LET'S [test] DRIVING

[cava]

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN, YOU KNOW THE DRILL. Here's a few options, all stolen shamelessly from previous iterations.

> The Park. Man, what a nice day out. Why not enjoy it? I'm sure -- shit, yep, there's some echo monsters or whatever they're called.
> The Mall. Exactly what it says on the tin! Dodge the hordes of teenage mallrats or take part, whichever suits your tastes.
> Rainy Day. Agh, it's fucking awful out. And is it raining those vermilion things?? Now you've got an Echo to contend with on top of everything else. Find some shelter, quick!
> Arts and Crafts Fair. WILL THE KITSCH OVERWHELM YOU


or make up your own whatever this is basic and just for the purposes of getting a new test drive up.

Comments

Ryuuji Iwasaki | Spec-Ops Cell Go-Busters | Bookstore and/or mall

[brodad]

[The long anticipated artbook with specs for all the mecha from the last 10 seasons of (insert expied giant robot show here) had finally been released two days ago. Val Motoki had preordered a copy months ago, and there was no way he was going to take the (...admittedly small) chance that the bookstore had been sent too few copies to meet demand.

So now he's flipping through a book while walking with a dorky grin. He's looking up every now and then, but. This can only end well.]

[amajin]

[Jin happens to be in the same place. He's been looking forward to this artbook for years, but hadn't bothered to preorder anything. Luckily it's obscure enough he has his own copy under his arm when he spots the kid.]

[He feels that weird sense of recognition, a sort of deja vu... He's been feeling it a lot lately, but this one is especially strong. Something's telling him to annoy this kid. He sidles over, setting his book onto the top of a nearby shelf and plucking the book out of the kid's hand.]

What'cha lookin' at, nerd?

[He grins, feeling strangely fond of this complete stranger.]

merlin/iwan evans | merlin

[busy]

[it's been a long day - most days are. but at least he has a little time to kill in-between one crappy part-time job and the next. iwan stretches his legs out, rests his head back against the bench, and lets his lashes flutter closed.

he's on the verge of drifting off to sleep and dreams, which would undoubtedly make him late for work (again). so mother nature decides to help him out. he feels the first raindrop against his cheek, the next one splashing in the center of his forehead. hello iwan, you're now a unicorn.

he opens his eyes to stare up at the steadily darkening clouds that seem to be gathering right above him.]

You've got to be kidding me.

[edhwierfan]

[There's a curse from a few feet away as Aeron fumbles with his umbrella, looking shockingly pale and distressed in a way that has nothing to do with the burst of rain. The umbrella rolls to a stop just shy of Iwan's feet.]

Sorry.

[The apology comes out curt, and Aeron barely glances at Iwan when he bends down to retrieve his umbrella. The hand that adjusts his shoulder bag shakes badly.]

Raven | Teen Titans | Bookshop

[titansno]

[Or Rachel Roth, as she's known now. She's found, as she so often is, at a used bookshop somewhere in the city. Not doing a signing to promote something--especially not fucking Malchior, that work she regretted more than she'd thought possible. After a few horror and dark fantasy novels, cheapening her style and doing a dark YA paranormal romance had won her a respectable mainstream success.

She'd refused to do publicity for it after a certain point.

Whatever. Today wasn't for that. Today was for adding to her library. Care to approach the goth browsing the SF/F section? Maybe you might even recognize her.]

[shiftycent]

[Hope you weren't planning on quiet, Rachel. Someone had to duck in here after an unfortunate encounter with the rain outside and is now hiding way in the back corner of a book case, trying to stay out of sight. To say Garfield was alarmed would have been an understatement.

You probably would have been too, if you suddenly obtained green skin.

He never thought he'd be so relieved to see Rachel in his lifetime, as he tries to get her attention by hissing down the book cases.]

Psst. Rae. Rae! Over here.

