Test Drive Meme 010

[sinfulmods]

Test Drive Meme

Considering apping to the City of Sin, but unsure of who to bring or if they'll fit? Feel free to give the setting a test drive here! These are a perfect way of getting your playing sample done for the application.

cityofsin | cityofsin_logs | cityofsin_ooc
Rules | FAQ | Taken Characters | Reserves | Applications


→ Comment with the character you'd like to test drive in the setting, with name and canon in the subject line
→ Choose a scenario or create your own!
→ Tag around!

Possible Scenarios 01. A New Arrival: Hello, New Person! You seem to have found yourself on a sidewalk in the City of Sin with nothing but the clothes on your back and a stomach chruning feeling of being displaced. Thankfully, the streets are full of people - Watch out that you don't get mugged! 02. Demonic Presences: You were just minding your own business, weren't you? But that's always when bad things seem to happen, and the City of Sin isn't really that friendly. Whatever bar or street you're hanging out in suddenly go dim, filling the area with an unnerving feeling as the shadows on the walls jump out into reality. We suggest you phone a friend for help, or maybe try running? 03. Party Hard: You've been invited to a massive, elegant party at the Tower that spills out its doors in welcome, by someone who calls themselves the Emperor. Obviously, that's weird, but maybe you can get some free drinks and food out of it! This place might not be so bad. 04. Prominence: The City of Sin influences it's population on a weekly basis. Too bad you came right smack dab in the middle of a heavy Prominence. Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, or Pride. Choose your choice of sin and be wicked. 05. Trouble: Not everyone is sunshine and roses here. Some people are violent and cruel, raised in the sludge of a sinful city. And they like to pick on people they think can't fight back. Are you that person? Or are you the Hero who can't stand to watch? Worse yet, could you be the person doing the instigating? Villian. 06. Carnival: The City has carnivals or festivals now and then; you're lucky to catch one! With its open booths filled with cork gun games and funnel cakes, how can someone not have any fun! Go win your darling a stuffed animal, or meet someone new on the spinning cup ride. You might even see someone you know being talked into sitting in the Dunk Tank. 07. Wild Card: Choose your own adventure in the game's setting!

Comments

[diana_abel]

"Me too," she said. She shrugged, her hair sliding off of her shoulder. "So I usually just surrender." She nodded her head in the direction of the bar. "C'mon. Let's get you liquored up."

With a little flounce in her step that wasn't entirely involuntary, she crossed the room.

[neverjoinyou]

Luke hadn't been well and truly drunk since, probably, the celebration after the Battle of Yavin, and he wasn't too sure the Force and booze were a good combination. Still, he'd decided to come to this thing, and he was not one to shy away from that which terrified him, so with a little quirk in his smile he followed.

Just what, he asked himself, do you think you're doing, Skywalker?

In a way, the evening was shaping up a lot more like the holovid-fueled fantasies he'd entertained as a teenager on Tatooine, of running away to the core worlds, and the exotic things he'd experience there, than anything he'd seen in, say, Mos Eisley.

"How long have you been here?" he asked, as he hopped to catch up.

[diana_abel]

"About half a year," she replied, breezing past the other party-goers with an easy air. "Although I've been bouncing around the multiverse for about two years, I think."

She turned around, walking backwards so she could face him. "Have you gotten the whole spiel on how the multiverse works yet? I'm not exactly the most science-y person out there, but I can explain if you want."

Diana seemed to remember getting pretty good at it in Bete Noire.

[neverjoinyou]

Luke spread his hands. "I'm not sure which spiel you mean," he confessed. "I picked up that this places exists somehow outside of time and space, or maybe touching all of it?"

[diana_abel]

Effortlessly, Diana found a place at the bar, flashing a bright smile at the bartender. She didn't even have to use her Awe to get his attention. She knew that she was next on his list.

She owned a mirror. She knew what she looked like.

Setting an elbow on the counter, she cradled her chin in her palm. "Touching all of it is a good way to start. If there are an infinite number of universes out there, imagine them as threads. This place is a knot, where all the threads are tangled up together."

[neverjoinyou]

Luke frowned in thought. It raised questions about the nature of the Force, here and elsewhere. Questions he really wasn't equipped to ask, let alone answer.

