TEST DRIVE MEME #7

[sailmods]

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.



physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

Comments

original yue qingyuan | the scum villain's self-saving system (proud immortal demon way version)

[qige]

waking up dazed and confused

Yue Qingyuan knew the taste of his demise before the first arrow made contact with its thousands of brethren as timely in placement. He would swear he had not blinked, staring ahead, knowing the impossibility of his ever reaching his target, that the desperation, the immensity of his fear and hatred in that moment was struck sudden and dumb into silence, acceptance.

Totality of failure, and he has himself to blame for it, forever unable to save the one person he'd always wanted to help most.

The arrows never make contact. He watched their arc, descending, unsheathed sword in hand, and then: he wakes up. In a room he cannot recognise, sword sheathed, rounded window betraying... water? Outside. Even that he's uncertain of, and the grip of the wrongness, and the strangeness, of this has him carefully navigating the room's length and stepping through the door, scabbard in hand.

He doesn't feel like smiling when he sees an unfamiliar face in the hall, but he offers that politeness, and a bow of his head.

"Yue Qingyuan, of Cangqiong Sect. If I can trouble you for an explanation of where I am," he says, and then he trails off, eyes flicking to take in the continued strangeness of his surroundings. "I'd be most grateful."

dancing with myself

Yue Qingyuan cants his head to the side, hearing the tinkling precursor of the chandelier's fall for what is not the first time, and simply brings his sheathed sword up to knock it off course of where he and another passenger are walking through.

"You're uninjured?" He asks his companion, because the chandelier might be thwarted in a direct fall, but the shards of crystal and metal that attempt to grenade on impact always manage to get him, enough so that his robes are starting to carry small holes and lacerations like he's run through a kitten infested room a time too many in the last few days.

the spirit of the season

Yue Qingyuan is not an exceedingly large man; he's tall, proportionately built, shoulders wide enough to be substantial rather than willow-thin. He rarely thinks about it except in how and when to allow his presence its own weight, both as sect leader and as instructor to his peak's students, and apparently, now.

Because for whatever unfathomable reason, with a need for a second set of robes, all he's finding in a size that would fit is a collection of odd not-quite undergarments. Everything else he sees, things that look like actual clothing in some sense, is blatantly child sized. No matter how far he walks alone.

"Is this some new undergarment... fashion?" He asks himself, looking faintly, politely puzzled. "This merchant appears to cater to children." There is no merchant, just the store itself and its endless odd inventory, but the point (for him) still stands.

There's absolutely nothing in line of sight that he can wear. Strangely, as soon as anyone else joins him, options that will fit in all sorts of absurd costumes will become available, as if the store, in its debatable wisdom, knows he'd probably go back out and hunt down needle and thread if left only to his own devices.

( ooc: feel free to tag in with action brackets, i'll match! or to wildcard, i'm just rolling with whatever's silly. this is yue qingyuan from the end of proud immortal demon way, the novel within the novel of scum villain, in the moment before he dies horribly by arrows. thousands of arrows. poisoned arrows. )

sexy spirit...i have no icons

[originalshen]

Shen Qingqiu had returned in hopes of finding something better than the ugly blue robe he'd put on earlier, and is frowning judgmentally at an eyepatch with a skull and crossbones on it when he hears...a familiar voice.

He doesn't speak up in response, just. Turns, slowly, eyes widening, to stare at Yue Qingyuan like he's just caught sight of black moon pythoceros in the middle of the clothing store.

Really? Here? Of all places...??

shakes hand, what are icons anyway

[qige]

Movement attracts his attention, where Shen Qingqiu doesn't speak. Yue Qingyuan turns, shifting his weight easily so he might be prepared for whomever it is, or whatever it is, arms easy at his sides, lips prepared for the sociable, apologetic smile of a man overwhelmed by the oddity of circumstance.

He isn't prepared for Shen Qingqiu, or the gutpunch when he sees him. Thoughtlessly, he steps forward, gasping, eyes widening, taking in nothing of the oddness of what Shen Qingqiu wears. Taking in everything that shows within that outfit is a man standing on his own legs, and his heart stutters, his chest goes tight.

"Xiao Jiu," he says, and he's crossed the distance between them, his face stricken in a way it's never stricken. He had died, he must have, but if that is one truth, then here is another: if Shen Qingqiu had died as well, then he'd failed again, failed completely, and he already knew that was true.

