etcelsior | SLAY BELLS RING

Entry tags:

test drive

SLAY BELLS RING

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, they won't let that spoil the fun. It's not beach weather, but it's time for a palm tree decorating contest to bring everyone into the holiday spirit! Note that isn't technically Christmas decorating. Pick a theme, any theme, from holidays to puppies to capitalism and have at. The natives will judge and vote for their favorite- so really, there's nothing wrong with a little pandering. The winner will get both the honor of having defeated their rivals, and a free lifetime supply of Italian frozen ice and hot dogs from the sponsoring local stand.

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?

Speaking of that Italian ice, there are some free samples being offered to tempt you into competing for the prize. And, shocking to no experienced imPort, someone has meddled with it just a bit. Each of the three flavors will have a different effect and, fates help us, they can be stacked, though the effects only last about an hour. Strawberry with fill you with team spirit, encouraging you to decorate a tree in a group or spontaneously form a new rock group. Even those that usually Only Work Alone will want to form a team. Lemon will spike your competitive nature. You're not just going to win, you are going to wave the severed heads of your competitors before their weeping mothers-, er, that is, win by a lot. Finally, lime flavor with up your silliness factor. Everything's fun and happy at the Holiday season, right? Why not pull a prank or two while you're here, or just enjoy a nice knock-knock joke with friends. Hopefully you didn't get that lemon-lime mix and now must pull the most epic prank ever or show that you are the single happiest person on this or any other world. That could get complicated.

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.

Although Nonah sees milder winters than some imPort cities, it's strangely snowy today, with icicles hanging everywhere. They definitely weren't there this morning, and no storm has passed through, so what gives? A downtown disturbance makes it clear: a would-be supervillain calling himself THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN has attacked. Is he some kind of mutant, a scientifically modified human, or is there just a lot of arctic-tech stuffed into his snowsuit? Whatever its source, he's spraying ice and snow far and wide from his hands, turning the area into a winter wonderland and absolutely ruining sales for local businesses that depend on foot traffic! Also, some citizens have been frozen in blocks of ice. That's bad.

Come, heroes, and defeat this icy menace! That, or build a really cool snowman. It's your call.

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!

Usually the feast focuses on the symbolic ritual sacrifice of a giant chocolate Santa Claus, but this year is a little different. In an effort to display their gratitude for imPorts keeping their city from being ground zero of the apocalypse, they are making an entirely different set of effigies: you! Instead of one Big Chocolate Santa there are over a hundred 1/6th scale chocolate humans, each lovingly recreated in the visage of their favourite imports. Whether or not that loving visage is accurate may be up for debate, but... Hey, want to eat a chocolate rendition of your own head? Now you can!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yet you do create such wonderful proteges in your image." There had been a number in her time, she knew several and had been matched against them more than once. It seemed there was ever some young spirited charge who would take up the mantel only to have some bad end or other. Or they moved on.

He might be lonelier than she was, an idea that brought a full and true laugh from her.

[ he doesn't respond to that one. nor the laugh. he didn't choose his children, his partners, the world did, just like it had chosen him in that alleyway when he was nine. his life wasn't a joke. his happiness, or lack thereof, wasn't a joke... even if he thought that sometimes it was. that the idea of happiness and batman couldn't coexist even if he really wanted it to.

his face just remains in that sober, unflappable expression. ]

Oh, you're fa--

[ Annnnd he's being lifted up, because Caspar was not expecting this and does not weigh enough to really dig in his heels. ]

Hey! Unfair!

[ How's he supposed to go for your knees like this, dude? He tries to flail away at Magnus's arms enough to get him to let him go. ]

And that is why we can't play nice with each other. You are dour and me? Well I've already died and been reborn. Something of a perennial now I suppose." She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

"I wasn't laughing at you, pale face does that all on his own, I wouldn't stoop to his gig. No, I was laughing because I realized you might be the one person I know who is more alone than I am."

After he found his father in the city and everyone is accounted for, all is fine. Lan Sizhui is his usual calm self. Taking his father’s wisdom and advice, he explored the city, in hopes of searching for anyone familiar, anyone from home. They couldn’t be the only ones. Lan Sizhui went in search of his band of juniors. If they are truly not here, he will give up the search and be thankful they remain at home. If they are here, then they must be accountable for.

