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etcelsior2018-12-15 11:19 am
maskormods) wrote in etcelsior2018-12-15 11:19 am
Entry tags:
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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"Yeah, I gotta admit, that is something else. You okay? Still got all your bits attached?"
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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?
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"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.
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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.
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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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"Bragging rights after beating you in a race better be worth all this headache," he grumbled, scooting over in the swaying hammock in case Poe wanted to join him. It was cold and a little windy but also a lot less complicated up here. He almost didn't want to go back down. Ever. "How do you get used to this place?"
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Who was, as far as memory and experience went, actually dead, and here was his younger ghost.
Really need to stop thinking like that, Poe.
"I'm not sure I ever totally have," he admitted. "You just kind of have to take each day as it comes, I guess. I'll admit that you start taking some things for granted, though. Like the nanites. It's a lot harder to justify not taking a risk when you know you've got a ninety percent chance of being resurrected in a few days.
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"Ninety percent still isn't that great," Finn answered, staring up at the sky. Poe taking risks sounded about right but those odds could still be better. "The experience usually isn't too fun either... I just- I don't know. I don't know if I could take any of it for granted. One half is insane and the other half is too good to be true. No fight. Just... being."
As a soldier all his life, he didn't know what was supposed to come next. It was more intimidating than an actual battle. If he got this wrong, well, what hope was there? How did he do this stuff right? "Did I take it for granted before? What did I even do with my free time?" Poe had seemed reluctant to tell him detailed stories of the past before, but that was also a totally different conversation. He wanted to know more about those missing months of his life, craved to have those pieces of himself back or at least understood from a distance.
There had to be more than building a home. He had to have wanted the home in the first place.
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"... Nah. You never took it for granted," he replied, his voice softening. "Not a single minute of it. You'd get mad when I did. But you were - you were a lot better at this place, than I've ever been. You worked so hard..." He trailed off, the frown pulling at his features as he turned his head to look anywhere else. "You uh - you'd been assigned this group of kids - scouts - and you had no idea what you were doing and yet you threw yourself into it. Spent way too much time out of work trying to figure out ways to entertain them, keep them interested. You even took me, a couple of times, just to show the flying and stuff like that."
There was a pause, trying to ignore the way something cracked painfully in his chest, and keep his tone as casual as he could while he said; "... They really loved you."
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Maybe since he was here now, that wouldn't have to be an issue anymore. He could help protect them all.
Regardless, it was fantastic to hear that he hadn't taken any of the good things or their lives here for granted last time. And he could absolutely see why he'd get mad at Poe for doing the opposite. Hopefully, those particular bits wouldn't be relived.
His gaze settled on Poe as the other spoke about these supposed children that Finn had looked after. For some reason that he couldn't grasp, Poe looked upset talking about them. Was it because Finn left them behind, too? Had they missed him? "I'll look them up," he replied softly, mostly as a way to make amends and get that look off of Poe's face. He didn't remember the kids but maybe they'd be okay with meeting him all over again. "I-... You think that'd be okay?" Would he just make it all worse? Was there something else he was supposed to do to fix his absence?
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At the soft question, Poe forced himself to look over at him, ignoring the pain. Finn was more important than wallowing in his own grief.
He gently patted Finn's hand on his arm.
"Yeah. I think they'd be happy to see you. They just... might not understand fully understand why you don't remember them. But being an imPort tends to explain away a lot of weirdness."
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But he didn't know how to help Poe. Too much had happened back home, and his own explanations failed to get across the scope of it, apparently. That had been one point of pain. Since he arrived, though, the toll of this place was apparent in the lines of Poe's face and the deaths he'd so casually mentioned. Another point of pain. Then there was something he was missing entirely, something that centered on himself. Planning to meet with these kids hadn't made that sad look in his eyes vanish at all, so that hadn't helped or been the issue.
Perhaps it was all just this place. Perhaps Poe's just lost too many people.
It was a bit of a risk, not knowing exactly why or how he factored into this mess before he'd even been able to explain the events of home. Risk or not, he slid his hand down to grab Poe's hand, hoping he'd be the only one hurt with the action if that turned sideways. "I won't take it for granted this time either," he promised with as much conviction as he felt. "If there's something- If there's anything I can do to- to make those missing months better-" For anyone. For you. "Just let me know, okay?"