Yue Qingyuan, who had been unable to bring himself to cry in their begging acts as slaves on the streets in their childhood, doesn't realise there are tears in his eyes now. Doesn't feel the warmth of them, or understand why his vision wavers, or that the thickness in his throat is emotion and physiological response twinned. What he knows is it's his fault, and it's Shen Qingqiu's fault, and it's Luo Binghe's fault, and no chain of faults made any of it better or worse, but Shen Qingqiu stood on his own legs, and Yue Qingyuan enfolds him in his arms with the shock and shudder of a man who doesn't understand what it is to cry, and cries.

"I'm so sorry. I was too late again."

icons are for the weak!!

[originalshen]

From Shen Qingqiu's point of view, this entire scene is...surreal? Shocking? Just plain awkward, maybe? The last time he saw Yue Qingyuan, the man was in perfect health aside from the broken heart after getting told to fuck off for the rest of eternity.

And yet here he is...still in perfect health, but apparently having become so heartbroken that he's acting as if it was Shen Qingqiu that had died rather than the shambles of their long-broken relationship. Taken off-guard as he is, he fails to move quickly enough to avoid the larger man's embrace, standing stock-still with gaping mouth as he tries to process what the hell is going on.

He hasn't received a hug - or any other form of affection, for that matter - since Yingying turned sixteen, nearly a decade ago; he feels weird, and embarrassed, and uncomfortable in a way he doesn't know how to describe; the freeze only lasts for a few short seconds before he regains enough presence of mind to shove off his shixiong (or try to, anyway) and take a few staggering steps back on legs weakened from imprisonment.

"What are you talking about? Too late for what?" I thought I told you not to come near me! he'd have added, if his dry throat didn't force an interruption through coughs.

... we all weak--

[qige]

Shen Qingqiu shoves him back, and he goes, because he has always let go of Shen Jiu when he's asked, even when Yue Qingyuan hasn't wanted to. Has thought, in all the guilt and hope for Shen Qingqiu's happiness over the years, respecting those requests was what he had to do, whta was deserved, that maybe at some point it would make Shen Jiu happy.

It hasn't, he sees now. Not because he could tell Shen Qingqiu how to feel anymore than he could tell water which direction to fall, but because in all the silence, he never said what he must. Never acknowledged how, specifically, he's failed his first and oldest friend, the person he'd wanted to protect most, and only managed enough too late.

Tears drip without fanfare down his cheeks, his chest still locked in a vise, reflected in a tightness in his voice.

"Too late getting back to you," he says, and he watches Shen Jiu with dark, worried eyes, reaching out and halting his hands before they touch at the sides of Shen Qingqiu's hips. His legs are attached. He's standing, and the silly odd robes he's wearing shows uninterrupted lines of skin when he'd stepped back. His legs are there. There's an anger and grief in him that has nothing to do with Shen Jiu and everything to do with himself, and he swallows, fingers twitching back into closed fists as he brings his hands back down to his sides.

"From the Qiu's, or from Luo Binghe. I—" he says, cutting himself off after a moment. Swallowing again, and finally seeming to be half aware of the state of his eyes. One wrist comes up for a perfunctory swipe, and then he's staring at the smear of wetness across it, just staring. "I tried. I did exactly what you said not to do, the first time. I was reckless. I rushed. Xiao Jiu, I never forgot about you, I was qi deviating the year I was supposed to come back—"

Breaks that off again, because he doesn't frame that, doesn't know how to, looks up from his wet hand to stare at a face he knows, he knows, he's died without seeing again.

"I couldn't get to you in time." Not back then, and not in the present. "I'm always too late."

[originalshen]

It's the tears that throw him off the most - tears he's not once ever seen from Yue Qingyuan in his life. It's surreal, seeing him like this, and Shen Qingqiu can't help wondering what the final straw was that had finally broken the stubbornly repressed camel that is his ex-brother.