Lan Sizhui works with Jin Ling on their night hunts several times, so he understands his strategy. He can be reckless and shoot first, then think later.

What is he hunting after? Sizhui didn’t see the figures, but he had seen them hours before the side-effects faded. Is he afflicted seeing the same illlusions? With a gladness in heart, he smiles, offerings his assistance. Being casual, knowing Jin Ling can be impatient and looses his temper. “Young Master Jin. There you are. You are here. Are you in any trouble? Let me help.”

Jin Ling whirled around at the sound of his name, bow at the ready, but he relaxed as soon as he realized it was Lan Sizhui. His bow lowered, string loosening, and he drew closer to Lan Sizhui. They were allies and had fought together, and Jin Ling considered Lan Sizhui to be someone who could be trusted. "Lan Sizhui. Are you also in this place? I can see some kind of ghosts or demons, but they vanish whenever I look straight at them, and they're always... distant."

He's fired off more than one arrow at brick walls and trees (narrowly missing innocent pedestrians), but they never hit anything.

Glaring around at the illusions that slip constantly to the edges of his vision, Jin Ling tightens his grip on his bow. "What are they? What do they want?"

"Then you would do well to refrain from gambling during your stay here. Miss Tano is a valuable ally, and Skywalker is...tolerable. While it is unfortunate my knowledge of which Jedi are dispatched as assassins is outdated, I was acting in their interest."

It's the closest he's ever going to come to an apology, really. Especially considering he didn't feel much in the way of regret, as he fully believed his concerns to be well-founded. He was also well aware she could- and, in fact, had already done so- monitor his words for any trace of deception, but she'd find none. He was in the business of keeping secrets and refusing to surrender them, he lacked the necessary discipline to adequately and convincingly pull off any sort of deceit. At least not without having sufficient knowledge of who he was dealing with, so that he could rely on their own biases to form a misleading picture based off of a select set of facts.

With Aayla, he was very much in the dark on that front, and- also taking into account the current state of affairs between the multiple factions represented here- had no real reason to even bother.

"I would also advise you that you've arrived during a native celebration of sorts. It is a confusing one, but one of its traditions is to exhange gifts with your companions. Something you are more suited than anyone else on this planet to assist me with, as when it comes to Miss Tano, you have something to offer no one else does. Assist me, and I will tell you where to find Miss Tano and Skywalker in exchange."

And maybe give her the heads up about one specific detail. Maybe. It might be more entertaining to let it be a surprise, given how Jedi of her era apparently felt about attachments.

Edited (lack of proofreading D|) 2020-01-03 05:29 (UTC)

Sizhui was a bit startled when he was aiming at him, but he was used to working with him. Seeing him relaxed, he found at least one person he recognized that is a part of his party. It made Lan Sizhui glad, but he wondered about Lan Jingyi. Where could he be? Being the leaer of the group, Sizhui felt responsible, even though it's the people and this place that draws them here from home.

"I am. Not ghosts or demons. I checked with my guqin. They are illusions. They want nothing. They meant no harm. They linger for hours, but it shall pass. Let's get you away from them. You're wasting arrows."

It's an attempt to persuade him to stop shooting at invisible targets so blindly. Considering Lan Sizhui arrived shortly, so he assumed some of the juniors arrived as well. He can't be the only one.

"Did you just arrived not too long ago? I arrived a few days ago, so it hasn't been a week yet."

Sorry, Lan Wangji, she hopes you weren't looking for a rescue from her because you're not getting it. At least, not right away. She watches him with a growing amusement, seeming to take great delight in his discomfort.

Children are-- Okay. She usually finds them annoying, but they're refreshingly honest up until the age where they learn to lie more often than they tell the truth. And it's cute to watch them in a state of relative innocence, before they have to truly face and acknowledge the harsh realities of the world.

She is a little worried about the state of his robes though. They look expensive and white and children's hands could be sticky. She's surprise there aren't a gaggle of awful chocolate-shaped hand prints all over it already. He also looks like he's stepped right off the set of a photoshoot or a C-drama, and suddenly she's a little sad she doesn't have any of the costumes from her own bit roles. Maybe it would've come in handy.

