[ti]open[/ti]stamp stampede!!

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Angelo’s squeaking Popplio shoes came to a screeching halt at the threshold to Codie’s Arcade – just there, because already a massive line had formed with a crowd scrambling to complete their collections before the end of the event. People could barely leave the escalators!

Angelo rubbed his face with his hands, trying not to blow a gasket. He should’ve picked the PLAYER stamp sooner. He’d been here everyday, but to be fair the past few days had been – a lot. Both good and bad types of a lot. He’s managed to embarrass himself in so many ways it could form its own Youtube compilation. He was cringefail incarnate.

But he couldn’t regret attending. Not when that compilation also included meeting friends he wouldn’t have traded for the world and participating in the event of his wildest dreams.

So maybe less of a fails compilation and more like a therapy topics lootbox.

He’s caught between trying to act normal (looking as if he’d crawled out of bed and ran through a 7-Eleven and the merch alley, which he did since his stuff was held hostage) and debating the logistics of starting anew in San Francisco when he’s jumped by a game of twenty questions.

“I, uh— yes?” he sputtered, blindsided by the sentient ray of sunshine as a man still processing the trauma of waking up. He tried to talk again, but his dialogue was cut into by a character with presence.

After recovering from the psychic damage of answering someone who wasn’t calling to you, Angelo averted his eyes, not wanting to butt in, but unable to help listening. The girl was eloquent; Angelo hadn’t anticipated a moral quandary over quails today, but he had it now, and he didn’t know what to do with it except stare, bewildered, as if into the futility of life itself.

“… I liked the one where we made sandwiches?” His voice eventually pushed out. “It’s, I know Starry Sub is a sequel but I wasn’t around during the first run, so it was basically its own original thing for me. It was simple, but relaxing, and we had creative freedom with the recipe. I had a lot of fun.” Kind of a lame answer after all that. “I guess it depends on the player.”

He blinked at the blonde boy. “And my favorite is Popplio. That’s what you asked after the arcade question, right? Sorry, you kind of lost me near the end.”