. Types.

And Stan was friends with one Eric Cartman. How was this more horrific?

"How do you even do half the things they talk about?"

"Cyborg implants? And possibly by dislocating most of the bones in your body," Jim supplied helpfully. "Which I'm really in no hurry to try out."

And also because there were only so many things that he could justify doing to a typewriter before he'd consider it way too much.

"I'm pretty sure we'll need a good three days of video games to get those images out of our heads."

"Really, really brutal ones," Jim agreed. Because his world didn't have airplanes, but there were totally holographic true 3D videogames. So there. "Because I'm never looking at a puzzle game the same way ever again."

"Something where you can splatter blood everywhere," Stan replied cheerfully. Which was clearly what everyone wanted.

"Yeah," Jim agreed happily. "Instead of motor oil and natto."

...

Shudder.

"Dude, I still don't even know what natto is." Other than gross.

"Neither do I," Jim pointed out. "I'm new here. But I'm pretty sure that even my mom wouldn't serve that stuff at the Benbow."

And the Benbow served giant maggots. So.

"That stuff was freakier than sushi." Stan was from the middle of the country. Sushi wasn't fresh or well known in South Park.

Jim took a moment to process that sentence.

"The sushi was the stuff that we had to defuse before eating, right?"

Just making sure.

"Yeah, the shit that glowed." Stan shook his head. "It couldn't have been very healthy."

"It's usually a bad sign when the waiter asks you if you'll need a panic button for your meal," Jim agreed, frowning thoughtfully. "Mom makes some pretty weird stuff back home, and some of it even bites back, but most people don't panic over it."

Usually.

"Next time we're finding a normal place to eat. Like P.F. Chang's. Or KFC."w

Jim was giving you that look again, Stan.

The kind of look that, in spite of the totally ferocious Kabuki makeup, said volumes about how he had no idea what either of those places were.

... So, the look that had gotten him pulled along on this madcap misadventure in the first place.

"They're normal," Stan assured him. "As long as the KFC doesn't also sell pot."

Damn it, Mr. Marsh.

"... Pot?"

Yeah. Welcome to Earth, Jim.

"You don't want any. Trust me." HELPFUL.

TOTALLY HELPFUL.

"I'll take your word for it," Jim decided. Because they had gone out for the day and they weren't dead yet, and that sort of thing always seemed important when you were trying to figure out if somebody could be taken at their word on things like, 'don't eat the glowing sushi,' or 'you don't want to know.'

"I touched some once and my parents hired a guy to pretend to be me from the future." Yes, Stan still sounded bitter about it.

"...I'm suddenly really glad that my mom never got quite that creative," Jim shared.

It helped that human males on Montressor were sort of a rare commodity. And that his mom didn't have that kind of money to blow on scaring the crap out of him.