Test Drive Meme

[crux_mods]

Did you want to test your characters? Do you want something that you can use for an RP sample without digging up an old thread? Well, here you have it. Pick one or multiple prompts below or, if you want, make a prompt of your own. Just be sure to tag around so that everyone gets plenty of exposure.

1: Explosions in space! Space Bandits attacked the space colony everyone was visiting! Dozens of fighters and mobile armors fly through space, locked in deadly combat. Are you among those battling to save lives? Or are you watching from the windows, praying everything will be safe?

2: Explosions underground! You were part of a trading party, exchanging supplies with an underground penal colony when alien animals burrowed through the walls and started assaulting convict and Confederation member alike! What are you going to do?

3: Explosions over the city! The Colosseum is shooting off fireworks as part of a concert or a sporting event! Are you watching in the crowd, a main attraction, or watching the bright colors from the city?

4: Explosions on an asteroid! You're either observing, guarding, or mining an asteroid! It's rather dull, save for the explosions that rock the ground under your feet. It looks like it'll continue to be just as slow, but... was that something moving in the shadows there?

5: Explosions on a space station! As you approached a research station, you receive a distress signal! Fire's broken out and their systems aren't up to spec! Can you do anything? Are you a part of a scouting crew or out for a joyride in your new yacht? And is this an accident, or something more sinister?

6: Explosions at the gym! Explosive competition! Swimming, weightlifting, running, boxing, someone has just challenged you! Whether they know it or not, you're going to do your best to show them up.

7: Explosions in the past! A star has died! The Fleet is flying through the nebula it left behind, with swirls of beauty as far as the eye can see. If you're the type, you can watch it all you like.

8: Explosions on the road! Most of the traffic on the Teuberg is computer controlled, but some young showoff took his off the grid and promptly caused a wreck! Traffic has been backed up for almost half an hour now, with no way out for you and the people in your vehicle. Are you close enough to see if anyone needs help? Or are you just stuck with people who are as late for their appointments as you are?

9: Explosions in the marketplace! Explosive bargains! You're in a trading hub, surrounded by stalls of all kinds selling every type of merchandise you can imagine! Luckily, you've got enough money to handle a few purchases here. Will you buy one of those daggers on display? An incense burner? Some alien fruit? Or maybe you're on the run from the corrupt guards? Or perhaps you're the one doing the chasing, did someone just steal your wallet?

10: Explosions in your mind! The explosive inspiration that drives this world! Make up your own prompt!

Comments

[velveteened]

( look up tonight, someone friendly had suggested, and so oz had; seen the false weather sky yield to "nightfall" of the stars that really surround them (perhaps not so different from an earth sky after all), and this very special show of lights tonight. a far cry from the moon indeed, with its desolate atmosphere, from a worn down building on a barren landscape overlooking a dead city on a conquered planet.

says, ) It's much prettier, don't you think?

( with a smile he might even mean, because it is true. )

[maddeninghatter]

[ ..."prettier." ]

Haha! Some things don't change. Your being a little brat, for instance.

[ He punctuates this with a head ruffle that's harder than absolutely necessary. He wonders, in the space of the gesture, how long he'll be able to do that. The man Oz will grow into is taller than he, after all. Drat these kids. ]

1/2

[velveteened]

( he flails of course, because his hair is ruined now and he has priorities and needs better friends, etc, they both know the drill by now. he moves to duck out of the way petulantly, all frowns. )

It's true! The moon was — 

[velveteened]

( dark, he used to say, and felt it was all the way until alice's arrival. a claustrophobic space of flickering lights and an abyss-black outside, its sterile interior all too familiar after a visit to the ue. )

— nothing like this, ( vehemently, ) at all.

[maddeninghatter]

[ This, of course, presupposes that Oz will have the opportunity to grow up. Time isn't the only thing that's ticking. ]

How are you feeling?

[ A beat. ]

About being here?

[velveteened]

Does it matter?

( it's asked lightly as he looks back up at the bright display, but undercut by a knowledge they both have — that their feelings haven't got anything to do, apparently, with where they find themselves in the multiverse on any given day. )

[maddeninghatter]

[ A typical response. Creepy kid.

The moment he'd first met Oz, he had had difficulty seeing him, his own poor vision aside. Mad Hatter had sensed a distortion around the boy, marking him as being more than just an ordinary illegal contractor. With each tick of Oz's incuse, he could feel the distortion becoming stronger...

Until they arrived at Exsilium, and it all stopped (but for one notable exception). Here, in this place, Oz seems to have exchanged one fate for another. Oz (and everyone) lived constantly under the threat of immediate extermination at Exsilium. Now that threat is not so immediate, but it is no less inexorable.