"Okay," he said, "but the thing no one's explained to me is how that doesn't, I don't know, impact the rest of these worlds? Create, uh... paradoxes?"

[diana_abel]

"Because while we're here, our worlds are frozen in time. Which can really get to a person's head, but that's a different story."

She hoped that's what he meant by 'paradox.' Diana was only about ninety percent sure what the word actually meant, outside of the Gilbert and Sullivan use.

"For example," she said, "my friend Draco is here. And there's another guy from his world too. Harry. But Harry has no memory of Draco ever disappearing from his world. And vice versa."

[neverjoinyou]

Luke's gaze went a bit distant, as he tried to take that in, shape it into something that fit in his brain.

"Doesn't that mean," he said after a moment, "that we must get back, eventually?"

[diana_abel]

"I hope not," Diana replied.

Conveniently enough, the bartender showed up at that moment, flashing a row of white and perfect teeth.

Diana gestured to Luke. "Anything you like. On me."

[neverjoinyou]

The deer was back, as Luke glanced between her and the bartender.

"I, ah..." He looked behind, to the shelf, where he saw nothing he recognized, either. "I'm not from around here," he finished lamely.

[diana_abel]

Wow. He must have been from a seriously far-out world. Which was funny, given how fundamentally human he seemed. It actually made Diana smile. It was nice to think that human beings were still the same wonderful, unpredictable, malleable, and delightful creatures she knew, no matter where they came from.

She turned to the bartender. "He'll have a Cuba Libre," she said. It seemed like a good drink for him somehow.

The bartender gave her a sexy, little smile, then set about making the drink. Diana began to consider taking him home. She liked bartenders.

But for the moment, she turned back to Luke. "Where are you from, exactly? What's your world like?"

[neverjoinyou]

The words she'd said to the bartender were not familiar to him, so he resolved to drink whatever it was slowly. The bartender was smiling at Diana the way someone like, say, Han Solo would smile at a pretty girl so Luke had a pretty good idea where he stood, even if he was a good dancer.

At the question, he couldn't help the little screwed up expression. "Imagine a ball of dust, as far away from anything important you can get."

[diana_abel]

Having lived through the Great Depression and traveled through the dust bowl, Diana got a pretty vivid picture in her head. She wrinkled up her nose a little bit. The only worse place she could imagine was the Midwest. "That doesn't sound very exciting," she admitted. She had the sense that Luke was on the same page.

Sometimes, in the multiverse, talking about your home was a little like talking about your child. You could insult it, but woe betide anyone else who did.

This was probably not one of those occasions.

"This place must be a huge change for you."

[neverjoinyou]

Luke turns to lean his back against the bar, surveying the room. "More humans than I'm used to," he observed. "And it's weird how almost everyone seems to come from a place where they only know one planet. I mean," he turns back to her, "I only knew one planet until a few years ago, but I always knew I was going to get away from it as soon as I could."

[diana_abel]

Quite a few things clicked into place with that confession. He was a space man. Like Jack.

Well, no. No one was like Jack. But still, Diana made a mental note to introduce him to Jack and the Doctor sometime. She always liked bringing home strays for family dinner. And he probably had never tried Chinese food before. Which was convenient since that was all they ate.

"I have to admit, I've only known one planet myself," she said. "But my best friend here was born galaxies away from it. Took some getting used to the idea but...it's kinda cool."

[neverjoinyou]

Luke tried to think about how cool it was, but it was a bit like trying to imagine being surprised about there being a New York when you were in Boston. Even if you had no hope of getting there, its existence wasn't astonishing in and of itself.

He coughed when he took his first sip of the drink, trying to cover for it.

"Otherwise," he said after a moment, "I'm trying not to get used to it." His mouth firmed. "It... wasn't exactly my plan. Being here."

[diana_abel]

She gave him a sympathetic smile. Now that was a story she knew. "For what it's worth," she said, "it's never anyone's plan to be here. Sometimes, I think the multiverse goes out of its way to grab people who have something important to do. You can't it personally, though." She shrugged. "The way I think of it, being in the multiverse is like...a hiatus. From destiny. If you believe in that kind of thing. It's a chance to live the life you never led."

How often had she recited the same speech in Bete Noire? At least half a dozen times. The funny thing was, she wasn't so sure about it for herself any more. She hadn't been whipped away from doing something important.

She was dying.