He finds himself unable to turn away, overwhelmed with emotional confusion as he listens to Yue Qingyuan's broken-voiced confession, watches Yue Qingyuan's tear-streaked face, looking ready to react somehow if those hands actually managed to touch him. "You...I told you not—"

His voice trails off as the meaning of Yue Qi's words finally sinks into his brain, his own eyes reddening ever-so-slightly as his lips press into a thin line. "...What's too late...is telling me this. All these years, I'd thought—" He pauses, finds his words, starts up again - "You weren't supposed to come back this time. You didn't listen then, you aren't listening now, I don't know why you're crying—" His fingers tighten their grip on the stupid plastic fan he'd picked up among the shop's accessories, unable to put to words exactly what urge he's actually feeling.

[qige]

Yue Qi had been unable to sob on the command and threat and demands of the slavers who owned them, in their childhood. He'd been dry eyed and dauntless, a street hero, and Xiao Jiu, Shen Jiu, had been his closest friend. His family. The one who told him to stop when Yue Qi would grind himself into nothing, otherwise.

The start of their separation, the cumulation of Yue Qi's inability to not act to save those he could, Shen Jiu's inability to not be brutally effective when he was loyal, and the attention it'd caught: those years spanned between them, and Yue Qi had rushed. He had pressed too hard, too fast, ground himself into nothing and then worse than nothing, because he did have talent, he did have skill, he did not have patience. He learned patience late, and fettered with silence, and it takes seeing the person he's cared for most in his life standing before him now to hear the echoed threats of their preteen years.

Both my legs are broken, get out of here!

A lie, back then. A reality, more ruthlessly delivered, in the present.

What is truth if delivered too late? What is silence, he asks of himself, arms at his sides, fingers curling into fists, sword at his hip and dampened as always by its scabbard, sheathed and holding too much life force to be a simple spiritual blade, what is silence if it breaks and does not heal?

Wet eyed, ceasing his fruitless wiping away at the tears that roll, hot and chilling, down his face, Yue Qingyuan's voice is calmer, colder, killing when he speaks.

"He sent a blood letter with your legs." You weren't supposed to come back this time. "There was no way I wouldn't try to reach you."

Try, and fail. He knows he failed. Yet here, you are more whole, and if anything stabs sharper into his stomach, it's that knowledge in this foreign landscape and shop of inadequate clothing for undergarments.

[originalshen]

He sent a blood letter with your legs. The words are almost foreign to Shen Qingqiu's ears - not because he can't believe them, but simply because...well. His legs are still perfectly intact, is the main thing here.

So he stares, speechless, confused, moved in a way he can't properly describe (positive? Negative? He genuinely cannot say, his ex-brother's tears genuinely seeming to inhibit his ability to think.

"......It was a dream. He caught you in a dream, and you've convinced yourself it was real. I still have my legs, Yue Qingyuan--and you never should have tried to reach me! I told you! Why couldn't you ever overcome that impulsiveness of yours!?" Despite everything, he's working himself up with greater nervous energy the more he speaks, even if he isn't sure what it is exactly that he's truly angry about, or if he's angry at all.

[qige]

He smiles, shaking his head. The tears are what they are, and he wipes at them once more, his tattered sleeve smearing then into coolness against his cheek. Soon they'll begin drying, leaving the film of itching salt behind.

"If you say so, Xiao Jiu." It's not the case, and he knows his own truth. The nightmare his friend believes was authored hadn't been for Yue Qingyuan. He wasn't ignorant of what the provocation meant, what his own death was intended to buy.

Let Shen Jiu not realise the truth either. His self now is better, easier, not as hurt in visible ways as he will be, he would be.

Or perhaps this is a different sort of meeting by the river in death, without the chance yet to drink to forget, to become part of the pattern again all over, whatever it would bring.

"I was never very good at remembering not to rush when it came to you."

Honest, for what the costs were. The sanctity of himself never mattered much at all to him.

[originalshen]

Despite not knowing what's going on - despite thinking Yue Qingyuan is overreacting over something that never happened - he lacks experience with emotional scenes like this, and unwittingly finds tears gathering at the corners of his own eyes as well.

But scrubbing them away would be acknowledging their existence, so he simply chooses to shove the man instead as he turns his back to him. "What kind of example are you supposed to set, if in twenty years the head of the sect still can't show even a modicum of restraint! Get your head out of the clouds, we have more important things to be focusing on right now!" They're lost! In a weird place! In stupid clothes! And he can't let this idiot see his tears either, so he's just going to start marching off in some random direction in this extremely ugly clothing store.