etcelsior | SLAY BELLS RING

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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!

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Uh... well reality kind of fell apart? The Death Star showed up, goddesses from another dimension tried to eat the whole thing--

Uh, it was a time. That's all I can really say. I think it's over, now, at least.

It hurts. It hurts because Xichen wants to believe just like he always believed him, and he can't. He'd tried so hard to get away... red line blossoming on young Jin Rulan's throat.

Xichen's eyes close for a moment, then he shakes his head.

"I suppose... that doesn't really matter, anyway. I should not have asked. Instead...

"You might not have an answer ready. But can you - can you do something new, here?" He's struggling to find the words. He's not sure he'll be understood, this one time.

But it's so hard to give up on hope for others.

Desperation can make anyone ugly. Hatred can have that effect too. Yao became someone who was - is - vile and there might not be a way back for him. But while he lives, for Xichen, he will try.

They keep missing one another - bound by rules and oaths, unable to speak freely - and he insists, voice hoarse:

"You can ask me anything." Yao struggles, grabbing onto Xichen's arm, "I want to live a peaceful life. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore." he shakes and tightens his grip, "Especially not you."

That answer seems to startle her to the point she very nearly flinches. She leans back, brow furrowed in confusion, before her expression turns more curiously observant instead.

"...But do you? Have regrets."

[Yeah, he gets why Stan would be upset. Richie hadn’t been happy either about being dragged here, and had been explosively upset when he found out that the world was likely going to end in a few days tops. Thankfully the world hasn’t ended, which has done wonders for his general view of this Earth. He takes another bite of his chocolate man, unperturbed.]

Coziest kidnapping ever, then. [It also helps that there’s no such thing as Derry in this world. He knows. He checked.] They offered! The fuck was I gonna do, say no to free chocolate? All you have to do is not look at it, and it tastes the same as regular, non-creepy chocolate.

[Another bite.]

What the shit are you even doing in Jeopardy, anyway? It’s fucking Creepsville out here.

I don't know. But he can fly, and shoot light blasts. And he doesn't eat or drink, he just... photosynthesizes or something.

[ Apollo is strange, and that's before you even get into his love of Doris Day music. ]

He's silent for a full few seconds, before looking back at her. No answer. Lan Wangji will not lie, but that doesn't mean he feels he needs to speak.

Of course he had regrets. He seemed to live in them. Or, rather, he seemed to live in one that had compounded the entirety of the rest of his life. But even if he wanted to communicate it, he couldn't. He's never been able to find the words to explain. Only his brother had ever really understood, and even he had tried to talk him out of it. No. His regrets were for him, and him alone.

He started walking away, expecting her to follow, glancing back at her if she did not do so immediately. She looked like she hadn't eaten in a little while. That, at least, was a problem before him that he could solve.

Xichen winces slightly at that thought.

"I am not sure ... how well we would do here for that long."

The thing is, he knows that Wangji was not missing for days, let alone years, after Dafan mountain. There are times when he and young master Wei were traveling, but none of it was unaccounted for. So what does this mean about this place?

Perhaps it is akin to the instant travel between places. Only all of what happens here happens in an instant?

"But it makes sense to know, to make it possible to prepare."

Honestly, Miu hadn’t really expected him to give her a straight answer. Most people didn’t like those sorts of questions and liked even less being expected to answer them with anything like truth. Looks like Lan Wangji still had something human in him after all, and that thought makes her feel a little smug.

But then he’s walking away and that, too, isn’t much of a surprise, though she raises an eyebrow and how abrupt it seemed. Was that it? When he looks back at her with that clear expectation that she’d follow, her expression turns aggravated and haughty. For a moment it looks like she’s going to refuse out of pride alone, but then she takes a breath and begrudgingly hurried to catch up.

“You have to walk slower, your legs are longer than mine!” She voices the complaint more because it feels like if she doesn’t complain about something then she’s giving in too easily. But also because her stamina has always been awful despite the immense amount of spiritual power she held— she might’ve embarrassed herself being out of breath trying to keep pace with him for a long period of time.

