etcelsior | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Have you already received a satisfactory one then?" Sabriel doesn't seem outwardly put off by the lack of reaction. Instead, she's a little curious. Most new imPorts are some combination of disoriented, distressed, or curious,like she was. This one just seems bored, and Sabriel wonders if he just doesn't believe this is happening. No one in either Ancelctierre or the Old Kingdom would have believed it if she told them about it, except perhaps her father, and then because she was his daughter. And he was dead now.

"Or have you been here for some time?" She didn't recognize him, but she didn't know every imPort either.

Edited 2018-12-17 03:14 (UTC)

Satisfactory? No. Satisfaction will be some time in coming, and he doubts he'll find any part of it here. But he doubts this human can contribute much in that regard.

"I read the pamphlet." Believing it was a different topic. Still, whatever the real reason for their presence, the reality of it was hard to deny. Even if they could generate a simulation this complex, CyberLife had no time left to spare on testing.

"Did you?"

"Yes, I did. And my file. Then I sought out additional information. This world is different from my own, in ways both obvious and subtle." Like not being able to walk into Death. But she wasn't going to trouble a stranger with that information.

"What did you think of the pamphlet? Or what was written in your file. Are your powers new to you?"

The fact that they were even having this conversation was certainly a testament to some differences. Where Connor comes from, humans typically knew better than to coddle a machine for being new. Still, even acknowledging the different standards, this one seems... unusually persistent.

Ulterior motives?

The android's brows flex faintly. "Suspiciously thorough, and unexpectedly brief." He doesn't clarify which descriptor matches which. The bored expression doesn't leave, but the LED at his temple flickers, a momentary yellow glow.

Replaceable.

"No."

"Ah. Well, you're ahead of some new arrivals then," Sabriel says, her eyes flicking to the- light? Mark? On his head with a curious expression as one hand moves to the mark on her own forehead. It looks like a scar, or perhaps a faded tattoo, but it brightens as she touches it, shining like gold reflecting sunlight, even though it's overcast right now. She continues, her voice still bright and friendly even as the conversation starts veering toward the absurd- or what Sabriel sees as absurd, at least.

"What they don't mention is that there's an organization called the OTO which opposes imPorts, and goes to considerable trouble to do us harm, and the town of Jeopardy appeared rather mysteriously, but only imPorts remember it not existing." Or the world devouring thing that the OTO has apparently made contact with, but one thing at a time. Even if this stranger is taking the whole thing remarkably well.

Edited 2018-12-23 16:14 (UTC)

Connor's eyes narrow slightly as the mark on the human's head begins to glow. It doesn't help when his attempt at scanning returns nothing: not just an unknown value, but a prickling hash of errors that lodge in his analysis suite. He flushes the bad data, tries again—has to redirect the application quickly as it threatens to crash. The rest of her vitals... return as normal.

Definitely a human...

"OTO?"

Mysterious towns were interesting enough, he supposes. But the bigger priority was whatever might interfere with his mission.

Sabriel pushes back on her sudden desire to touch the mark on the stranger's head, and let him touch her Charter mark in exchange- he's clearly not from the Old Kingdom, and might see it as rude. Instead she answers his question.

"I don't have any personal experience with them, but imPorts have kept records, so this is what I know. The Otherworld Technologies Organization. They were initially a research organization- part of this country's government, but defected after having their projects refused for being too dangerous, although I don't understand why that made them hate us."

But Sabriel pushes on, listing various events the group is behind. She wasn't there for most of it- or doesn't remember, at any rate- but she's read Kaneki and Aegis Force's records. Her tone is as calm and competent as she can make it, but some exasperated incredulity pokes through. Sabriel's been walking in Death since she was twelve, but much of this is entirely outside her experience.

"It apparently started with an attack by creations of theirs that were both flesh and machine. Then they made copies of imPorts, and set them loose to cause trouble. Then they caused blackouts and set dangerous criminals loose, then launching missiles at a porter city, except- imPorts went back in time and stopped it? I'm sorry you'd have to ask someone who was there exactly what happened."

"Then they- or some of them- made some sort of bargain with- I'm not sure what to call Atropos- some sort of powerful, dangerous spirit, because they apparently wanted to act like Free Magic sorcerers-" And there's definitely venom as Sabriel says those three words. Science might be something she lacks knowledge of, but foolishly making pacts with hostile supernatural forces was something she knew all too much about.

"With its help, they made a false Porter, and things went wrong- six hundred people died in this city. Then imPorts launched a successful attack on the OTO's Mars base shortly before I was Ported in. The base was destroyed, but they were apparently trying to give powers to people from this world. Does that answer your question?"

walking in a winter wonderland

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