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etcelsior2019-12-20 12:35 pm
maskormods) wrote in etcelsior2019-12-20 12:35 pm
Entry tags:
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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He doesn't make a face back.
"Conscious?" he repeats, his voice surprisingly deep for his face, repeating the singular word as if both syllables were separate and heavy.
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Though, if she's being honest, she'd say he doesn't come off like he's looking to use that thing. If anything, he looks lost. Turned around.
A bit flatly then: "You're obviously not from here."
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"I won't hurt them." The idea that Bichen could possibly be dangerous on its own wasn't even a consideration. After all, the sword was in his hand. So clearly she meant him.
When she makes the second statement, he just shakes his head slowly. No. He's not from here. Or anything like here. And he has absolutely no idea of where to go or what to do.
He does glance down her form, though, but when he doesn't see her carrying a sword, he can't help the slight disappointment. He was hoping maybe her recognition meant she was a cultivator. On the other hand--
His eyes fell on her tattoo, just peeking out of her sleeve. He raised his own arm, tugging back the fabric to show her his matching tattoo, helpfully saying the default REGISTERED for all to see.
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Honestly, she doesn't look terribly surprised. In fact, her expression hardly changes at all. If there's a strange person walking around looking slightly loss, experience says chances are reasonably good they're a new ImPort. It's almost the least interesting of the possible explanations for a man to be wandering about with a sword.
A twinge of dryness then: "At least you look like yo know how to use that thing."
Though it's hard to say what's more dangerous, really — a master armed with a sharp blade, or a bumbling fool.
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Back home, even ordinary people knew him by name and often by face. His reputation far proceeded him. Here? The act of carrying a sword - the very thing that marked him as a cultivator, that marked his honour - here marked him as a threat.
He had never been one to defend himself. His actions did when his silence did not. But her distrust was far greater than any that anyone had dared level to his face in over twenty years. And his curiosity, because of that, was piqued.
“It is because I know how to use it that I wouldn’t harm a child.” It is the most words he’s said strung together since he arrived. “Does that not hold true, here?”
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"I don't know shit about you, sweetheart," Andy answers readily, shrugging her shoulders lightly. "Your morals aren't readily apparent just by looking at you."
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He turned his head to look at the crowd, where not a one of them dressed anything like him. Where they all wore foreign garb, and none of them cared a sword. It was utterly alien to him.
And besides, in the end, hadn't he been the one to claim it was impossible to know what was black and what was white? That the common held beliefs of who was good and who was evil were so often wrong? He relied on his reputation only because it was a reflection of all the actions he took. The man who was "where the chaos is" - regardless of who was in trouble or what they faced, he helped them. This is how he was known.
Here, he was no one.
He wasn't sure what to feel about that. He glanced down at his sword, the white and silver sheath, inlaid with jade, gripped tightly in his left hand. He had no interest in defending himself to her with words, but he could take her point. His sword was of less use, here. Carefully, and without saying anything, he pulled a small pouch from within his robes, and opened it. He raised the sheathed sword and slid it into the opening, and a second later, the blade was gone. Disappeared into the pouch.
He returned it to his robes, and returned his gaze to her, not a word leaving his lips, but the slightest uptick of his eyebrow marking his meaning. Better?
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Andy makes a little grunt of a noise that's vaguely approving, maybe slightly impressed, but not surprised. She's seen plenty of wild shit in this universe by now — too much to be thrown by such a small demonstration.
It might be something of an olive branch when she comments mildly, "It's a nice blade. Good craftsmanship."
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He nods his head a little to the compliment.
"Bichen." The name of his blade. His eyes rose again. "Swords are not common, here?"
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And ancient immortal warriors, of course. Advances in modern warfare haven't kept her from carrying an axe into battle along with her assault rifle though. If it's not broken, why fix it?
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He turned his gaze from her, looking out over the crowd, and shook his head.
"Nothing here is standard," he murmured lowly. Not the weapons, not the people, not the light, not the food. Nothing. Everything was alien.