[oneboyarmy]

[Worry not, Tim was certainly no rabid Malchior fan(honestly, the writing was good, but the plot was pretty average). Oddly enough, he had read every book she'd written, and it was the horror stuff he enjoyed the most. Then again, what would you expect from someone who spent so much time in a forensic crime lab.]

Hey, Rachel. [He walked over to her with a book in his hand, holding it up to see with an amused grin. And lo, what should it be than another old copy of the ever beloved Malchior that someone had left behind in class earlier that day.]

I think one got missed in the purge.

[unwakingwaters]

[yeah guess who else is here? It is this lady]

Oh! Rachael, fancy seeing you here.

[dancingonapin]

[Well she wasn't the only one in the bookshop adding to her library. Dr. Francis Fell enjoyed hitting up every imaginable bookshop in the city during his Saturday afternoons while he was off from work, both to help with his classes and for personal enjoyment. (Something about bookshops, especially the small ones, reminded him of home.) He'd, however, been in the next aisle over, picking up stacks upon stacks of new religious works, from any religion you could possibly conceive, save for perhaps the occult. Those books were a little harder to come by. In fact, those were the books he'd been wanting to hunt down more of these days.

When he spots Rachel browsing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels, the look on his face could be mistaken for something like recognition, though really it's surprise by her goth attire. Perhaps she could help? She looked occult enough to him!] Excuse me, miss, you wouldn't happen to know of, or perhaps have seen any books on the occult in this shop? Specifically if you've seen anything new, or perhaps anything about Satanism. [His cousin's birthday was coming up, that would actually make a nice gift.

Davesprite | Homestuck | Pick whatever random alleyway you want

[inesse]

[You're walking down a sidewalk. Any sidewalk. It's a free country, you can walk around anywhere you damn please. While you're walking down any sidewalk, you watch as a can of spraypaint (conveniently labeled "creamsicle dream", would you look at that) rolls across the pavement in front of you like some sort of weird tumbleweed. Clu-clink!

Maybe it hits your shoe. Or, maybe it just rolls off of the sidewalk and into a storm drain. Whatever. The point is, the can came from that way, and you should probably go and check it out.

There happens to be a blonde boy further down the alley, and he's wearing an orange-and-white raglan tee, faded jeans, and a pair of orange chucks. He's also got a(nother) can of (creamsicle dream) spray-paint in his right hand, and he's promptly decorating one side of the alleyway with a spraypaint cartoon that looks vaguely like My Little Pony and Superjail got together, had a lovechild, then put it through a JPG artifact blender.

That is to say, it's pretty ironic. If a little weird.

What will you do?]

[counterclock]

[What the fuck kind of unobservant douche is doing graffiti with all these fucking cops out? Avery would let him just burn in his shitty vandal hell, but unfortunately she still has a tiny bit of a moral compass left, so she looks around uncomfortably like some shady motherfucker and then kicks the can back into the alley, before following it a second later.

Through the darkness, she squints at the spraypainting douche.] Hey, fuckhead. What do you think you're doing? [V. polite, obvs.] There's cops up the asshole around here, you're going to get your tits busted.

Lucy / Kaede Hazuki | Elfen Lied | Arts and Crafts Fair

[notakillerqueen]

[ At the Arts & Crafts Fair, it's expected that there are a number of odd yet somehow delightful homemade delights. One could say they're worthless, others could say they're priceless in their creativity. Kaede's thoughts aren't easy to read since her face is blank, so it's up to anyone's guess why she's staring at a portrait of a Gundam made out of cut up construction paper, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and fluff. ]

Who would make this...? [ Despite what it might sound like, she's actually tempted to take it home with her. ]

Alma Karma / Allie Sanchez | D.Gray-Man | Arts and Crafts Fair

[killedyuu]

[Allie was pretty sure that being very tall and very tattooed was not helping this booth get any customers. She was pretty sure her appearance was scaring the pearl-clutching soccer moms away.

