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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It wasn't far, and Poe swiped his own card to open the door before stepping in. The unit looked identical to his, save that it was pretty barren, and the heat obviously wasn't on because it was just as cold inside as it was outside. But Poe stepped over to a box on the wall and hit a few numbers before a low hum started to fill the room.

"I know it's not much to look at," he murmured by way of apology as he stepped further in. "But they're all basically the same. You can link two of them together to make a bigger one, but, it ends up feeling like a bit too much space. Everything feels like a bit too much space on this planet, I swear. Even our house on Yavin is tiny compared to a lot of the houses they have out here."

He padded his way to the bathroom, still rambling about stupid shit like houses and indoor plumbing while his brain was firmly stuck on how do I tell him I'm seeing someone. It wasn't that he wanted to be stuck on that question - he would very much like to ignore that whole thing entirely - but he also felt like he had to, as soon as possible, before his power made him or someone else say something instead--

"There we go, hot water's working. You can grab some towels from my place." Finn had probably bought some of them in the first place anyway. "You should be able to see the orchard pretty well from the bedroom, if you want to check."

Poe was rambling again, and Finn wasn't beside himself to interrupt. He kind of liked the babbling even if he was having a hard time understanding and keeping up. Whether it was because he was so tired or this place or something else, he didn't know. Again, it was a good kind of overwhelmed.

At Poe's urging, Finn went to the bedroom (much less interesting and inviting than Poe's) and broke into a big smile at the promised view. "This is great, Poe. I love it," he said with a laugh, hoping his voice carried but not sure he'd been heard.

So he left the room to find him again. "This whole place is great. I know what you said before, but it's a lot. Thank you. Anything I can do to help out around here?"

Helping would make him feel better about it. Sort of earn his keep. It wasn't like he remembered that this place was his before. Besides, he'd been a janitorial handyman with the Order. Might be useful here.

Poe had followed, just enough so he could get a glance of Finn silhouetted against the window, calling back to him with a laugh. It was awful. If by awful he meant amazing and perfect and a little too good to be true.

He'd be ready this time, he thought. He'd be ready for the inevitable day when either he or Finn disappeared again. It wasn't going to destroy him like it did the last time. He wasn't going to let it.

This wasn't a place to build anything that lasted.

He smiled when Finn turned back around.

"Trust me, there's plenty you can do. This place takes a lot of upkeep. BB-8 can help you figure out what to do there - he's the one who keeps me on task, at least. But just - let yourself settle in, first, alright? There's a lot we can do, once you've found you feet. A lot of people I want you to meet."

There was a pause, just long enough to be unnatural, before his brain just said just fucking say something, you coward. He cleared his throat.

"Uh - one person in particular, that I- yeah. I think you'll like him. I think you have a lot in common, and he's-- yeah. He's just - really great." Cool. Awesome. Amazing. Super fucking suave, Dameron, you moron. He felt a subtle heat rise to his cheeks. "But it can wait. You should get settled in, first."

"If you say so," Finn replied to the prospect of settling in but did so with a smile. He definitely wanted to get some rest and try to think things through. Maybe not too much of either, though.

He also gave a subtle thumbs up to BB-8, planning to learn binary at the earliest opportunity, when Poe kept talking. Finn perked up at the idea of meeting this one person in particular, though it sounded like... he had an ulterior motive? If he'd been on Earth for longer than a couple of hours, he'd wonder if Poe was trying to set him up with someone. But again, ridiculous. His brain was just too tired to figure out Poe right now.

Instead, he smiled brightly and spoke sincerely, taking the comment for the face value it was. "That sounds awesome. Whenever you want, Poe. To be honest, I don't think I can take much downtime." Ah- Hm... Yeah, Poe's power sucked a little. He decided to not say as much, though, and just take the hit for being an awkward guy who said dumb things and spoke too much. But, uh, he shrugged to make up for it. "I'll find things to do until then. Right, BB-8?"

"Yeah, trust me, I get that," Poe said emphatically, not even realising it was something that Finn hadn't meant to say. He hated downtime. And Force knew he had too much of it.

"Your folder should have your assigned job in it," he pointed out, though didn't ask further because those get assigned through app acceptances, so he just blew right past it. "But there's a couple other things I want to show you, if you don't just want to crash."

He could have tried to further explain the whole 622 situation, but his burst of courage had been used up already and his brain was telling him that it was fine to leave it to later, now. It'd be fine!!

Oh, right, a job, yes, that was going to be a thing. Even so, Finn still liked the idea of having more to do than just an average workday allowed.

And he didn't kinda want to crash... but not as much as he wanted to see whatever it was Poe wanted to show him. "I've got nothing but time now, I guess. Crashing can wait. What you got?"

"Alright - you can leave that folder here, you aren't going to need it. Follow me."

He headed back out of the unit again, back down the stairs (two at a time, like he could ever descend stairs any slower), and then headed out towards the woods.

