tushanshu_ooc | TEST DRIVE

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TEST DRIVE

TEST DRIVE MEME - TU SHANSHU EDITION!

Itching to try out writing a character? Then rev up your engines, grab your accounts, and slam your way into this meme! Here is a venue for you to try out whatever character there might be tickling your fancy, from fandom to OC, for as few as one and as many as MANY. Seriously, there's no limit.

How do you partake in this fantastic congregation of character testing? Why, by following these simple steps:

Comment with the journal of a character you want to test; put their name and canon in the subject line for added sparkles.
Tag around with everyone!
Profit like you live on a the back of a turtle!

But wait, there's more! For the low, low price of $9,999.99, you can even use one of our handy prompts when you tag someone. You could even pick one with a Random Number Generator to help decide which prompt to go with!

A Chance Meeting at the Turtle's Head.
Remember, being here causes a great sense of-- well, shall we say inner peace.
Haggling Over Something in the Marketplace!
Maybe someone else saw the exact same shiny thing you did at the exact same moment! However shall this be resolved? Remember: blood is extremely hard to scrub off of turtleshell!
Hey, I Just Met You, and This is Crazy...
First impressions are always the most important, right?
WILDCARD!
Go nuts. Suddenly your character is fighting dragons! Good God, they've found the Millennium Falcon drifting in the ocean! Do you really feel the need to polish every paving stone in the Earth Sector? Please note, Wildcard options are also what you can choose to do if you aren't yet comfortable in the Tu Shanshu setting and would prefer a more 'dear-mun' esque experience. Please specify in your post!

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[ It's quaint, no really it is. He briefly wonders if Sandy is responsible for this, because clearly there is no such thing as giant cities on the back of a giant turtle. It's the sort of thing children's minds come up with in their dreams, influenced by golden sand.

But alas, here he is, and he might as well get the most out of it. Pitch lurks in the shadows and darkness, as is his nature, observing and being generally creepy, especially towards young ones whose fright and tears sustain and power him and yeah, that's creepy, he's not sorry. ]

[Gunnar moves from merchant to merchant, making queries after a Thorlief Golmen, every ounce of his tone one of worry, concern, and fear. When there is no answer, he lingers by the shadows that ring the markets. There is a thin aura of fear (for Thorlief, truly) that exudes from his person, but truly it is thin. Diet fear, even, for one that understands the true nature of the emotion.]

[ Well. A diet's better than quitting cold turkey. Pitch senses at least that much and it's enough to draw him closer, to at least observe and analyze the human wandering about the market. He's older than most, so fright from him will do little good to the Nightmare King, but there's at least potential. Until a child stumbles along, whenever that may be.

For now, he observes. He takes to the man's shadow and twists it, warps it to have longer arms and clawed fingertips. For a start, anyway. Might as well play around and test the waters first. ]

[Catty coalesces out of the darkness next to Pitch and...nearly bumps right into him] Oh, jeez, that's creepy. [Said the girl who just literally stepped out of shadow. She gives an awkward laugh, tucking a curl of hair behind her hair] Lurk much?

[ Wow personal space much. But then there's the fact to consider that she physically touched him and- she's not a child, has no reason to believe in the Boogeyman, so that only leaves so many options as to who she is. Deserved of a scowl, either way. ] Did it not occur to you that this is, perhaps, rude to bump into someone and not apologize?

[Catty huffs, placing her hands on her hips] Well I wasn't exactly expecting anyone to just be standing here in the shadows! Who does that?

[ Tch. Pitch follows suit, one hand on his hip as he jibes back. ] The one who makes the shadows, of course. Who else could it be?

[There's a pause, and then she rolls her eyes] You're creepy, but you're nowhere near as bad as the one who makes the shadows.

[ Ah, so from another world, as they all seem to be. Pitch can't help but be curious about the competition. ] Oh, do tell. And we'll see who out-creeps whom, hm?

