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

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.]

[stavros]

Of course! It's my responsibility.

*Picks up fabric bolts and VERY SERIOUS puts them back.*

[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.

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.

[inesse]

[This particular unobservant douche has, in fact, been quite observant. He's managed to tag about six walls (in various parts of the city, it would be stupid to do it all in one place, duh) without getting caught yet.

So. He's pretty unimpressed.]

Contributing to the local city beautification project. [Nope. He... doesn't even bother looking up at her.] Originally it was going to be fandango, but, jesus christ you should see the look on the dude's face when you ask for fandango. It's like suddenly he's this alien and the thing you asked for is actually some weird alien aphrodisiac or some shit and he can't tell if you're coming onto him, or if you're just proposing something especially scandalous.

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. ]

[counterclock]

What the fuck is fandango?

[Is apparently what Avery got out of all that.]

Look, brosis, I'm just saying. There are cops crawling all up and down this stretch like pubic lice on a particularly hairy asscrack, just looking for some nice pieces to sink their nasty itchy fangs into. I wouldn't keep around here. [She kicks the empty can at him to get his attention, since he isn't even looking at her.]

They won't fuck around. They're out for blood. Beautification ain't worth getting the shit whaled out of you.

[eras]

I'm sure! You don't want it to get wet, after all - that's not good for bikes, or so I've been told.

[ She straightens, hopping off her stool. ]

Oh, we've always got tea on here. Grams has a thing about it - and yeah, hopefully it doesn't. Kinda came out of nowhere, though, right?

[eras]

[ She has never loved anyone so much as she does right now. Aria's expression had gone to disappointment that the relics weren't up yet, but then... ]

Really? I've been waiting on them ever since they were announced, and if you're sure...

[ Well, Aria will not protest for more than this token one right here, because relics. ]

Then I'd love to take you and your keys up on that offer.

[goodboybestshot]

[Thad was a little hesitant to investigate. He had bad experiences with dark alleys and he knew better than to stumble on something unsavory. Things like that just never ended well. However, the color of the can struck him odd and he couldn't help but steal a peak.]

[Huh. What is-- well. That sure is some comic. He tilts his head a bit.]

What is it?

[metalbent]

Maybe a tech person could see about it? I can't say I know that much about phones, or anything, but...worth a shot?

[ KINDA... ]

Wait, you were writing on your phone?

[sponsorigami]

It's easier to carry than a laptop, and I usually have it on me unlike a notebook. Easier to keep everything together too.

[ He has tried writing in the margins of his notebooks for school, but he finds that sometimes passages or story notes go missing. ]

[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.

[pitch_slap]

"Um." Think fast, think fast.... and don't be creepy about it either. "I know you're probably closed for the day but if you want to make one last sale...?"

Well. It's a terrible reason, but whatever. Maybe she'll sell the end of day stuff she couldn't get rid of that will have wilted by tomorrow, huh?

[brodad]

[He freezes at about the same time. This is... weirdly familiar, almost as if this happened before. As if he should recognize her.

He pulls her up, if with a bit of effort, and only lets go once she's steady.]

...Ah. [Half-smiling, with a small, uncertain laugh] I get the sense I should know you from somewhere, but I can't place it.

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.]

[metalbent]

What sorts of things do you write? Adventures?

[ If he says "romances" her interest in his writing will dissipate, and there will probably be faces made. ]

[brodad]

Hey-!

[oh my god you can't just take things give that back

He starts to reach for the book before really noticing the person who took it, and stops mid-motion as a wave of familiarity comes over him. He's pretty sure he can trust this guy, though he'd be hard-pressed to say why since so far there's been nothing particularly confidence-inspiring.

He pulls back and crosses his arms instead. Noticing another copy of the book sitting on a shelf nearby, he returns the smile.]

I'd say you already know the answer to that.

[dead_wife]

"Certainly," she smiled. What a polite and delightful young lady! It made Lilly feel more like a doting elderly woman, even though she was only 29. "If you're not in a rush, you may come with me to the shop. I have a wider selection of flowers there, and I would not wish for you to linger in the rain longer than necessary."

Lilly was still unable to place the girl's face. She knew it was familiar, and not just because it looked like hers.

If only she paid more attention to current music trends instead of mooning over classical and new age music all the time.

[unwakingwaters]

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

Oh! Rachael, fancy seeing you here.

[busy]

[Iwan just shrugs off the apology, because it was really no skin off his nose. But then he gets caught up in watching him, the way he shakes despite how much he's trying to hold it together.]

All right?

[He leans forward on the bench and tries to catch the guy's eye.]

Maybe you should sit down.

Re: Davesprite | Homestuck | Pick whatever random alleyway you want

[wonk]

[Roxy actually manages to bounce one of the cans off her foot and snatch it out of the air. Staring at proof of the unexpected feat, she almost doesn't notice the boy, and basically walks right into him.]

Oh, fuck, I'm sorry.

[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.

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.]