She's not sure how she got roped into running her coworker's booth for him, but she was already sick to death of face painting and the many ways her coworkers used her apprenticeship with the tattoo parlor to make her do stupid shit like this. It was dumb, since she wasn't apprenticing under this asshole, but being the bottom of the totem pole still apparently made her viable for getting stuck with jobs like this.

In the mean time, at least she had time to learn to hide the spaded tail that had decided to sprout overnight. Much to her distaste, it kept finding ways to worm out from under her sundress. All she needed were the soccer moms to start thinking she was some kind of demon on top of being stereotyped as part of a biker gang (which she was not, thanks very much). Allie smiled vaguely as another person passed by only to do a double take.] I'm going to cut a bitch when I get baaack~ [Singsonging under her breath.]

Laharl / Lamar Princeton | Disgaea | Park

[demonichymn]

[Seeing a thirteen year old boy at the park? Probably not that strange.

A thirteen year old boy with no shirt? Well, that's a little stranger, but not too strange.

A thirteen year old boy with no shirt, a pack of matches, and a look in his eye implying he's going to burn things? Well... That's a little more unusual. Maybe you should stop him.]

[un_muted]

[It's a nice day, so this college student has taken her books with her to the park to get some work done. As she's spreading her stuff out on a bench, though, the shifty-looking kid catches her attention.]

Uh... what are you doing?

Garfield Logan (Beast Boy) || Teen Titans

[shiftycent]

Rain

[Did something green and distinctly human shaped just dart out of your line of vision?

Garfield, in an astonishing stroke of bad luck, had been caught outside during the rainstorm. Normally that would be bad enough with the copious amounts of hair gel needed to make his hair look cool (though not nearly as much as Tim), but it appears that the echo flavored downpour came as ill timed as ever.

Now Garfield is ducking into the nearest corner he can find trying to escape the rain, and only just seems to be noticing himself that...well, he's a regular jolly green giant.]

Dude.

[ooc: Got a prompt in mind? Hit me!]

[oneboyarmy]

[excuse you you better not be making fun of his hair gel volume

Tim wasn't caught out in the rain, at least; it'd already started raining when he'd walked outside, and he was smart enough to know to break out a jacket and umbrella if that's the case. A little bad weather wasn't gonna stop him from getting to the lab, and his bike was still broken at the moment. So, y'know.

Clearly he wasn't in any rush however-- he did spot some...green? Thing? In the corner of his vision, and of course, his curiosity would not let him resist kicking up some raindrops to follow after the...thing.

It was only when he got closer that he actually realized he recognized the thing, and that thing was actually a guy and the guy had spoken.]

Garfield...? [oh please don't let this be some stupid joke]

Gendo Ikari | Evangelion

[king_of_the_lilin]

[Ah, the park. What could be better than heading outside on your lunch break and enjoying a nice meal in the sunshine with the birds singing and the children playing and--

Haha, yeah, no, that's not what's happening here at all. The only reason Gendo's out here at all, eating his lunch at an outdoor table, is because he hadn't bothered to bring a lunch from home (let's face it, he was already out of the house before the sun was even up) and not even he can tolerate vending machine sandwiches forever. Besides, Yui had insisted he try to get some fresh air now and then and she remained the only person in the world he couldn't flatout say no to.

That still didn't mean he couldn't take his work with him and his attention is focused on the open laptop in front of him, issuing orders and reprimands over email. Gendo Ikari's reign of terror never ends. Not even during lunchtime.]

[neopianangst]

[Let's pretend Shinji has the day off from school for some dumb reason because otherwise why would he even be out here. He's playing Neopets on his phone as usual because he has A Problem, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Gendo, and finds himself distracted.]

Oh, father...

Raiel/Russel Goldman | Violinist of Hameln

[pianistofraielin]

[Do you look lonely? Are you eating lunch all by yourself in the school cafeteria, or maybe sitting at a bus stop trying to ignore the rest of the world? Russel to the rescue (whether you want company or not)!!]

