cityarcade | [meme] test drive

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meme: test drive

[meme] test drive

SPOOKY TEST DRIVE!

Tag into this post with characters you're thinking of apping to the game (characters who are not currently in-game or currently reserved by someone else). It can be just a tag, a brief EP, whatever you want. You can be new to the game, or simply want to test out a fresh pup. Tag each other with these characters or those already in game, and have fun.

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Lisa Johnson

Maggie Vogel

Hugo de Rune

[Rose Marshall loves autumn. The living are more likely to have extra layers on hand, and she can appear plausibly underdressed for the chill without prompting too much worry. It's only the work of a few minutes and some feigned adolescent sheepishness for Rose to obtain a flannel from a college student who blushed easily. She has to roll up the sleeves to look less like a kid playing dress-up, but it doesn't matter.

She's alive, or as close to it as a road ghost gets. And there's a farmer's market full of vendors who give out free samples.

There's a honey stick haphazardly poking out of the front pocket of her borrowed flannel and juice on her chin as Rose houses a freely given apple like a starving person. The dead are always hungry. But she does have the decency to look a bit embarrassed when she catches someone staring. She waggles the fruit as if it's the one to blame.]

Did you know they keep inventing new kinds of apple? Like, every year?

Edited 2024-10-15 18:04 (UTC)

[ The small boy that steps up beside her as she speaks grips the edge of one of the booths, peering up at the selection of samples and wares with wide, excited eyes. His pale skin is cut through in places with visible black veins that reach up from his shirt collar and the cuffs of his sleeves. He looks up at her, eyes clear despite the discoloration in his skin. ]

How? Aren't apples just apples?

[ Rose is well-versed in American accents, but this one is harder for her to place. Not a local, though that isn't saying much in a city that routinely kidnaps non-locals for nebulous reasons. More concerning are the visible threads of something creeping beneath the kid's skin, a visual corruption less suited to the living than the dead. He looks like he just crawled up out of the Midnight. Gives her the goddamn creeps.

But she prefers to identify what she's dealing with before she goes pissing it off, so she gives the kid a smile. ] They're called cultivars. [ She once hitched a ride with an agriculturalist from the University of Minnesota who had plenty to say about them. You can pick up some niche shit on the road. ] It's kind of like crossing horses and donkeys to get a mule: you take two different kinds of apple tree and cross-breed them to make something different. Something that's sweeter, or more cold-hardy... or something that doesn't bruise easily, so it still looks pretty after shipping it halfway across the country.

Oh! I know that! [ He seems genuinely delighted for the explanation and the connection he can make to it, and turns to face her fully. ] Like cross-breeding flowers! I know lots of flowers. I give them to my sister.

Oh! My name is Hugo. I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that, though. But the rules are different, here, aren't they!

Yeah, like flowers, too. [ She didn't expect the small, possibly-dead kid to be into horticulture, but why not? Kids are weird when they're alive, and death doesn't generally dial the weirdness down.

There's a slight hesitation before she adds: ] I'm Rose.

[ The road that she travels rarely calls for her to hide who she is, certainly not to the point where she'd say there were rules about it. Rules are for where you can safely tread and how you're supposed to behave, and besides, her reputation tends to precede her. Rules about names sound more like Emma's purview, but the beán sidhe isn't here to weigh in. ]

Darrow does seem to play by its own rules, huh? You sound like you've been here before.

A long time ago, I think. It's hard to keep track. When I'm not here, things are... bad, mostly.

[ Hugo would much rather think of good things than bad, though. Thinking of bad things usually brings them, after all, and without Amicia or Mother here, he isn't sure what could happen. ]

Mother has roses in her garden, too. She uses them for tea, mostly. Well, parts of them, anyway.

I'm sorry to hear that.

[ Which is more polite than the 'no shit' she wants to say. Whether he crawled his way up from the Midnight or not, Hugo doesn't look like someone who's been having a good time. ]

You know, the stand over there is giving out free honey sticks. [ Rose pulls her own stick out of her pocket and gestures with it, pointing the way over Hugo's shoulder. If she was feeling really generous, she might offer it to him, but he should be capable of scoring his own treat. And she's not in a hurry to give up something that was freely given to her, and will therefore taste like actual honey instead of ashes. ] I bet if you asked nicely, they'd give you two.

You mean I don't have to pay for it? [ He whips his head around to look towards the stand, where he can indeed see amber sticks similar to the one in Rose's hand.

He hesitates and looks up at her almost shyly. ]

Will you come with me? I- I will ask, I promise. I won't make you do it.

Edited 2024-10-16 00:48 (UTC)

Mouse Honrada

Look! There's a ghost in that window. Must be Halloween.

This is the part where I'd really like to say something corny, like "I ain't afraid of no ghosts," or something, but... that would definitely be a lie. Not afraid of some ghosts, though.

...wait, do you know Ghostbusters, or is that... before your time?