etcelsior | walking in a winter wonderland

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test drive

walking in a winter wonderland

T E S T D R I V E M E M E

Considering apping into MASK OR MENACE? Want to dip your toes into the setting and get a feel of whether your character will fit into it? Or maybe you're just cruising and want to play around? Then you've come to the right place!

Pick any of the following scenarios below or feel free to make up your own, but don't be afraid to throw yourself at someone else's thread, either!

And remember there's only one rule in Test Drive Meme Club: HAVE FUN ON THE TEST DRIVE MEME!

01.The city of Heropa is what one might expect from a small, bright and cheery place, where locals are friendly enough and local shop owners might offer a free drink to welcome you to their fair city.

Although even Florida can get chilly during the winter, a relative heat wave is sweeping through, resulting in an impromptu Beach Body Competition sponsored by a local gym. ImPorts who are the buffest of the buff all the way down to the super skinniest (competing in separate weight classes, of course) are likely to be urged to join in for some fun in the sun and the extra attention they garner from native fans.

Those who just aren't interested in competing might be called in to judge another competition down the beach: a youth sand-sculpting contest! Only one team can walk away with the grand prize of a laser tag package, but can you bring yourself to be harsh on those wide, hopeful eyes?

02. De Chima, Virginia, is a large city with a healthy economy, with large numbers of citizens waiting to be awed by your very presence. Look at you! Organic wonder! Synthetic wonder! Whatever you might be, those words have meaning here. Science and technology are the lifeblood of this city, so you're likely to come across a good many locals taking your picture with the newest of devices or recently published PLoS papers. The imPort craze remains high here, and you may find yourself cornered by overzealous imPort fans, media wannabes and opportunists alike, shoving cameras in your face.

With Christmas coming, the producers behind a guerilla new reality show are hard at work getting new footage—starring you! Areas of the city with the most foot traffic have been absolutely blanketed in mistletoe. If you happen to pass beneath a sprig, you might find a small camera crew jumping out of nowhere, urging you to give the person next to you a smooch—and thanks to the strange radio waves coming out of the unit on the executive producer's wrist, you'll feel a little compelled to do so!

...except the compulsion isn't that strong, so those who don't kiss on the first meet can easily break out of it. Your next choice: give the camera crew a piece of your mind, or ask the would-be kissee out for coffee? They are pretty cute...

03. Maurtia Falls, Pennsylvania has carried a reputation for ups and downs ever since imPorts began reappearing again, just those few years prior. Several imPort heroes have put focused efforts into cleaning up the streets of this somewhat infamous city, while a handful of others had swooped in to help the criminal industry thrive. More so here than the streets of any other imPort city, the battle between good and evil looks more like a war of escalation than a heroic tale. Everything from the classic bank heist to brutal bloodbaths can happen around the corner. You have to keep your eyes open and your mind sharp when you live in Maurtia Falls, and hostility against imPorts can spike. The emergence of locals with superpowers is hardly helping...

The downtown mall is tilting the balance solidly toward welcoming to imPorts with a Winter Welcome Festival. All the storefronts and many temporary kiosks occupied by local vendors are holding special sales, and newly arrived imPorts are given a coupon book to make the most of them. The food court has some free goodies for participants to mix and mingle.

Unfortunately, a local rogue with the alias of Klone Kringle is here to spoil the fun. After a small boom echoes throughout the mall, everything dissolves into chaos as dozens of copies of a man dressed in a polyester Santa Claus costume begin looting the retailers! The guns they wield that shoot snow and ice might not be lethal, but they can certainly slow you down (and give you a cold). Will you be the hero and help take down Kringle(s), or will you seize the opportunity to do some theft of your own?

04. Nonah, North Carolina, is the liveliest of all cities; loud, busy and there's always some kind of energy in the air that gets everyone buzzing with excitement.