[A junior at the public high school, Russel is a member of both the football team (cornerback and wide receiver) and the drama club (typecast for hammy villain roles), and he's known for being aggressively friendly and having a very intense fixation on music.]

[So intense, in fact, that if you have headphones on, he's going to start off this conversation with: ] What are you listening to?

[but if no headphones, you'll just get the classic, "Can I sit here?" instead.]

[feel free to tell him to buzz off. he's depressingly persistent.]

[worlddominationbaby]

[ so russel might notice the sound of movement on overhead of the bus stop. he might think it's just a bunch of overweight birds, fattened by the wasteful habits of society.

but it is not a bunch of birds.

it is a woman (yes, a grown-ass woman) releasing a short war cry and jumping from the overhead, one foot up in a jump kick. she is wearing a skirt. for a split second, russel might see undies.

she lands on both feet in front of the bus stop, right in the bicycle lane of the road, both arms held out at her sides.

a pause. russel can't see it, but her eyes are closed and her lips turned up in a proud smile as she basks in her perfect landing.

then, ] I. Am. Awesome.

Starfire | Teen Titans

[chernobolt]

[except here she's Kara, the American-friendly name she'd mercifully chosen to replace her real one. today she's at the gym, blissfully ignorant to some of the looks she's getting over her Hello Kitty towel as she makes her way to the weights.

the towel is neatly folded and left on the open bench press station as Kara goes about retrieving the proper weights, stacking up to a number that is surprising for her size. once finished, she glances about the gym before walking up to someone seemingly less preoccupied and tapping them on the shoulder]

Excuse me. Would you mind looking for the spots for me?


[orrrrr you could hit me with a totally different scenario! I'm not picky I'm just voicetesting because I got bullied oh god help me]

[shiftycent]

[Why is Garfield in the gym? Its still a mystery. Despite his whole vegan act, he's pretty on on the laze-o-meter. Making appearances every now and then didn't hurt -- and he got to hang out with Victor if he was lucky.

So when Kara taps him on the shoulder, he's a little startled. His face brightens up almost immediately when he recognizes her.]

Kara, hey!

[God she has a weird way of talking. His head tilts.]

Uh. Sure? But I don't see any.

Junko Enoshima | Dangan Ronpa | LOL SPOILERS

[somethingawful]

OOC: also I haven't come up with a resurrected name for her accepting all submission for awful names now. willing to do other prompts if you want to make one up idec let's do this thing okay? okay!

---

[ REJOICE you bastards for this self-proclaimed greatest Internet star of all time is here at your local mall. Cam whore? Yeah, she's got that down pat with a little touch up here and there from her B.F.F. Ad'Obe. Her Facebook page has so many likes that they had to remodel the page just to fit all the numbers on it twice and her photos are reposted to Tumblr all the time without the right source credited. That's cool though, she's not even mad over her popularity. Girl's got a cult following and that's putting it lightly.

Sadly she's not as cool in the real world as she is on the computer and it shows here at the mall. Ducking behind a stand, she nervously frets and pulls out a compact mirror. Is she talking to herself or is she really just that nervous? Who knows what she's saying, but it sounds as though the tone of her voice shifts each time--oh god, did you just interrupt her? She's snapping the compact shut with a CLICK! all while giving the cutest stink eye of all time. ]

[shiftycent]

[Whoops.]

Uh.

[Maybe this had been a bad idea after all. He had green skin now -- it wasn't like anyone who followed him would actually recognize him, unless they truly stalked his blog. That would have been awesome. He's pretty sure this girl isn't following him though, not with how many followers she has herself, but you can bet your ass he's seen her on his dash, at least.

Focus, Garfield! Getting distracted.]

Hi.

[Smooth operator, as always.]

Kougyoku Ren / "Ruby" Wang | Magi : The Labyrinth of Magic | The Mall

[crownjewel]

Option A.

