The Multiverse is F'd, Y'all; Wednesday, Second Period [10/25].

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Right. So."

Summer was leaning on the desk at the front of the classroom sim in the Danger Shop, in part because it was still hilarious, but mostly just because in a sim, she could project a Fandom outside the windows of the classroom that hadn't become....well...

You've all seen it by now, surely. So the Fandom outside was idyllic and unscathed by billboards and gas stations and living YouTube ads that you couldn't just skip because they were real life, and it was nice, goddammit, and she regretted every single Starbucks she'd had since they started popping up, and, in fact, had briefly popped over to another dimension and pointedly returned with some Harbucks, just to prove a point.

And, well, because it was topical to the lecture.

"You guys have probably noticed that the island has, for some reason, decided to turn itself into an absolute corporate hellscape, which means two things: one, I'm really worried that it's going through another thing, like, do not even get me started about the summer it tried to find itself and took us all along for the ride, but, you know what? We all go through a capitalist whore phase, I'm sure it'll pass, and two....let's talk brands. Because when you start getting into different dimensions and universes, you find weird little details and differences that are just slight enough to freak you out.

"Which I know isn't much of a lesson, but things are really weird this week, we're just going to take the chill road today and talk about stuff like that. I mean, even just things like this," she held up her cup as an example, "or the fact that, in some dimensions, Shoneys is actually more popular than Denny's. Where, because 9/11 didn't happen, McDonald's still has Szechuan dipping sauce on their menus. Where you have Strawberry Smiggles instead of Lucky Charms, and it is way darker. One of my favorite alternate dimensions is my favorite because they have a whole movie franchise of an IP I like that doesn't even exist in my dimension. Going off of our trip to New Zealand, there's even some dimensions where they call King of the Bracelets Lord of the Rings, which, I know, right? Mind blowing."

Oh, no, they'd entered the Meta Ouroboros now.

"So," she said, "that's it, that's the whole class. We're going to talk about brands and how they might vary between different universes and maybe all this talk about lame corporate bullshit will be overheard by the island and it'll realize that we really.....Lords of PSL forgive me for saying this, but....don't need a gazillion Starbucks and dropping the Donuts was a really dumb idea, because now you sound like the IT nerd I used to pick on back at my old high school, Dunkin."

Rube Goldberg and You, Wednesday, October 25, 2023

[meepmeepmeep]

Despite have a good thick handful of rewards memberships, high-interest credit cards, and an appointment to hear about a timeshare in Boca, Beaker was still being followed around by a smallish herd of TV-headed salespeople.

This sort of explained why he'd snuck into the classroom under a moving box, but it was Beaker. That could've been just a normal Wednesday.

"Meep meep meep meep meep!" he began, projecting a picture of a cartoon version of the TV-headed people onto the wall. "Meep meep meep meep meep!"

And those cartoon people were then electrocuted with a giant toaster, buried in Waffle House hashbrowns, and flung into the ocean with a giant catapult. Beaker had been spitballing ideas all night.

"Meep meep meep mee!" he said, gesturing at all of the stuff in the Danger Shop.

Go nuts, class! Prepare to meet aggressive salespeople with way too much aggression!

The History of Assassination. Wednesday, First Period [10/25]

[atreideslioness]

Students would arrive to find Ghanima regarding them skeptically, Trebor balanced on her hip as he attempted to eat her hair.

"Capitalism is destroying your city, and you are showing up to class," she said dryly. "What part of 'assassination is a tool to bring down unjust systems' have you all not yet absorbed from my lessons?"

Her suite at the Arms was now a Motel 6. This was unacceptable.

"I hope you wore walking shoes, because Trebor and I are going into town, to find and evaluate potential targets. If you want to stay here and continue your mental vacation from last week, I did bring a movie you can stay and watch, but I will be disappointed in you."

Ghanima marched over to the DVD player and hit 'play' before heading to the door, deftly removing her hair from Trebor's mouth and instead offering him a... wooden toy shaped like a knife.

"Chew on that instead, dearest," she said absently. "Come along then, those of you who'd like to be productive. If we can't find a shadowy cabal behind all this we can string-up, perhaps we can find a formerly-abandoned warehouse turned McDonalds that you can burn down in a collaboration with Professor Beaker."