Thanksgiving and Hanukkah have passed, Christmas and New Year's Eve are coming up, but what about holidays from home? This weekend, the Nonah Cultural Center is hosting a one-day event during which attendees can share stories of their traditions and celebrations (whether they are related to winter holidays or completely different ones) and sharing them with others, either on a small stage with a microphone or in individual recording booths, so that these tales of cultural traditions can be preserved for others to learn about. ImPorts from worlds that are not variants of Earth are particularly encouraged to attend. Small refreshment tables will also be open to those who speak.

05. Jeopardy, Nevada by all rights shouldn't exist. A glowing neon city smack in the middle of the desert, the only reason it's still here is that the central nuclear power plant has tapped half a mile down into a subterranean lake for its water supply. So though the desert around it may be barren, the occupants of this small city are happily self sufficient. Those weird figures you see out of the corner of your eyes? Don't worry too much. Probably just weird radiation after effects. Jeopardy has a lot of those.

Saturnalia is just around the corner and Jeopardy is in full festive swing! The seven-day marathon of festivities includes a parade, with a ((cw: arachnophobia)) very special float from the Web Mistress's church; a day long city-wide paintball game; an attempt to break the world record for largest bingo game with everyone playing in dead silence; and a feast!

The final feast, of course, comes with the main event: ritual sacrifice. Of course, no one actually wants to do anything quite so base, in 2018, so the sacrifice is more metaphorical than actual: the kids of North Jeopardy High have spent three months building a giant chocolate Santa tied up in ropes to be slaughtered and fed to the city at large! Bon appetit!

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[At that, Yusei can only sigh in resignation. He'd accepted this fate thrust upon him with reluctance, but...]

...It's the Fortune Cup all over again.

[That's muttered to himself, but it's not really something Ruka can't hear, either.]

Mm, maybe.

[ It's not that she doesn't remember the Fortune Cup, but for Ruka, who hasn't seen Neo Domino City in nearly nine years, the details are distant, unclear. Perhaps he's referring to the summoning of the Dragon, or perhaps to the spectacle of the sport on its own. She can't say.

Her thumbs hook into her belt loops, looking over the beach crowd in that extremely typical Serious Anime Way. ]

Then again, it's better than living in fear.

...Hm. You're not wrong.

[He nods blankly, thinking of the tournament that's much fresher and crisper in his memory. Offering them fame, fortune, and glory, while plotting and planning behind the scenes. Hiding it all behind a veneer of spectacle and gladiator fights.

Then he realizes that this complete stranger(?) had responded directly to his own comment, and he narrows his eyes.]

You saw it?

[ It's a simple question.

It's a telling question.

He won't see the way her brows furrow, not behind her glasses and her bangs, but she does turn her head a little to look at his face — at the narrowness of his eyes, the confusion there. The lack of recognition.

Of course he doesn't recognize her, not if this is his age. Her voice has changed since she was a child. She isn't a child, in any sense of the word. Why would he think her the same as that girl, hair color? It may be an uncommon shade in this world, but it's natural enough in theirs. They haven't even exchanged names.

(But the mark still throbs along her arm, and she can feel his heart resting beside her own. Can't he feel it, too?)

It's not a long pause — the thoughts race by fast enough, the conclusions falling into place, that it doesn't even look like hesitation before she pushes her sunglasses to rest atop her head, revealing her eyes — one a shade that might let him recognize her, the other hidden behind a startling swatch of red heart-shaped fabric. ]

People are the same everywhere.

[(Perhaps, if the whim of whatever grants their powers had been a little more accommodating, he would have. But the blood-red mark on his arm remains dead, the only twinging coming from Yusei's own muscles twitching, fingers clenching into a fist. He wants to run his fingers over his forearm, just to see if it's still there - but no, there's nothing, there's no point.

All that's left is the phantom sensation of skin on skin.)]

That's...

[He hadn't paid much attention to her hair color. Unlike some people (cough, cough, Kanaya), that sort of detail is normally irrelevant to him. In a world where sea green and yellow streaks are normal, it was something he'd glossed over.

But she'd removed her sunglasses for a reason, so he'd paid attention to those eyes. Or eye, as it were. The color combined with her hair was one thing, but he'd really been looking more for any kind of emotion reflected in them. Feelings that could be expressed with a single blink, or crinkling of the skin.