"So, I'm not really an infantryman, but a couple of the guys here are, and force knows I need to keep up my target practice. So after I had no more trees to plant, I built something else."

Finn kept pace with Poe, taking a brief second to look back and memorize where their units were placed on the compound. His attention was briefly taken by the trees, a hint of a smile spreading as they walked further into the wood. Nature was nice when he wasn't running drills through it or getting shot at.

"So, what? You made a target range or something?" That was an interesting idea and sounded kinda fun if he was honest. But a little off, too...

"Sort of." He flashed a smile that wasn't even forced, sliding his hands into his pockets as they walked deeper in.

"When I was a kid, dad used to take me on these hikes through the jungle. He'd call them hikes, anyway, but he was a pathfinder, so his idea of a hike was like anyone else's idea of bootcamp. I'd always get exhausted way, way before he did. He could climb right to the top of the tallest tree he could find. I'd always try, but." He smile faded into something more wistful. "Mom gave me a different way to get into the sky. Anyway. Always seemed like a bit of a waste not to keep up the training, you know? So."

They finally came to a gap between the trees, ground covered with leaves and pine needles, though the canopy still filtered the sunlight above them. They were, indeed, in a firing range - if someone had taken a firing range and then sort of sprinkled it on an obstacle course.

Where Base One was built to beautiful specifications, most of the equipment here looked like a six year old trying to figure out how to nail wood together. There were some bits that were well put together, but most of it was almost endearingly terrible. The targets, especially, had a sort of lopsided paint job that was indicative of just how well Poe could draw. (He could not.) Many of them had old print outs of pictures of Hux's face on them, the paper curled and faded and torn, like he had put them there months ago and never bothered to replace them. There was also a hammock strung up in the canopy between two of the tallest trees, footholds nailed into one of the trunks.

Poe raised his arms and turned to face Finn.

"Well? What do you think."

Finn had been about to ask why they needed an area like this if there was no war. While he was one to always be prepared, a part of him didn't like the idea of training grounds so near a place he could picture as home. But then Poe explained and the reason was suddenly clear. To him, this was home.

And it... certainly looked it. This wasn't even close to what he had pictured, used to the extreme specifications of the Order's firing ranges. There was nothing extreme or specific about any of this, which he loved a lot. Finn's lopsided grin didn't even dull when spied Hux's face and covered a startled laugh.

"I think it's great. You've been busy," he said, amused, still laughing, and turning in a circle as he took the whole thing in. Then his eyes trailed skyward and he squinted. "Is that a hammock?"

Finn's laugh set a glowing warmth in his chest and Poe smiled fondly at him, watching him turn around as he took it all in.

He glanced up where Finn pointed.

"Ah - yeah. Too cold this time of year to sleep up there - this planet has some extreme seasons - but it was nice in the summer. Just let me get away from stuff, you know?" Kaytoo had accused him of hiding, and he had been. But Finn didn't need to know that. "But yeah, I need to keep busy or I go nuts. I just--" he'd been about to say 'want to get back to the war', but he caught himself. Finn had yelled at him, last time he did that. And now that he had an idea of what was coming...

He still wanted to go back. Just to get it over with.

But his smile didn't fade.

"You can build whatever you want out here, too. I don't mind."

A hammock that high up looked dangerous but... kind of nice. Finn wasn't a stranger to something similar while in training but his memories were a lot colder and hungrier and a singular desire to just pass the exercise and leave. That looked like the opposite.

This whole little piece of wood was just the complete opposite of everything he knew before.

"I can't imagine what I'd add to it." The soldier in him had about a million ideas but this wasn't for being a soldier, not for him. "It's perfect. Don't be surprised if I'm out here more than I should be, though."

"At least it means I'll know where to find you," Poe replied warmly.

Worth it. Regardless of anything else - memories or wars or loss - in that moment building this place just finally felt worth it.

He'd feel the holes and the loss and the ghosts again in a few minutes, but it was too hard to not just simply enjoy Finn's enthusiasm.

"I don't exactly have the monetary resources that I did when I started building this place, but. Anything you want or need, just let me know. We'll figure out a way to get it."

Finn's laugh at the offer sounded almost like a scoff. "Poe, seriously, I have no idea what else I'd want." This was the first time he had a home. Hell, it was the first time he had any real downtime at all. He had no idea what to do or what he wanted. It would probably be intimidating after he got some rest. He paused then and spoke more sincerely. "But thank you."

He couldn't help but filter the offer to give him anything he wanted into that mental category of odd things Poe had mentioned today. Again, easily explained.

But since this place was a sort of training area, it did remind him of another sticking point that would hopefully distract them both. "Hey, so, how did you figure out your powers when you got here? Like, how did you start flying like that?"

"Well- honestly the flying thing came completely naturally," he replied, taking the change of subject easily. As if to demonstrate, he stepped over to a log and then hopped up onto it. A heart beat later and it was four feet in the air while he tried to keep his balance on it.

