Test Drive Meme: The Overflow, Part Deux!

[arielmods]

CITY OF ARIEL: THE TEST DRIVE THE OVERFLOW, PART DEUX! Since the last post is again fast approaching 3k comments and getting laggy for some of our players, we have decided to go ahead and stick up the overflow post, even though there's just a little over a week to game start. Please continue your threads or start new ones here if you'd like. To make this easier on those continuing threads from the last meme, here's a handy form: <small>(<a href="THREAD URL HERE">Continued from here.</a>) between <user name="CHARACTER 1"> & <user name="CHARACTER 2"></small> Response here! Please remember to let your thread partners know you've bumped your threads over here as well! We started the meme early to give you plenty of room to do just that. ◆◆◆◆ With the City of Ariel grand opening only a month away, we are holding our first ever test drive meme. Tag in and see how your character would settle in the game. You're a fresh face in the city, newly processed, and arriving at a bustling time. The city is expanding and you are greeted first in the re-education center by your helpful counselors and then directed out of the building to a large festival. Be puzzled, make friends, have sex, or whatever you want! There are no restrictions on thread types played out here. Your first awareness that something has gone wrong comes during a groggy moment of semi-lucidity when you look around yourself and find that -- instead of wherever you remember being last -- you're in a chair, in a room with a man you don't recognize. He's sitting behind a desk whistling to himself and sorting paperwork. The whole atmosphere might remind you of a high school guidance counselor's office, only with far more comfortable chairs. When your head clears enough to speak and you ask him where you are, he smiles brightly and says, "Welcome to the City of Ariel." You were brought to Ariel during a very special time! There's a large festival going on celebrating the new expansions to the city and everything is decked out for it. Everything is bustling and vibrant in the city today because of the celebrations. There are decorations up, food vendors set up all along the streets, kissing booths, games, and just about anything else you can imagine an event like this would have! The people of Ariel are out and about as well, some are in vibrant costumes and others are just checking out the sights. Some of the more exhibitionist types are even having a little more fun out in public than you may be used to seeing back home. As soon as the grogginess from your arrival passes, you are allowed to leave the re-education center and see it all for yourself. Upon exiting, you are even handed beads of various colors, several of each so you don't worry about running out. Each color has a special meaning listed below: pink - toys blue - oral yellow - watersports green - age play lavender - crossdressing orange - multiples grey - bondage white - hands (mutual masturbation, fingering, handjob) red - blood black - wildcard These are to aid you in making a connection with others. Show your interest in others and tell them exactly what you would like to do with them by sharing the beads. If you would rather take a different approach, feel free to walk around the festival and see what (or who) catches your eye. The point is to relax and get settled in your new home.
TAG IN - Post your character's name, canon, and preferences. - Set up an opener in your comment or leave it blank. - Tag around and have fun!	USEFUL LINKS: [Premise] [Rules] [F.A.Q.] [Locations] [Local Citizens (NPC)] [Taken] [Wanted] [Reserves] [Application] [Main] [Logs] [OOC]

Please note that all CR in this meme can be carried over when the game starts between characters that are accepted into the game.

Threads can also count towards third and first person samples on the application, just provide links.

Take a look at our OOC Meet and Greet post! Meet. Greet. Make friends. Have fun!

Comments

[halfassed]

It isn't that he can't. It's just that he doesn't want to. He's exhausted and disoriented and confused, and he doesn't want to go somewhere alone. He's afraid he'll just shut down.

"Yeah." Yes, sir he wants to say, but he doesn't know this guy, and he's not willing to take that step.

He goes to the kitchen. And he starts prodding around at the state of food, too, while he's there. If there's something he can cook, he might.

[notbocceball]

There is food in there. Ba'al does know how to cook he just prefers not to so much of it needs only to be heated up or can be cooked within a few minutes or doesn't require cooking at all. There's also a box of something resembling lo-mein.

"Do you recall the last time you've eaten?" he asks idly in the meantime.

[halfassed]

It actually takes him a minute. It was a few hours before landing on the carrier. Nutrition bar. No telling how long he was unconscious, though.

He doesn't want to elaborate on how his brain is a little fuzzy. Rolls his eyes at the contents of Ba'al's larder: "This stuff is crap," he says. He takes one of the prepackaged things of rice, and some of the frozen vegetables. Two eggs. There's not much in the way of spices, so salt will have to do.

Presumptuous? Okay. But Clint wants something to do with his hands. And he doesn't want to be alone. And this is a solution that also gets him fed.

Burners on, water started boiling, and he dumps the vegetables out in a pan. His motions are quick and practiced. He can cook. He's actually pretty damn good.

[notbocceball]

Ba'al will take that as a no when his question goes unanswered. And really, he does laugh at the comment about his food. "I was unaware I would be sharing my food or would have been sure to accommodation you," he says in a mild sort of sarcasm.

"I will be sure to inform my chef."

[halfassed]

A snort. "I'm the only cook here," he says. "So if there's some competition, you best warn them off."

It's a confidence he doesn't really feel, but saying it makes him a little more at ease.

"So, where did you come from?" he asks. "Middle East?" Water boils; he turns it down and adds the rice.

[notbocceball]

He chuckles over that.

"I was--" spawned "--born in Egypt," he explains. "I spent a considerable amount of my youth in the various countries that comprise the Middle East as well as Africa. Later, I made my home in the United States. I had moderate success in the technology and aerospace industry." Which is truthful in a sense.

