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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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 worry about the prices.

[ She SEES YOU. She sees you lingering on appetizers and small plates alone, Yusei. ]

You're not buying, and they're not going to charge me full price, anyway.

[Aw, Ruuuukaaaaaaa...]

What. They owe you a favor or something?

[distraaaction.]

I'm sure they think so.

[ She shrugs one shoulder, deliberate, head canting a little to the side. ]

They're like that with imPorts as a rule, in this town, but I'm more well-known than others, so it happens more with me.

Is it part of that... [he waves his hand vaguely] ...idolization behavior?

[He's not sure what else to call that rather insistent recruiting effort earlier.]

Why do they treat us like that? Is it really just us being novelties or heroes?

Well, sure. [ She lifts a hand, rolling it at the wrist for gesture — deliberate, artificed. ] Some of the others come from stories they already know, so it's partly, like, a dream come to life. The others, we're othered because of our abilities and our potentials. Some do become heroes, so there's a... sense of gratitude, there. Our presence alone is a deterrent for their national enemies, so the fact we exist at all quelled the thirst for war. Hard to convince your military to attack when three people can do the work of three thousand. Y'know?

[ She turns her attention back to the menu, gloved fingers tracing over entrees. ]

And most imPorts are only mayflies, in the long-term, so they have to seize the chances they get. They might not see you again.

Edited 2018-12-25 21:19 (UTC)

A deterrent, but even so...

[If it was a complete solution to everyone's problems, they wouldn't need to be heroes in the first place, would they?]

The way you talk about other imPorts...how long have you been here?

[She keeps saying "most" imPorts, implying more people know her around...

He can't help but wonder.]

Me? Oh, I got here in February.

[ She says it flippantly, not looking up. ]

So that's almost a year. Before that, it was six months. Before that, about two years, since I was part of the refugee wave. But that's still only this world.

[Yusei's brow furrows.

Somehow, the length of time doesn't surprise him. With her looking this old...maybe it would have been a bigger surprise to hear that she would only have been here a year or two. What's weird about this is...]

...You kept getting pulled in and out? And what do you mean this world?

[Yusei's not sure if he likes the idea of there being more than one world pulling people out of their lives.]

I mean, you've got the wrong question.

[ This time she looks up, her smile only rising to her cheeks. ]

You ask, how long I've been here, but you really want to know how long I've been gone.

[ Her expression doesn't waver. ]

I haven't seen Neo Domino City since I was eleven. When we closed the door to the underworld. I've never been back since then.

[Yusei can't help but flinch in shock. How could he not? Being told that someone he'd come to care for was whisked away to another world and gone for years upon years?

But at the same time...something doesn't add up.]

But that...that's the same time I was taken away from.

Yeah? [ There's absolutely no shock at that revelation — even if his feels like a hole opening up beneath them both. ] I wondered if it might be then. You still have your mark, right?

[ She lays her menu down, decided, keeping easy hold of her level demeanor. ]

Time discrepancies like this are pretty common.

I do. But it didn't react to you, so...

[Did it lose its power? Or does she not have her mark anymore...?]

...I suppose that's just another thing for me to get used to.

[oh, there he goes. Trying to put up that stoic face of his. Maybe it's something that looked impressed to the younger Ruka, but it probably looks more like a child posturing to her these days.]

Mm. Your powers must be different, now. [ She felt when he arrived, but she didn't go to him. She didn't reach out, not when there was no feeling of response.

She doesn't say anything about it. ]

I'm sorry.

They are, as far as I can tell.

...

[There could be so many things she's apologizing for. Being here for so long. Dropping bombshell after bombshell without end. Avoiding him.]

...There's nothing you need to apologize for.

[In the end, he'd never blame her for any of that.]

That you can see. So far.

[ It comes as easy as any other answer — practiced, repeated, the same sorts of conversations repeating year after year, just different people on the other end of it. She brushes some of the loose bangs back behind her ear, in unthinking refocusing of the change in her face, in her demeanor. ]

But, not all apologies are about fault and blame, you know. I can still be sorry that you're stuck here, for however long it is, or that I'm what you're stuck with, for familiar faces. I know you'd rather it be no one. Or, if it was someone, I know I'm not the top of your list. That's nothing to do with fault, Yusei. That's just what is.

...You're not wrong.

[He wants to let out assurances, denials, platitudes. But the truth of the matter is that as important Ruka is to him, she's also someone he's barely known for a week at this point. There are others he's known longer, is equally fond of.

And it's not wrong that he'd rather have none of them stolen away like this. Or if it had to be someone, then why couldn't it have been him?

Still, he can't help but shake his head and chuckle ruefully. When did Ruka become so world-weary? So...dare he say it - wise?]

You're starting to sound like Martha now, you know that?

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