Tick. ]

Relative to something as big as this [ He nods towards the nebula ], I suppose nothing does.

[ He'd kept the truth of Oz's existence away from him, rationalizing that it didn't matter in a place so far from home. But the reality of Oz's own rapidly approaching fate: that he cannot keep quiet about. ]

We're like mayflies in comparison, hm?

[ Although probably Oz knows already. ]

[velveteened]

( see, it's —

(an exchange he'd have made happily, easily, without a single backwards glance if it'd been up to him or in his power for all that the only thing within his power is to destroy, be it humans or chains or his own body from the inside out, cities or dimensions or worlds; and one of these things is more expendable than the rest.)

— an apt comparison, really, when comparing the lives of celestial bodies to the all too short ones of humans, for all that it wasn't quite what he'd meant. or perhaps it's not so different at all, but still he shakes his head. )

And relative to something else bigger, you could say the same about this star.

( astronomy is a branch of the sciences he's truthfully avoided more than anything else, but it's easy to imagine something so much bigger in the vastness of a place like space, after knowing something like the abyss. he goes on after a long exhale. )

This is a nice city( -ship, but best not to dwell on it. ) It's almost easy to forget where we really are.

[maddeninghatter]

Hm.

[ It sounds like an assent. He turns back, to gaze at the nebula, and doesn't say anything else for a long while. Finally: ]

Hm, well. There are two conclusions to be drawn from that. The first is that nothing matters, because everything is insignificant in relation to something else. Or else...

[ He is smiling — if such a faint upturning of the lips can be properly termed as one — down at Oz. ]

...everything matters, no matter how small or brief its existence.

[velveteened]

( that — makes him laugh )

Isn't that just a matter of perspective?

[maddeninghatter]

Yes, it is a nice city. Nicer than what we've been used to, at least. A matter of perspective, as you put it.

[ He scrabbles in his pocket and withdraws a fancy, swirled lollipop tied with a ribbon; like his excessively decorated outfit, it's in stark contrast to the makeshift, edge-of-survival wartime existence they'd spent in the last year. He peels the cellophane away, and gives the lollipop an experimental lick.

Then he bites into it. ]

Have you given any thought to what you might like to do here?

1/2

[velveteened]

"Used to" is —

( stupid to argue, actually, when it's true. they're used to reveil but it's been a year, hasn't it, since either of them have been there any real length of time. perhaps that noble lifestyle would feel strange and even indulgent now, and it'd be a lie to say there haven't been basic things that have put oz at a loss. playing at normal is hard to do when what constitutes normal is so mercurial. )

[velveteened]

( he has thought about what he'd like to do, of course, has looked into it and been told about the options he's got as a sixteen year old, so different than if he'd come here instead of exsilium straight out of reveil or simply sooner than december, and one very much jumped out at him.

his father had never approved of the thought of him being a real student at a real school but in a place like this... )

Not really.

( then again, perhaps it isn't a good idea, and he can think of a few reasons why. )

There's been a lot to get used to, like you said.

( sort of said, anyway. )

[maddeninghatter]

I suppose you could find a job. You were very popular at my friend's salon, even for doing nothing but standing about, looking pretty, and making conversation; and Mrs. Robinson told me she'd give you a job when you were old enough. There must be something like that here; there always is, in a big enough city.

[ He is, of course, choosing this moment to drape his arm about Oz's shoulders, because given the context, that gesture isn't creepy in the least. ]

Or I suppose you could go to school. Reading lots of books, learning things, being around children your own age... oh dear, no. I'm sure you wouldn't like that at all. Would you?

[velveteened]

Mrs. Robinson was nice! I wouldn't mind working for her again.

( and he laughs a little at the memory, much as the notion is unlikely to happen. it'd been fun to earn money for himself for the first time and go out and spend it, and even meet echo in the process!!! there hadn't been any need to do much of anything of the sort in exsilium with the monthly allowance they used to have, though even then he'd been a bit enamored of the thought.

break gets a close-up view of his wryness at the next — )

Do you think so? Well, you're probably right.

[maddeninghatter]

You wouldn't like to go to school? Hm, well. That's that, then.

[ Emily chirps: ]

YOU'RE GOING!

Yes, yes. I quite agree, Emily. A pampered brat like that shouldn't be allowed to run about and do as he likes.

[ He slides his hand up inside his sleeve and whaps at the top of Oz's head with the floppy fabric. ]

[velveteened]

( rude???? )

And what are you going to be doing?

[maddeninghatter]

[ And? ]

Why, playing truant officer, what else?

[velveteened]

No.

( DENIED. )