But after a while she decides to have pity on him.

"Brother!"

She practically bounces up to him, immediately sliding her arm around his and smiling up at him with a look of utmost adoration and warmth. They're not even remotely related, but these are children. American children. She doubts they can tell the difference. The two of them have Asian features and black hair, what else do they need to know?

"We have to go! It's super important!"

The children fall quiet with slightly wide eyes. Super important?

"What's super important?" One little boy demands, and Miu winks with a giggle, holding a finger to her mouth in a 'shh' gesture.

"Top secret! But if we're late, it'll be bad news! you don't want to waste our time when the fate of the world is on the line, right? Ah, oops, maybe I said too much..."

There's a furious outbreak of whispering as they debate what this supposed top secret mission could be, and Miu shifts her weight, growing irritated and tense the longer it goes on. But at least she'll let go immediately if Lan Wangji tries to pull away. She's not about to cling to him the whole time.

As soon as Lan Sizhui says that he checked with his guqin, Jin Ling puts his bow away and stops worrying about it. The illusions are strange and unnerving, but he trusts Lan Sizhui and knows how good he is with using his guqin to find out what ghosts and spirits want. If Lan Sizhui says they aren't dangerous, then they aren't.

"Just today," Jin Ling agreed. Now that he was no longer so tensely on alert, he became aware of being tired and hungry. He'd been driven by adrenaline for the past hours, and now he was starting to realize that he was in a strange place filled with things he didn't understand.

It was a huge relief that Lan Sizhui was here. He thought of Lan Sizhui as more of an acquaintance than a friend, but they'd hunted together as allies and survived significant ordeals together. "Are there more of us here?"

For all of Miu's effort, she manages to get the same slight frown from Lan Wangji that the children were already getting from him, watching her bound over to him.

He stiffens as her arm slides around his, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. For a second, he's not sure of the intention of the deception - he is fairly certain no one here would mistake him for their sibling - but once the children start reacting, he sees what she is trying to do.

He doesn't pull his arm from hers, though his muscles are taught, tendons tight, as if he's waiting to launch into a fight at any moment.

Whatever she's here for, it is best to get rid of the children, if he can. He won't lie - he won't back up her deception. But he does train his gaze on the tallest of them and says in a firm, low voice:

"Go. Now."

The children seem to reach a consensus on this clearly important debate around the same time that Lan Wangji has had enough. A tenseness ripples through the little gaggle of children and a heartbeat later they scatter.

Miu laughs cheerfully and waves, as if his words hadn't also sent a shiver down her own spine. It was a tone the spoke of authority, no talking back, no room for arguments or disobedience. The most hardass teacher in the world would kill for such power.

Miu inds it kind of funny.

But as the children leave she lets him go, clapping her hands together briefly to brush them off as if having to touch him made her feel dirty. When she turns to face him (and feels a little like she has to nearly break her neck to do so), the cheer is gone, like the girl from before had been replaced with someone entirely different.

She raises an eyebrow at him, her tone dry.

"If it was that easy to get rid of them, why didn't you do that before? I wouldn't have had to rush in to help."

Lan Sizhui is becoming skilled at inquiry. No spirits can lie to him. He has tested the illusions. They were unable to give him answers and he has slowly figured they are illusions. He has asked the natives around to be sure. This land and people are strange, and he's not used to their words and language.

At the moment, he was glad he was able to calm him with this information. It's not the first time they faced ghosts, spirits, and walking corpses together before. All of that recklessness comes from the previous battles they fought before. Lan Sizhui is always calm and skilled one using what he learns of the lan clan traditional ways. In ways, their fighting styles complement each other.

"I have found Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei. They're in the main city. I went off to search for our people. Besides me, I have found you. If we keep searching, then there are perhaps more of us. So far, we haven't found a way back home yet."

Meaning they're going to stay here, at least for a while.

"Other than that, I don't know much about this world. But come with me. We have a place to stay." He didn't want Jin Ling to be alone to fend for himself. "I am going to continue my search until the sun falls."

Then with an upbeat smile, "They have a festival too." If he's hungry, they can grab something to eat from the feasts.