[halfassed]

He eyes Ba'al. He caught that pause, doesn't know what it means.

"Didn't peg you as a businessman." To be honest, Clint has this instinctive feel of royalty, or leadership. Wall Street suits don't really get that.

[notbocceball]

He shrugs. "It wasn't my first occupation. I was in the family business, if you catch my meaning," he says, implying criminal activity rather than God. He'll leave him to draw his own conclusions on exactly what sort. "Obviously, I broke away from my former position in my father's ranks. If he had not been over thrown and killed, by American Special Forces, incidentally, with my departure I'm quite certain he would have sent a great number of assassins after my head. I was forced to seek a brief refugee with one of his rivals before his death." A watered down and modernized version of his break from Ra. He knows enough of the modern middle east to know how plausible that is.

"Finally, as I said, I came to the Untied States and found it infinitely more agreeable."

[halfassed]

Basically, the answer to this is that Clint should get out of here. He shouldn't cook a meal for a guy who comes from a crime family. But he shouldn't have used a stranger's shower, either. He shouldn't have followed a random guy off the street into his apartment.

Clint's throat tightens in panic, for a second, and he breathes.

The eggs, now.

He breaks them, tosses them in and prods them around while the yolk and white solidify. "So," he says, "how do you feel about Special Forces, then?"

[notbocceball]

"Ah. You are concerned," Ba'al concludes about the question. "I owe more to them than you could possibly imagine. I would be dead, along with many others, without their intervention. My father," he says with distaste over the word, "had many children. He considered us all expendable."

He pushes himself up from his seat and moves to the kitchen doorway. "I am more my mother's son. She was one of the first to stand against him. Of course," he says, leaning on the door frame, "I understand how this information would put one such as yourself at unease. Would you rather I kept it from you?"

Of course, he is keeping a great deal from him but that's beside the point.

[halfassed]

"Rather not be in here with a guy who thinks I'm a good punching bag for his father's killers." Not fun. But try telling terrorists hey, all Americans aren't the same, though actually I do want to kill you, so. "Figure there are a few reasons you would have invited me up here. You want to take some kind of revenge, or you want that kind of power on your side, or you've got some fucked up complex going on."

[notbocceball]

"Very good," Ba'al says with some genuine praise in his voice. "You should be delighted to know I am not in need of a bodyguard. Here, especially. I have no interest in revenge, at least, not against you or anyone like you. I have no desire to hurt you unless that was something you gained a particular sort of pleasure from."

He glances briefly to the food as it cooks. "My interest in you is much more basic but you are right of one thing. I do believe you could be a powerful ally," he says, then adds, "If interested. Otherwise, I will do what you requested tonight and that can be the end of our association." He follows that up with a brief pat to his shoulder then turns to his seat.

[halfassed]

The shock of physical contact makes him go still. A response stirs in him, everywhere, like some kind of weird Pavlovian response. He shakes his head, like he could dislodge that thought, and he prods at the cooking vegetables.

"What do you mean, basic?" he asks.

[notbocceball]

"What you've been doing the entirety of the evening up until now, of course," Ba'al responds. "Though I would prefer you rested and in more control of your actions."

[halfassed]

He drops the spoon, and it makes a clang against the pot.

"Is there just something about me?" he says. "Do I have it written on my forehead? 'Come over here and tell me what to do'." Because he has a hard time figuring out why Loki picked him. Why Loki stepped right on over --you have heart-- and just took away everything he was.

[notbocceball]

Ba'al quirks a brow at him. "Not that I can see. Does this happen with alarming frequency?"

[halfassed]

A little of the fight goes out of him, with Ba'al's calm response.

"Yeah," he says. "I -- yeah, pretty often." He'd been about to say more often than I'd like, but, then, he goes along with it every time, doesn't he?

[notbocceball]

"That is... unfortunate," he says carefully. Frankly, he's more surprised there isn't an obvious claim on him if this has happened before. He returns to the couch where its clear his mood has shifted to something more sober and serious. "Do you wish to withdrawal your former request?"

[halfassed]

He's not looking at Ba'al. Prods at the rice, which is almost done. His throat works, a moment, like he's swallowing.

"No," he says. "I don't."

[notbocceball]

"Are you certain?" he asks with more force behind his words.

[halfassed]

Flicks the burners off. The more Ba'al asks, the more certain Clint gets. The fact that the dude didn't just demand Clint get on his knees and start servicing is really encouraging.

"Yes," he says, clearly. "I'm sure."

He glances to the pot, then back to Ba'al. "You want some of this?"

[notbocceball]

"Hm."

As for the question of the food. A smile does return to his face. "That would depend entirely on whether it is poisoned or not. I did turn my back on you for several seconds," he points out, jokingly. Which can be considered a yes.

[halfassed]

Clint's eyebrows go up, a smile playing around his mouth. He gestures at himself. "And where am I gonna keep poison?" he asks. "Exactly? Unless you're telling me you got some lying around here, in which case I should probably recheck the spices I put in there."

[notbocceball]

He shrugs a little amused, "Well, I would hope you don't make a habit of concealing poison in the one place I can think of. And as you can see I have very little in the way of spices."

He gets up again to get a better look at the food. "Eat. You need it more than I do at present."

[halfassed]

He serves up a portion, and he stops, hesitates, his mouth twisting.

"Would you," he stops. "Maybe be interested in ... you know, feeding by hand." Oh, he is so uncomfortable suggesting this.