[It's a normal day at the mall, where Ruby spends more time than her wallet would like her to. Going through the racks at one of the higher-end clothing stores, she thinks she's finally found that perfect shirt, only for her face to completely drop as she checks the sizing tags.]

Excuse me!

[She tries sounding imperious, but it comes off more like a childish whine. Her nervousness is given away but the slight shake in her voice and hands as she attempts to wave down a sales person.]

There's nothing here in a size 5...

[She looks like she might be on the verge of bursting into tears over it.]

Option B.

[Sitting at the food court, Ruby is messing around on her cell phone while eating her lunch. She's not browsing tumblr or facebook, however, and is instead wrapped up in some kind of casual game.

Actually, you might get a notification that user "Fl0w3r0fTh3R3dS3a" just killed one of your monsters. Did she seriously just best you in that iOS monster card game everyone stopped playing over a month ago? Judging by the way she's jumped out of her chair in joy, it certainly looks that way.]

Yes! I finally hit level 10!

Option A

[rabbunctious]

[The young boy--fifth or sixth grade, maybe--in the over-the-top cutesy rabbit hoodie looks over when he hears Ruby call out, but the salesperson he was chatting with is already too far to hear her, gone to put away a jacket he came to return for his mother. Instead, Sang-joon tugs at one end of his hoodie's pull-cord, shifts his weight from one leg to the other, and takes his time to glance over the shirts the girl was looking at. Finally, he shrugs a little.]

My mom could make something like that, but cuter. If they're out in your size.

Li'l Sebastian (Lee Sang-joon) | Homestuck | Rain

[rabbunctious]

[That's the thing about the East Coast--when it rains, it pours. Sang-joon spent almost all his eleven years of life in a less violently pissy clime, and now, as the rain he figured he could shrug off goes from zero to torrential buckets, he finds himself longing bitterly for the San Francisco Bay. He presses himself against the front of the nearest building and pulls up his hood, then pushes the damp, drooping rabbit ears away from his face.

Maybe he should've taken the bus home, but it isn't like his middle school is that far. It's just a twenty-minute walk, if he doesn't stop to pick things up for his mom. Of course, visiting Little Japan is kind of a detour, but his mom's seemed so harried lately, he thought she could use one of those cute panda pencil sets as a pick-me-up. She's always running out of pencils.

The kid pulls out his phone, but only to check the time--his mom doesn't have a car, and calling her would just worry her. He lets out a breath and pockets the phone again.

Sang-joon holds the cartoon panda pencil case to his chest as he waits either for the downpour to let up or a free miracle limousine to pull to the curb.]

[synchronous]

[ DJ basically hates the rain, and that's all there is to say about that. It gets his clothes wet, the water droplets stick to his eyeglasses and make it impossible to see, and if he's not careful his backpack gets soaked too. Not good when he's addicted to carrying his laptop around wherever he goes.

So he can basically always be counted on to carry an umbrella around with him.

On his way home from Locke High, he notices a kid in a weird-looking bunny hoodie huddling under an awning. He stops. ]

Waiting for someone?

Porrim/Pia || Homestuck

[femmefashionaire]

[sigh

Another day at this shitty mall. Pia was new to the town, and if anything felt familiar, it was the mall. She had handed out a few resumes, and was now sipping on her strawberry shake in the food court, regretting every word she had said to the managers. She was a strong, confident woman! Except when under the judgmental gaze of a potential boss.

She shifted in her seat, crossing her long legs and watching the hordes of teens squabbling by the fountain. Oh, she could go on and on about them. She had seen that same group every day she had been to the mall. She supposed they didn't go to school, but that could be forgiven easily enough. She could not, however, forgive their hideous dress. She had seen them earlier herding themselves out of Hot Topic, and it looked as if they had picked the store dry. Leggings that featured dolphins in space were never forgivable.

Of course, a statement about dressing for yourself and not for others could be said here. She mused a blog post about it, later. But for now she will sit back and wonder why the person who designed those leggings has a job, and she doesn't.]