“And you’re pretty rude, you know. You never gave me your name, but you expected me, a young girl, to go off with a strange man all alone? Cheeky.” A pause and she adds: “I’m Hinasaki Miu.”

He doesn't respond to the first comment, merely lowers his eyes. His brother is absolutely correct, and he doesn't need to speak to confirm it. He's already going mad, in this place. His brother, he thinks, would cope better than him. Lan Xichen had always seemed to have an easier time figuring out other people's expectations, their needs, and coming up with a way to satisfy them. He has the diplomat's edge that Wangji lacks. He is the cold river stream to Wangji's jagged ice - sprung from the same source but one adaptable and the other not.

He hasn't exactly always envied it - he thinks it causes his brother a great burden, to be forced to twist and bend and satisfy others - but he admires it. It is a skill he lacks.

"Uncertain future. Named 'imPorts', foreigners, fleeting and ephemeral. Deified or disdained. Some remain a moth's heart beat, others never leave. Impossible to fully prepare."

[ stan casts a wordless stare at the other boy. surely it isn't his responsibility to explain what a stupid idea it is to eat random chocolate from strangers. there must have been an after school special about that at some point. he shoots the chocolate version of himself another uncomfortable glance, then looks back to richie. ]

I don't know. I don't know anything about this place. I was trying to find a way home.

[ none of these town names mean anything to stan. they are all, currently, Creepsville with a capital C. ]

Is it just us?

[ stan doesn't immediately know how to respond to that so it takes him several minutes before a reply comes through. ]

Have you seen him do that stuff?

And I'm Jaskier, the greatest and most humble of bards around.

[ Although apparently an idiot, Jaskier does have a talent for picking up on some of the more subtle sights, so he can't help but watch those drifting hands. He's seen that act plenty of times, even in some of the performing troupes he's hung around with. ]

I'm sorry, but what is your line of work?

You got the same spiel as me, right? There’s no way home. Not one you can find, anyway.

[The tone is as gentle as Richie can ever hope to be, but firm too. Three months in this shit-ass world have drilled that lesson in fast, but then again he is a little biased. He’s always wanted to get out of Derry, and you can’t get further from Derry than a different universe.]

We’re here until the Porter decides it’s sick of us. [And if it’s not sick of Richie yet, then it wouldn’t get sick of Stan either.] But the good news is, Eddie’s here too. He’s just doing some costume model shit right now.

Jaskier.

[ Kenzi's quick with her actions, any poor sap she targets is highly unlikely to take notice in the moment. She glances over and gives him a little grin in response to the question. ]

I'm just a humble pub owner. [ Nevermind that the place isn't even open yet. ]

Ah, we're here. [ She stops at the door, pulling it open and waiting for Jaskier to enter. ]

Hold on, hold on, back up... Goddesses tried to eat the Death Star?

[ But he won't press. He waves a hand. ]

Sounds like a real hell of a time you went through. Glad I missed it, though I had a hell of a time on my own back home while I was gone.

I have it on camera.

[ Because Bean is a paranoid bitch. As soon as he moved into Apollo's house he rigged the place with cameras. He sends a video file, showing a bright spot of light in the figure of a muscular man with white hair flying towards the house, then opening a window and going inside. ]

He also refuses to use the front door for some reason.

Until recently, for the most part it was more natural and easy to mediate, soothe, adjust to the needs of others so there would be compromise. It's the way he is, and it pains him to watch conflict, even more injury, happen, and not try to alleviate it.

But that is not to say that Wangji is wrong. And with all his efforts coming to such dire results, the weight that he has occasionally felt over the years has crashed down on him tenfold, crushing him with every breath.

For the moment, he shakes his head. "It does not make us other than what we are." Beat. "Other than confused."

Because.. how.