And, well. It's hard not to draw the obvious conclusion, but at the same time it feels impossible.]

...How...?

[how had she been pulled at such a drastically different age and time? how did she grow up like this - so different, so ready to snarl and spit venom at a moment's notice?

how did he not notice?]

...

[ There it is. Recognition (Distress) is easy to see in the way his eyes search her face, the denial that reverberates in his chest, uncertain—

She wonders if it would have been kinder to leave him in darkness. ]

... It's not a good story, Yusei. You're better off not knowing how, or why.

[ She shrugs, letting her gaze slip away. ]

It just is.

You say that, but...

[The smile on his face is hesitant, gentle. A half-wry curve of the lips, as if he's aware the slight joke he's about to make is in somewhat bad taste.]

We've both seen what happens when people take the truth with them to their graves...Ruka.

[And there it is. The first step to acknowledgement - she's used his name, after all, so he should use hers, right?]

[ She doesn't deny the name, but no mirroring smile touches her cheeks. Her lips purse, instead, and her gaze flits away, shuttered. ]

I suppose that can be your first lesson here, then. Rare is the grave that will keep itself closed, once entered. We die, and bear whatever pains it gives us, but merely wake days later as though from dreaming.

Even that way of escape is barred to us.

[Immediately, Yusei's half-smile fades, back to its resting neutral line. Half of him wants to ask her how she got so...poetic, for lack of a better word. She used to be surprisingly direct, given her nature. It was something he'd appreciated, especially compared to her exuberant (but no less endearing) brother.]

I imagine that isn't the hardest thing you have to teach me.

[If she could make being relatively safe from death sound like a bad thing...no. That shouldn't be a surprise to them. They've both already seen the terrible things that can come from an untimely revival.]

You're picking it up pretty fast.

[ The tease is light, but there's no levity to it — it's not quite mocking, or cruel, but it lingers close to that boundary. It is not a happy assessment.

It is not a happy reunion. ]

But this isn't really the right place for a lesson like that. [ She shrugs, tilting her head in indication to the Beach Body Competition actively getting under way with much more foolish individuals — and, yep, there's a few citizens pulling out professional-looking cameras off to the side. ]

I've had to be a quick study before. [As Ruka most likely knows from the short time she knew him - but how much of him does she remember? To this Ruka...is he just a strange man she knew for a rather tumultuous week in her youth before vanishing again? He wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.] Although admittedly, having a good teacher helps.

[As...pleasant as the reunion is, he's not opposed to continuing their conversation. He wants to know more (everything), get the pain over with now...but he winces at the ostentatious display. So this was what he'd almost gotten roped into?]

Here we go...

[ Maybe it's the penalty of age, or of distance, or of how much of her face is covered by that red eye patch, but her expression is hard to read — whether she knows what Yusei is referencing at the first is unclear, and she does nothing to make amends for that.

At his reaction to the... sensational display, her head cocks to one side, and she shrugs, hands digging into her pockets. ]

Well, we can always save it, if you're so interested in the show.

[A small, slightly more self-aware part of himself vaguely wonders if this is the type of first impression he has a habit of giving. He wouldn't be surprised. But his own habits have partially been formed by being raised in a harsh environment. Between her own evasive words and the way she holds herself, he wouldn't be surprised that she grew up the same way while being stuck here.

But...how harsh was it?]

I'm not.

[Despite all his doubts, his answer comes out as dry and deadpan as ever.]

I still need to figure my way around this place. I don't have time for something like that.

[ :') ]

Then let's go. You haven't eaten yet, right? The food here takes getting used to, so you may as well start now.

[ Without waiting for him to make a decision — without giving him a choice in the matter, when all is said and done — Ruka turns away from the "show," treading across the sand back towards the boardwalk. On solid ground are where they can find real restaurants that sell more than thick syrup poured over fragmented ice. ]

But, don't concern yourself with the time, so much. You don't have any control over how much you have, after all. You don't know how much time you have.

Besides, where are you going to go?

Don't you think that means I should make the most of what time I do have, then?

[Not a single minute to waste. (Even if no matter how much he does, he'll still feel regrets.)