[She squints at him for a moment] Do you want to make out with any of my friends?

[She comes form a truly unfortunate teen lit series :'D]

[ w h e l p ]

I concede defeat. You may inform your shadow maker that in this battle, he emerges victorious. [ touching people? affection? intimacy? ew. ]

[That makes her brighten a little. Catty likes winning things. She waves her hand] It's okay, it's destroyed now. Way to assume it was a guy though, come on. [There's a beat] Oh, I'm Catty by the way. Sorry for bumping into you.

A mere guess. [ he offers little more than a shrug in return, maybe his brow arches quizzically but it's half-hearted at best. ] And I should hope so. Do watch where you're going next time, lest you stumble into someone less accomodating of your clumsiness.

[There's someone else in the shadows, though not IN the shadows as a spirit can be. Purely physical, a child just tipping the edge of adulthood and both pretending and aspiring to be far more. He's not afraid of the dark; it's always meant safety to the mutant turtle. The shadows are home. From them he can watch the world, and the world can't see him.

But he IS afraid of some other things: most obviously, that foreign world he's avoiding. It's better here in Keeliai, but it's Leo's anxiety when he's pushed outside his comfort zone that truly drives his social avoidance. Even if all other factors were neutralized, he wouldn't ever come fully out of hiding. He doesn't like to be noticed, and as for openly being part of a crowd? The idea makes him shudder.

Dangerous enemies also hide in the dark. One in particular haunts his nightmares on the occasions he still has them - and although he hasn't believed in childish things like Santa Claus in many long years, Leo's boogeyman happens to be frighteningly real. He's known about the Shredder as long as he can remember; then they met in battle. Save for sheer dumb luck Leonardo would have been executed at the end of Shredder's blade, and his brothers surely would have been next. Leo refuses to let fear of their most deadly enemy dominate him, but it is there and that specter is the reason he comes down so hard on his brothers to remain incognito even when no one cares about their mutant heritage.

Normally Leo's immense confidence in his own skill and ability to handle challenges, at least those within his comfort zone, easily overrides his fearful nature. His father was always careful to foster independence and self-reliance in his sons and it's done wonders for Leonardo; the boy's pride and confidence is like a bright shield.

Besides the standard baggage he's brought from home, a new fear is creeping about his subconscious, working cracks in the foundation of that shield. He knows there are people out there who could take control of his body either psychically or via magic. Leo doesn't fully understand their method and he doesn't care, the idea scares the heck out of him and he avoids these foreigners as if they were radioactive. His abilities and self-control are the very foundation of his pride and confidence, and if that is taken away he's left with nothing. Worse yet is the prospect of his skill used against his brothers, the way the Rat King used Splinter to try and kill them all. Sensei broke free of the psychic control, and Leo had to believe that he could too, but the young turtle is as yet untested and knows full well that Splinter's mental/astral abilities are far stronger than his own.

All these fears are generally well in hand as a result of accomplishments that bolster his pride, but still lurking in his subconscious and fueling his motivations. In other words there's a LOT of material for Pitch to work with, if he can slide past those defenses and find the right way to undermine the teenager's confidence.

Right now Leo is concealed in those shadows that provide safety and security from his fears, watching the kedan night-life below from his place of safety. Those who glance up and happen to see him don't react with fear, but he still takes pains to remain unseen, and precious few glimpse the ninja. He likes it that way.]

[ He hears, sees, feels it all emanating from shadows not far from his own. It's not powerful enough, not strong enough to grant him the comparable might that a world of frightened children can bring him, but it's something. It's just enough to draw him near, to listen in to all that troubles and torments this one so. What he finds is quite interesting indeed, not childhood fears of monsters under the bed but grown up fears of a masked man in piercing metal armor, among many others.

He can work with that, at least. Digging into that fear, Pitch can produce a shadow that will seem very familiar to that one hiding still, letting it creep along the evening streets before disappearing into a dark aleey. He imitates the armored man's laugh with his own voice, wondering idly just how afraid of this supposed enemy the ninja really is.

