Locations · Establishment · Mountains
Casa de Vulva
They should have spoken up sooner and saved poor Harold from certain embarrassment.
Growing up, Harold was nothing more than the quiet, slightly overweight nerdy kid who stuck to himself. Too shy and socially awkward to fit in, he spent most of his time with his nose stuffed into the latest comic book. He could rattle off all sorts of facts about his favorite superheros (that is if he could ever get anyone to talk to him long enough.) The girls often twittered and giggled as he walked by. The boys played many a prank at his expense. You know the type.
Shortly before the Awakening, when his whole world was thrown upside down by his sudden transformation into an 8’ troll during his Senior year of high school, his most memorable conversation happened to be with a group of jocks. He was walking out of the school library, books on medieval history tucked under one arm, when he overheard some other boys huddled together and snickering.
“Why ‘vulva’? It sounds so weird.” He heard one say. The others snickered some more.
Such a strange word caught Harold’s attention. Vulva. It felt weird to think, even more so to say.
Harold stopped and walked up to them, tentatively.
Jake, blond, broad-shouldered football player, noticed the boy creeping toward them.
“Um… hi,” Harold said so quietly the others heard only a mumble. Faces swiveled toward his voice and he turned crimson with embarrassment, feeling all the blood rush to his face at once.
Jake started to say something but Ben slapped him on the shoulder and shook his head. “What’s up, Harold?” He said, his voice even but his eyes dancing with mischief.
Emboldened, Harold said, “Wha… what… are you… um, talking about?”
Someone snorted and a few others laughed.
“Vulvas, little man,” Ben said. “Vulvas. What do your books say about that?”
“Um, I don’t know that word,” he admitted. “But I’d really like to learn.”
“Well, it’s a sort of dish. French. Very fancy. Only the rich can afford to eat it.”
Harold thought a bit. “That sounds fantastic! I wish I had enough money to buy some. Maybe I’ll ask my mom if she knows how to cook it.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Harold kicked himself for getting too excited. Outside of abuse, this was the longest any of these boys had ever paid attention to him.
“You do that,” Ben said and turned back to his buds.
Harold asked his mother about it that night and got a slap for his troubles. He cried and ran to his room, but this was nothing new. She had become ever more religious since his father had left and it seemed such reactions were the norm. She often ranted about the demon-spawn Indians and how God would rain down destruction upon them soon enough for their dealings with the Father of Lies.
With the Awakening and Harold’s transformation, life changed dramatically for him. His mother could not handle the strain of dealing with her son becoming one of those “heathen mutants” and took her own life. He moved in with his grandfather, who took care of Harold as best he could until a stroke ended his life.
Now graduated, living in a small, remote town with little outside contact, Harold thought over his life. He had been working as a busboy in a small burger joint to support his comic habit but had no other aspirations in life. He did, however, have a decent inheritance from his grandfather. Enough to purchase his place of employment. He did so, feeling that he was eking out his place in the world.
He wanted it to be his own, to stamp his own personal mark on the place. So, he changed the name, calling it the fanciest thing he could come up with.
Casa de Vulva.
Despite looking through every French cookbook he could find, he still didn’t know what kind of dish it was. But that didn’t deter him. He settled in and ran his business. No one in that small town had the heart to tell him the truth. Some out of embarrassment. Others because he was an 8’ troll who’d been duped for years.
So if you find yourself in an out-of-the-way town in Iowa and stop at a quirky little place to eat, you’ll know the story behind it. And please don’t say anything to the troll.
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Update: Warning! This is *highly* silly.
It is silly, if a bit juvenile. Makes me wonder if they also have a mexican themed night with pink tacos. "The best place in town to eat out!" Maybe a honeymooners special platter for $69 so they can both eat out. Is the mascot a little man in a pink boat?
Quite juvenile, I would say, and intentionally so. It was done as a bet, to see if it was possible to write a sub with that exact title. I took it as a challenge.
Love the added ideas!
In a lesbian relationship, who makes the sandwich?
No one, they both eat out.
Ha!
It's actually quite charming.
Ah, la vote.
This is great, I love shadowrun (hate the system love the setting) and I thank you for opening up the gates of shadowrun specific content. But also Casa de Vulva, this kind of silly minutia is just the sort thing gets the game table rolling. Well played.
I wish I could take credit for being the first to post Shadowrun content but at least 2 others beat me to it: http://strolen.com/viewing/Miektella_Sharwan and http://strolen.com/viewing/Francesca_Vento
This could be fun with the right group. Mr Johnson calls the runners to set up a meet with a contact.
Mr Johnson: 'She'll be at the Casa de **mumble**.'
Runner: 'Casa de What?'
Mr Johnson: more mumbling.
Runner: 'Volvos? They sell cars? I thought you said it was a restaurant.'
le Vote
This would fit well in one of their old school "tour guide" sourcebooks that Fasa used to kick out the door every few months back in the day.
Simple, colorful, and amusing with enough plausability to introduce into the game as an unlikely meeting point between Johnson and runners.
Yeah, i dunno. Seems bit ludicrous to me, but people like it! What do I know? Nothin! I owe you $20 :)
My only nagging thought remains, why didn't smart Harold, look the word up...ever?
Make it a donation to the site :). The bet was too fun of a challenge on its own. (I mean, how could I pass up an opportunity to show just how mature I really am?)
And I'll practice putting on airs, saying that I took a paying job to publish to an *international* audience. Hmm, does a scarf go with a beret? I need to start practicing for my photo shoots. I hear that thoughtful fist on chin pose is quite nice.
I know why he never looked it up!
Being raised nice and proper, he had strict parental controls set up on his computer - so strict that even 'vulva' did not pass :D
(to keep all the smut from the internet and hackers out, of course)
Or - he looked it up and considered it a prank by some evil jock agency that plays pranks on nerds.
Works for me.
Besides, poor Harold never quite grew up to the point where he questioned his mother's views on the world. He has his restaurant and he can afford plenty of comics, so why would he need to learn about any of *that* kind of stuff?
Lol.
Weird, to say the least, I thought it was a biography up until the point I read the word mutant. This was mostly backstory though, not a whole lot of information on the establishment in question, like what kind of food do they serve(pink tacos were suggested) maybe clams, how's the atmosphere/interior etc. And why would he name the establishment after a supposed dish, that he nor his chéfs know how to prepare? That's like having a House of Pancakes, which doesn't serve pancakes. Silly is fine, but I like a little method to my madness.
You kids these days and your need for logic...
The restaurant has a fancy name but that doesn't mean they serve any of those fancy French dishes. Besides, I'm sure the cooks preferred to tell Harold they weren't up to the task rather than tell him the truth about the name (they've all tried it, of course, and they're all big fans, but the ingredients are too exotic, the preparation is too much, etc.) Still, he wanted it to have a fancy name and everyone was too skittish to tell him otherwise. Of course it doesn't make sense to everyone else. But it does make sense to Harold.
XD You and your dry wit. Now I have to give you an extra .5. :P
Deserves a HOH given how much fun it was to use in my Shadowrun campaign so many months ago! (and a readjustment of vote, on second glance it's worthy of more then I rated it the first time around. :) )