Even though he expresses that...he doesn't think about where he's going to go. He hasn't learned enough to figure that out yet.]

Does it? I've noticed a lot of things I've only ever heard about before, but I haven't really tried any of them...actually, I haven't really thought about trying them, either.

[He hasn't really felt very hungry.]

"I don't have time for this, I don't have time for that," you say, but you don't know that. You don't have any obligations. You don't have anywhere to be, and nobody knows you here, and nobody misses you at home.

That's...

[Yusei furrows his brow. He wants to say "how could we not miss you?!" but then...

This Ruka is one he's never seen. Too old, too wizened, battered about by things he can only imagine. He'd last seen her not even a few days ago, much younger. When had she disappeared? Is there some time in the future when she'd just vanish out of sight, out of mind, a stranger coming back in her place?

Would any of them miss this Ruka?]

...

What, impossible?

[ She isn't watching him, but the hesitation in his heart is like a falter in his step. It's a wound, and it's intentional, but it's undeserved, too. You can't miss someone who isn't gone. You can't know someone you've never met.

But she replies without pause, and continues moving forward, crossing that boundary between sand and solid ground, a dry dirt buffer between the natural world and the paved streets of the human city. ]

You should prepare yourself for a lot of the impossible.

...You're right about that.

[Shouldn't everything that's already taken place be taken as proof?]

Still, even if there isn't anything for me to be beholden to right now...I don't like doing nothing, you know?

I suppose.

[ She doesn't say anything else to that, turning her focus to the buildings, the street signs, intersections — it's a short but meandering little walk, but eventually the promised dining experience emerges: a standard Americana fish house, common up and down both coasts of the country. The logo depicts an extremely large and cartoonish gull in a bib. Fish, shellfish, steaks, and — inevitably — more goddamn french fries than any population could ever need.

It is hokey as hell, and a little loud, but the appeal is that people get fed fast (and drunk fast), so it maintains a neutral-positive atmosphere. Once inside: ] How old are you?

[It's a neutral answer he's gotten at best. Whether she agrees or not...Yusei's not sure if he knows the answer.

Yusei blinks at the restaurant's almost gaudy appearance. He's not really used to places like this - even restaurants in Neo Domino didn't really promise this much...food? Is this really food?

The question, however, sufficiently distracts him.]

...Eighteen. Why?

Because that's too young for bar seating.

[ So they can't just walk in and sit wherever. She speaks to the host in quick English — accented in a way her Japanese isn't, though not in a way that betrays her first language — and is given a short time for waiting. Five minutes isn't bad.

But his answer is telling, too — it's a better frame to work with. He's definitely a Yusei that's met her as a child, sure, but that low an age means he can't have known her for long. The Yusei she met back then — yeah, he looked like this, and he wore these kinds of clothes, but that doesn't promise anything. He could have been eighteen, then, or a few years younger. The longest stretch that could be is three years, if he'd just been an old-seeming fifteen. She's known plenty of guys like that. Or, perhaps he's only known her for a day, or a week, or a month. It could be anywhere around there. It helps, but not by much.

She takes a seat, crossing her legs at the knees, folding her gloved hands there to keep them occupied. ]

So. What first?

[Yusei rolls his eyes briefly, as if to say you think that'd stop me from drinking if I really wanted to? but doesn't actually say anything. Instead, he briefly scans the menu...although admittedly, his unfamiliarity with most of the items doesn't actually help him.]

It...looks like almost everything here is either fish or...chips?

[He thinks of potato chip bags, which doesn't seem like a very good pairing with fried fish. Someone explain to this man what this menu is even about.]

Atlantic fish, and Maine lobster. Crab, crawfish, oysters. Mussels. Sometimes gator. [ Because Florida. ] And steak and burgers, if you're too picky for any of that.

[Gators. Huh.]

I can easily say we've never fished up any of those out of Satellite's waters.

[Honestly? He looks like he's about to just pick the cheapest thing off the menu and be done with it.]

don't tempt fate, olesia

that's all i fuckin do, gale

goddammit

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