When this hiatus ended, so would she.

It wasn't a hiatus. It was her last chance to live. One she'd been squandering until tonight.

[neverjoinyou]

"A hiatus from destiny," he repeats, shaking his head and chuckling slightly in disbelief. "Boy, am I sick of destiny."

He looks down into his drink for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"The thing is, I've spent so long defying what other people told me my destiny was. I'm... not sure I'd know what to do without that to fight against."

[diana_abel]

Diana couldn't help but laugh. "You have no idea how many times someone has said those exact same words to me, over the last few years."

Never mind the fact that they were entirely true of her life as well. The Cainite messiah? That was a total laugh. A joke, really. Derived from some sick, twisted Malkavian mind.

A joke that had managed to infect her entire life.

She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "I guess, the only real answer I can give you is that this is your chance to find out. Who are you when you're not living the life you're 'supposed' to live? Which might sound weird, but you can actually learn...a lot about yourself. I know I have."

[neverjoinyou]

Luke looked back up at her, faint surprise in his expression. "What have you learned?" he asked. Belatedly, he realized that might be too much. "I'm sorry, you don't have to answer that," he offered quickly. "It's just... I have no idea where I'd even start."

For one thing, his mind was too full of the people, the work, he'd left behind. It was hard to focus on anything else, having just gone through what he had. To then be ripped away from the aftermath had left a part of him torn out, imperfectly cauterized.

[diana_abel]

She shook her head. "I don't mind. To be honest, I'm pretty much an open book around here. You ask any random Chosen on the street and they'll be able to rattle off half of my life's story and my five favorite songs."

Okay, maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration. But Diana had very, very little left to hide any more. And she really preferred it that way. It was just easier, a better way to live.

You know, as much as any vampire could claim to 'live.'

"I think the most important thing I learned about myself in the multiverse is that...I can heal. In ways I never thought possible. Some of the worst things that can happen to a person happened to me out here. I lost my faith in human beings. I was separated from people I love. I was cheated on. I was bullied and harassed. I had my trust broken. I was victimized by prejudice." She shrugged. "And I survived it. All of it. And I'm still...me. I still have everything I ever believed in. I still wake up each night and know that...that there's hope."

Diana covered her face with her hand for a second, half laughing and half cringing. "I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's the truth."

[neverjoinyou]

There were too many people around for him to really pinpoint what was different about her, to distinguish her from anyone else in terms of the Force, but if nothing else her words had grabbed his entire attention. He watched as she spoke, focusing intently.

He blinked as she stopped, covering her face, and shook his head.

"No, don't," he said softly, forgetting the fact it was probably hard to hear in here. "It's not ridiculous. It's..." He cast about for how to explain. "I mean, it is--I can't imagine anyone wanting to do any of those things to someone like you. But the rest. Sometimes I think I'm an entirely new person, or should be, after... everything that's happened." He shrugs. "And then I wake up thinking I'm still some farmboy from the outer rim, like nothing's changed."

[diana_abel]

He didn't laugh at her. There weren't words strong enough to express how much Diana appreciated it. That was most people's usual instinct. After all, she was sappy and goopy and a cock-eyed optimist. Who wouldn't laugh at that? When every world seemed so incredibly jaded?

She gave him a smile.

"Sometimes, I think I speak in affirmations a little too much," she said. "But for what it's worth, I don't think you should let the world change you, so much as you should change the world. Be that inner farmboy you are. As long as it brings something good to the world around you, you know?"

Not that she really liked farms. But that was beside the point.

At least he wasn't from the Midwest.

[neverjoinyou]

He smiled, but his eyes were a little sad, a little haunted.

"I guess I was thinking about it as less of a choice," he said, "and more of a recognition. I can't react as I think I should be feeling. And... neither can you. I know it doesn't help, but I'm sorry all that happened to you." His mouth firmed into a line. "You're not really selling this place."

[diana_abel]

The poor boy.

Diana started to lean forward, but just then, a fancy drink with an umbrella was set in front of her. She was about to object, but then she saw a phone number was written on the napkin.

Cute.

Sliding the drink to one side, she leaned forward again, meeting Luke's eyes. "Then I guess it's only fair to tell you that some of the best things in my life happened to me in the multiverse too. I mean, really. I've been so incredibly lucky here, in some ways."