Edited 2020-01-03 06:20 (UTC)

And here comes another man, just as tall, with a very similar ribbon across his forehead and even similar robes, his steps slow as he tries to take the whole place in. Trying and failing, for the most part, because it is too much and his mind is preoccupied.

But then he spots the familiar figure, besieged, and pauses for a moment. Wangji...

For the first time since finding himself in this strange place, there is a trickle of warmth in his heart, and he walks a little closer.

"Now, now, may I ask you all what the chocolate is for? Does it have any significance?"

That should get the attention away from Wangji, shouldn't it? And yes, he is willing to be the one surrounded, instead. It is always easier for him to deal with people than it is for his brother, after all.

"And I have no reason to trust you." The Jedi here were perfectly able of doing good when it intersected with their own self-interest, but after finding out about the chips? Any slow, shaky trust he'd had in them was gone.

"It's already out." His mind was safe--at least unless Jedi sorcery got involved. Rex, though, with his conditioning--"Don't even try commanding any of us."

Rex was private about a lot of his experiences, and he didn't pry. But the last big anomaly had given him a look at Rex's first deployment on Geonosis, and what a horrifying mess that had been for the troopers, stuck under Jedi command. He didn't want Rex to ever get trapped in that situation again, not as long as he could do something to help.

Now she understood. "We are trapped in this place. It seemed as if we were summoned for a reason, yet the beings responsible for this unnatural state have left, and yet more of us still arrive." He had thought they might be released after the events of last month, but he had been wrong.

"I sought to spare this world from total annihilation. Now that the task is complete, I wish only to leave." Others had come and gone, according to patterns he had recorded but could not truly predict. All signs showed that he should have left this world months ago, and yet he remained.

It's unlike him, to be so preoccupied as to not notice his brother's approach. But Wangji is a shadow of himself, in this place, his mind constantly casting back to his last moments at home. To Wei Wuxian, somehow alive, after he searched for sixteen years. Even surrounded by children, his mind is half elsewhere.

He can't help but find his mind in Yiling, a young boy wrapped around his leg, bawling.

And then, a voice, his name--

But when Wangji hears words on the wind, they are not Wei Ying's. He turns his gaze up, his neutral expression marked with the barest surprise, but he may as well be emblazoned with it for how easily Lan Xichen can read his moods. He did not expect his brother here. He did not expect anyone.

The children turn their gazes at the same time, squeeling in delight to see a man who matches the current target of their obsession. They happily tell him about how imPorts saved the city, only a few weeks ago. How they saved the world. How now the entire Saturnalia celebration has been turned to honour them and isn't Chocolate so TASTY and wouldn't you like some? Tiny hands reach and offer gifts and chocolate, and it is all Lan Wangji can do to watch his brother so easily steer the situation he had lost himself in.

He knows better than this. He hasn't been raising the juniors for this many years to be so stumped with children. If it wasn't for how lost he felt, he would have handled it better.

Lan Xichen reminds him of his place, as he so often does.

He steps over, murmuring to the children. "They are serving more. If seconds are desired, you must go obtain them."

Despite the less than plain language, the children take the message, and run off, giggling, looking for more treats.

Wangji turns his eyes to Xichen, and they soften just the barest amount. Relief.

"Brother."

Why hadn't he? It was a decent question. Normally he would have come to a plan of action a little faster, but his mind and heart were torn, his focus somewhere else. A world away. A life time.

But, he doesn't think it would have worked, before. He doesn't answer the question immediately, not sure he has an answer to it. He should have solved it, but it had reminded him too much of Yiling. Of a child, gripping at his leg. A sliver of ancient pain pushed into his heart where it wasn't warranted.

Eventually: "Your assistance is appreciated." He leaves the question unanswered. Whether he could or not, he hadn't. The rest didn't matter.

She watches him a moment, dark and quiet and cold. There’s no sympathy on her face, just analyzing him, observing. She shrugs and crouches down to retrieve of an abandoned chocolate person, turning it over in her hands.

Somehow, it kind of looks like him. Huh. There’s a huff of amusement as she takes the thanks with a shrug. “Whatever. It was funny at first, but then it just got sad.”

There’s something in his response—not in what he says, but rather in what he doesn’t, the way he holds his body—that has her tilting her head to ask. “Do you have kids or something?”