"I just sort of do it. Same with BB-8, I don't do anything, he just exists. When I first got here, though, I had another power, and that one was overwhelming as hell. I could hear tech talking to me. All tech. From planes to computers to brooms - anything designed with purpose had a voice and they would never shut up. I had no idea how to control it."

Edited 2018-12-21 14:46 (UTC)

"Brooms?" Wow, that sounded really annoying. Also kind of depressing for all the tech since they had someone to talk to and now they don't. Wouldn't have been a sad thought on his mind before he realized brooms could talk apparently.

Maybe it was just this place. That would explain a lot.

"Well, at least there was never a dull moment," he says absently, putting his hands on his waist as he looks around in thought. "You've flown before, though. You know what that feels like. I never really... teleported before." And since Poe had been so surprised, Finn was probably the only one with the ability or something. Great.

"Yeah. The shower spent most of its time critiquing my singing voice."

Poe put his own hands on his hips, subconsciously mimicking Finn's position.

"Well. Nothing like trying, right? Maybe you just got to really want to be in another place." He backed up about ten feet into a more open patch of the area. "Here, see if you can get to me."

Finn snorted at the image of Poe arguing with a showerhead. Maybe bathing would always be a different experience now, but at least he couldn't hear the appliances talk.

He cleared his laughter up to focus a little more on the challenge, though. Could it really be so simple as wanting to be somewhere else? Finn tilted his head and frowned, trying to imagine himself over on the empty patch of land, wanting to be there. Nothing seemed to happen, though, and he didn't really feel anything either.

But it had to be possible. Poe was flying a log. Anything was possible here.

After letting out a slow breath, he focused more on Poe instead, on standing beside him. The want was there, but maybe it wasn't really about that. He wanted to be plenty of places, right? It had to be more about making it happen than just wanting it. He met Poe's eyes and decided to be-

Finn vanished and reappeared with a whoosh and small yelp on Poe's side, holding on to him in the hopes he didn't fall off this thing.

Poe's instincts when it came to spacial awareness were incredibly good. They needed to be. So there was absolutely no thought involved in the way his arms snapped out, wrapping around Finn tightly to secure him to his side and thus on the log rather than tumbling off of it.

He gave a surprised laugh, having not totally known what to expect, and then realised what he was doing, and that he was still holding Finn. He felt his face get warm again and let the log land with a soft thump so he could let go.

"Hey - not bad for a first try, huh?" If his voice was a little breathless, just blame it on the surprise.

Edited 2018-12-22 14:53 (UTC)

He teleported. He just- He was in one place and-

This- The hard laugh startled even him when it fell out. Still holding on to Poe's clothes tightly, maybe a little bit of a death grip, Finn had to cover his eyes with his free hand. "Sorry," he gasped between laughs, feeling like he'd finally lost his mind. "I'm sorry. This- This place is so weird. How did I do that?" He tried to calm down, catch his breath, but the giggles were hard to abate.

Wow, he needed to sleep one of these days.

... But that was really cool, though.

He didn't try to move out of Finn's grip, just held on to his elbow and tried to keep him steady, while grinning stupidly at him.

"Yeah, I gotta admit, that is something else. You okay? Still got all your bits attached?"

"Yeah, yeah-" Finn took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of himself, even if the grin was still in place. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks, though."

He was already glancing around them, up in the trees, even at the hammock. He could go anywhere, right? But where did he want to go? "I need practice," he said absently, beneath his breath. "The folder said I can go pretty far. Anywhere I can see or been to before." And he can take others along. Did he trust himself to not somehow kill Poe, though?

"Hey, practice we can do." He followed Finn's eyeline up to the hammock.

"How about you try up there? If you miss, I can catch you." But he was pretty confident Finn wouldn't miss. He ended up right at Poe's side on the first try, right?

Poe also had a very weird grasp on things like "safety" or "danger", so he might be the wrong person to approach this with... Or 100% the right person.

Again, not so much worried about Poe's abilities than his own. Finn frowned up at the hammock. "I don't know. That's pretty high, and if I-"

Finn vanished from Poe's side and instantly reappeared falling into the hammock so high above the ground. He jerked, making it sway and giving himself about three heart attacks right on top of the other. "Oh shhhh- Okay. Okay, okay." He let out a nervous laugh and flopped down, rubbing at his eyes and raising his voice. "This might take more practice than I thought."

The view was spectacular up here, though.

Poe was half way to the hammock by the time Finn landed in it, off like a gunshot he same second he disappeared, heart slamming hard against his ribs despite himself. When Finn settled in the hammock, he slowed down, the log gliding up to the same height, and Poe tried to tell his heart to relax.

But two seconds later he was grinning in a way that really could only be called wicked.

"You're going to be the first person who can beat me in a race," he said, with an deep measure of pride. "Though we might want to find out if you maintain velocity when you teleport, or that might get messy eventually."

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