[rabbunctious]

[One knot of teenagers paused for a moment when an eleven-year-old boy hopped up on the edge of the fountain to squeeze by them. Maybe it wasn't the most normal method to bypass a group, but the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and Sang-joon just stone cold did not give a PG-rated poop what people thought of him.

Obviously.

Since he was wearing this over his street clothes. With the hood up and everything.

He made a beeline past Pia for the boba tea stall. The little black fluff-ball of a tail, though, was dangling loose, like it could fall off at any moment.]

graham specter | baccano! | why the heck not

[wrenchmaster]

[A) You know what you do with vending machines that eat your money and refuse to dispense the bottle you want? You dismantle it. You dismantle it without thinking and so he's standing surrounded by a small pile of parts that he's adding to as he keeps going, original intent lost entirely in the joy of disassembly. If you want a chance to get a free drink or think that this act of petty crime must be stopped and you're the one to do it, now's the time.

B) Or you know, you needed mechanical repairs and you're here to pick up your car/toaster/whatever. In which case yes he's waiting for you since all the work is done and you should show up quickly or he's going to get bored. Which won't end well for those around.

C) Or maybe you're studying for a test in the library and how is this guy not the verge of being kicked out because he just stood up and yelled out of nowhere like he's been given news to plunge him into despair.]

B!

[grannyspup]

[Tobias Belov, an affable youngish man with a baby face, did not show up quickly - a shoulda-been-quick so-called "emergency" meetup with a friend and coworker escalated.

In the "hilarity ensued" way. He kinda likes it when that sort of thing takes him by surprise - so he comes on in nearly an hour late with nonchalance. Oh, he knows he's late, Mr. Specter, but he's ridin' high spirits... As long as you're not too bugged, he's not worried!

...And you're not gonna be too bugged. Right?]

Hey! Oh, man, I'm late... heh -- ! Sorry - it's, uh, me, uh, Toby Belov - I was the guy with the green Kia?

Luke Kokiren/Link | The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[songoftimeandtimeagain]

[Most people may be hiding from the rain, but not this kid! The city is normally really busy and there are always people around, but the rain seems to have driven most of them indoors. For the first time since leaving the farm, Link feels like he's got the freedom to wander around and really play again.

He's too busy zipping around on his bike, splashing through puddles, laughing, and generally getting soaked to the bone to notice that his ears have suddenly become longer and pointier.]

we can voice test at the same time :)

[stagnantair]

[While Gavin was usually spot on time for work, the rain had him a little down. He stood under the bus stop cover, already pretty soaked through. What he wasn't expecting was seeing a little kid running around the park and a quick scan of the area shows no parental guidance. Sheesh, his aunt would have never let him do that sort of thing.]

You're going to catch a cold, you know.

[It's said pretty passively though, as Luke splashes by him. Gavin, obviously, has not noticed his eyes glowing a bit, temporarily, every time he focuses on something.]

Jade Curtiss | Tales of the Abyss | bookstore

[nekromanteia]

[Well well, if it isn't the world's most cheerful-looking coroner. In a blue and black suit, the ever-smiling Doctor Jade Balfour stood in front of a shelf of medical textbooks. He didn't seem to be looking for anything specific; instead he merely glanced over them and occasionally flipped through one that caught his interest. Then again...he seemed less 'interested' and more 'amused'. It was almost as though this excursion was less about academics and more about killing time.]

[Now the question is, does one dare approach the bespectacled doctor surrounded by the aura of death and passive-aggression?]

[stavros]

*Fear? Ha. The girl in the skeleton dress with rhinestone iron-on crosses on her bag knows no fear. Having been herded out of the comic aisle by patrons who didn't appreciate the kids who park themselves there reading everything cover to cover, she moved to a less populated aisle to continue reading the book, a simply-drawn comic with a very red-and-black cover that was apparently about some girl and her cats wandering a haunted amusement park. You know the deal.*