[...WELL

COOL]

I...yeah. It's...just Charizard.

[Which isn't the worst thing that could possibly happen since he's his strongest Pokemon, but Leon's never without his full team. It's been years since he's had less than six, even.]

Jin Ling is relieved that Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei are here. If the two of them are around, Jin Ling knows he’ll be safe.

His mind is still full of the events that happened in the Guanyin temple, and a part of him wishes that he didn’t have to face the two seniors again so soon. But if he has to be in this weird situation, he’s glad the two of them are around.

“We can check the festival,” Jin Ling says. If there are more of the juniors here, they’re likely to have gone there. Besides, there will be food, and Jin Ling is hungrier than he wants to admit. He feels stupid for having uselessly hunted the illusions, and that stacks upon his hunger and fatigue to make him cranky. “I don’t like this city. Why is everyone half naked?”

Relative to them in their full-body robes, anyway.

"Wangji." Softly. With the absence of children to protect, Xichen's face falls helplessly. It is a neutral expression, but it's still far from the always-ready gentle smile that has been his way for so long.

Though his eyes, if tired, are soft and warm.

"Are you... well?"

It's a start. Xichen has no many things that he can't end in his mind that at least coming up with one start in better than nothing. Everything here is too loud to think.

It was either that she was growing and maturing, or that she'd had a rough few weeks and the memory of a broken nose wasn't so far away, but either way, the cautiousness seemed to fade as soon as it was clear that 1) Pammy knew her and 2) wherever she knew her from they weren't mortal enemies or something ridiculous.

And who could really predict that sort of thing when there were so many damn bats running around the cities in this world.

Not to mention other assorted heroes that came in all sorts of flavors.

"Well, whoo-ee. You get stuck in this hellscape long enough and you start to hallucinate. Wasn't sure if I was seeing the real thing or not." Which was a bit of an over-exaggeration. Sure, there was an overabundance of heroes. And, sure, the world had almost ended less than two months ago. But her stay here hadn't been all bad.

"Should have brought the babies. They would have loved to see you." Though the feeling might not have been mutual. But now that she was telepathically linked with Bud and Lou she supposed she had a slightly better understanding of Ivy's link with plantlife.

Wangji's brows pinch the slightest amount - the concern overtaking his features in ways his brother could read better than any - as he catches the expression on Lan Xichen's face.

He doesn't answer the question. He can't. He's far from well. He feels like he is suffering his grief freshly anew, as sharp as it was 16 years ago, all the stronger for the fermentation between. So all he could possibly say would be 'No', and he does not wish to burden his brother with it.

"You aren't," he says, instead, deflecting Xichen's worry back onto himself. "What happened?"

i. de chima

[ On any other day, the concept of stealing a kiss from a good looking stranger would be right up his alley. But it's hard to describe just how overwhelmed a guy can feel after stepping out of the 13th century- or at least some fantasy version of it- and stumbling into the bustling, technology fuelled streets of De Chima. He'd tried to get some grasp on it all, could almost tell himself he's adjusting well (he wasn't), but being suddenly pounced on by a gathering of strangely gadgeted folks who demand he pucker up is actually one of the more surreal things he's witnessed in his lifetime.

And he's seen plenty of weird shit. ]

Whaaaat is happening now, please?

[ There's a desperation behind that bewildered stare, casting it around for just about anyone who might come to his aid. Harass him, rescue him or smooch him, it's a choice that must be made by some brave soul. ]

ii. jeopardy

[ Jeopardy was a whole other level of weird when it came to it's neon lights, bizarre buildings and... giant spiders?! ]

Well, that's... terrifying. [ He decides quietly, before it dawns upon him that he's within a crowd of potentially prying ears. With a soft throat clear and an inspiring chest puff, he's quick to add for those near by; ]

Ahrm, but I've certainly seen worse. Not even that big, really, I've borne witness to far larger kikimore during my daring adventures.

[ He is totally telling the absolute truth and would never bullshit you, dear stranger. ]

iii. wildcard

[ Bard wildcard! Create your own scenario, go wild, meet a confused fellow. ]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 24 of 37

SLAY BELLS RING

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Jeopardy ig

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Jaskier | Witcher