"Life is fleeting and ephemeral. The future is always uncertain, though I wonder if our future isn't already somebody's past... Either way. What you feel right and wrong are still what can guide you." Not that he can ever question that Wangji will abide by that.

"Do your best. The rest is outside of our hands."

For this moment of talking to Wangji, of being strong and certain, he feels like this world might not have seemed so dark and overwhelming had not Xichen already been overwhelmed. Yes, it is a lot to take in, but there are so many people to get to know...

And he is too tired to try.

"Everything has changed, or nothing has. And we need to cross many rivers before je know.

Despite the complaint being mostly for show, he does indeed slow his gait as she catches up. He doesn't reply to it, but he's clearly listening.

To the rest:

"Gusu Lan Sect, Lan Zhan, Couresty name Wangji. Titled Hanguang-Jun." There, have all his names, Miu. Satisfied now?

He turns his head to look at her.

"Eaten?"

Apparently he's not going to address the part about his rudeness or his strange man status.

Jesus Christ.

She makes a strangled sort of noise, running that all over in her head. What the hell. "Pick one." She's not playing Musical Name-Chairs here.

But at least he just rolls with it, which is kind of funny. Miu laughs a little under her breath and shakes her head, both at the fact he's ignoring her ribbing of him and to answer the question. "No. I haven't." She laughs again, finding this all incredibly amusing. "You're a funny guy, you know."

Literally how.

"Hanguang-Jun." That was what the juniors called him. And that was, for better or worse, where he had decided to slot Miu in his mindset.

"Meal." He's made the decision for them, apparently. Going to get this Junior fed.

"Humour unlikely."

He's pretty sure he's not funny at all - he's been told as much on multiple occasions. He's making a bee line to a noodle restaurant he found the other day. The food is still nothing like home, but they make a nice vegetable broth with rice noodle that he was able to stomach...

She mutters the title to herself a few times, then huffs a little at his decision. Not that she's protesting the decision itself, but--

"I'm not a kid, you know..." She grumbles, but she's not going to complain about the venue either. SHe can't actually remember the last time she just had noodles.

"You're not trying to be, but you're still funny. 'Comically serious,' is what they call it. Do you know how to smile?" Her tone grows teasing again easily enough, eyebrow raised in amusement.

[ He's pretty sure he should be holding the door open for the lady, but he won't argue it, stepping inside but still lingering near the door for her because how does modern cafes?! ]

A humble pub owner with very deft fingers. Do you tend to fleece your customers or is that more of a side hobby?

[ Once he's inside she slips in behind him, inhaling deeply to take in the strong smell of coffee. ]

Caught that did you? [ He has a better eye than she judged him for. ]

Let's call it a side hustle.

De Chima

It did not take long for her to gather a crowd of onlookers and new fans eager to take pictures with the walking feline. She, herself, was taken by surprise at such enthusiasm, but after an hour - now approaching two - she had gotten used to it. And it had only taken one swipe of her claws across the back of the first hand to try and touch her tail to stop that from happening again.

Her forward pace was only somewhat impeded by the strange entourage's presence, so she took her time in walking and looking around while answering questions in a distracted manner. Occasionally coming to a standstill so they could have 'photo-op' with her in front of various well-known landmarks and signs.

Sometimes, when she caught someone outside the group staring, she would call over, "It is alright. You may approach. This one will keep her claws put away so long as no one tries anything improper."

Jeopardy, Nevada: Parade

This one can only remember a life lived in jeopardy, but even so... she does find it unusual for people to be so open about their worship of Mephala...

[The voice speaking is heavily accented, and if one turns to look, seems to be coming from the feline standing upright who is either average height by human standards, or very, very big by cat. She chuckles to herself at joke, then looks around, catching the first staring eyes she sees.]

You are from here? Can you tell this one about this 'Web-Mistress' and who she is?

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SLAY BELLS RING

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The Vestige | Elder Scrolls (of the Online variety) | Want to speak to talking cat?