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He had a sudden flashback to a conversation, months ago, where he had talked to 622 about just this thing - about how he couldn't put Finn back into the same spot that he was. That it wasn't fair, on either of them. That he wanted to be the man that Finn knew and remembered.
622 had warned him that he'd fuck it up. Not in those words, of course. But he's said that someone always came to fill the role - that a man who looked exactly the same would show up and that you'd just end up assuming they should know something they couldn't, or expect something that wouldn't be there without the context. Find yourself doing something that you would have done with the person who came before.
Poe was pretty sure he'd been talking about clones, at the time. After all, they were identical - it would be an issue that came up. But Poe had been so sure he'd be able to do it. That he'd just be able to separate the Finn from before and the Finn from after completely and cleanly in his mind. Different people. A lot of why he hadn't wanted to tell him originally was out of fear. Mostly for himself, if he was honest. Finn leaving had nearly destroyed him. He'd wrapped up so much of his life on Earth in the other man that when that pillar had been pulled out from under him, he crumbled. He hadn't wanted any romantic relationships at all - afraid the same thing would happen again.
He'd somehow managed to convince himself to move on, and yet here Finn was, back at his side, and Poe could tell he could only keep up this lie for so long. He was going to break, sooner or later. It was inevitable.
He just hoped he could control the fall out, a little.
He swallowed, thickly, the pause having drawn on too long, and he squeezed Finn's hand warmly and with far more assurance than he felt.
"Yeah. Of course. Don't worry, it'll be fine. Just gotta - find the rythym, that's all. Don't worry so much about the in between - it's not your fault, there's nothing you could have done about it and nothing to do now. Just focus on finding what you need now, okay?"
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He was reminded again of all the hints he'd gotten before, that there was evidence suggesting they had been much closer than he could dare believe. Running on the assumption that it had been correct after all, then initiating that kind of contact would have caused a lot of mixed emotions, especially with Poe's running theory that everyone here was different versions of themselves.
Finn wasn't so sure about either of those things. All he did know was that he shouldn't have grabbed Poe's hand. Before he could awkwardly take it away, though, Poe was gripping back.
Find the rhythm. Focus on now. It was hard to do that when so many parts felt missing, when a lot of himself was still back in the normal yet near hellish galaxy he called home. At the same time, he trusted Poe probably a bit too much. The pilot would never steer him wrong. Even Jakku had been the right course.
"Okay," he sighed, glancing down at their hands. If he asked, Poe would just move the answers away again. And it'd be the right course. "But I... have no idea what I need."
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"Pretty sure it's gonna take some time to figure that out. And that's okay."
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Then, with a sigh. "I'm sorry this place has been messed up for you, Poe. But I'm really glad you're here."
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"Think you can get me back to the ground? I sort of ditched my ride."
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He- He hesitated upon reaching for Poe's hand and latched on to his wrist instead, looking down at the ground below them and trying to imagine-
Then they were there, feeling a little like he did just blast through hyperspace now that he thought about it. Unfortunately, they were sitting on the ground rather than standing, perhaps making this whole thing a little too literal. He groaned. "I need a lot more practice, I think. But, hey, we're here. Bright side." Needed all the bright sides he could get.
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"Man. That's a power and a half. Think that's just bright, buddy, not even a bright side." He finally stood up, brushing himself off, and then offered an arm to help Finn up.
"But you probably need food or sleep or both, and here I am dragging you everywhere."
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"I want to see it all, though. I'm fine." His body immediately proved him a liar as he tried to get up, missing Poe's hand and slipping back to the ground. When was the last time he slept? Before the Supremacy. After Canto Bight, right? He couldn't remember... When Finn reached for Poe's hand again, it was with a little more care as he picked himself up. "Maybe getting back to this later isn't such a bad idea, though."
It wasn't just the time between sleep. It was everything that had happened, too. To say he was exhausted would be an understatement, but ignoring the need seemed even more worthwhile.
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