Or gullible. That too. ]

[Leo has been known to be kinda gullible, yes. As for how afraid the fifteen-year-old is of this enemy, the answer is very.

He's accustomed to shoving fear aside to get the job done; Leo knows perfectly well that to let fear take hold is to give the battle to the enemy. Despite telling his brothers that it's okay to be afraid, Leo himself can't afford to let that emotion get in his way; he MUST stay on top of the situation in order to make the decisions that will get them all out alive.

Yet fear still twists in his gut, for very good reason. This enemy wants to dispatch him of course, that's nothing special. So do Snakeweed and the Kraang and multiple others. But Oruku Saki's end goal is Leo's father. The young turtle is just a means to an end, and the Shredder will use anything from death to torture to accomplish his goal.

The shadow of blades and the timbre of that laugh are unmistakable; Leo sucks in a breath of air and stiffens as if he's been hit with cold water, pupils narrowing to show a wide ring of blue gone pale with fear. But a second later he leaps to a defensive stance, blades drawn and eyes narrowed as his brain kicks into strategic overdrive.

He KNEW the Shredder could be brought here, and that fear-driven conviction has fueled a significant portion of Leo's actions since he got to Keeliai. His only consolation is that he's probably the first to encounter the Foot clan master, since he spoke to both Raph and Mikey not long ago. There would have been little time for Shredder to go after them, and then show up here. But that doesn't help Leo; Shredder is a Master, and Leo can't possibly hope to beat him alone.

Leonardo's expression has hardened into a warrior's mask, but his heart thuds under his plastron as he slowly backs away from the alley where he'd seen that shadow. With that laugh, Shredder probably knows Leo is up here, and the young turtle is tense as a violin string as he glances now and then to check his own blind spot. He can't cover everything though because there's no one to guard his back, which makes this situation a thousand times worse.

Facing the Shredder alone is way up there on the list of Leo's Worst-Case Scenarios To Avoid At All Costs. He's not ready for this and he knows it. Some day Leo knows he will be, but he also realizes it will be years before he attains a Master's skill level. The best he can hope for here is to escape alive so he can warn his family.]

[ Fifteen. In turtle years- well, no, that's still young. So perhaps there's something to be gained from this yet.

He observes still, as the ninja readies himself for attack so quickly, his guard up in the blink of an eye. Well skilled, then. All the better to do this from a distance, someplace unreachable, and for Pitch the rooftop shadows hidden from moonlight suffice well enough. Blades, the fighter uses, but if Pitch plays his cards right then it won't be an issue.

Yet, he does not charge. And that- ah, all the better. Using the forged shadow he created, he has it follow him, perhaps forming into an almost solid form near the alley's edge but disappearing into blackness a moment after.

The laugh however, he keeps. Growing louder, closer, and booming. He's growing attached to it now. ]

[Leo isn't afraid. He remembers his father talking about fear, how it clouded the mind, how there was no shame in the emotion but that he could not allow it to control him. Fear could be overcome. Sound lessons, wise lessons, teachings Leo has absorbed and practiced for years; so he's not afraid. Definitely not afraid. He's NOT afrai--

Shredder laughs.

Leo is very afraid.

But worse than simple fear is the fact that he's alone. There's no one to back him up, no one to order around, no one else to focus on guiding out of this situation - all the loci he uses to ground himself against his own doubts and fears are simply not here. Just Leo, by himself, against their most deadly enemy.

When that self-assured, sadistic laughter ripples through the air and the edges of Shredder's armor carve dark silhouettes against the light, Leo's knees waver and he stumbles backwards. His elbow hits the wall and he nearly fumbles his sword; clumsy with terror, it's a wonder he doesn't fall flat on his figurative tail (it's a close call).

He has to run NOW or he won't be able to get away at all.

Leo sheathes his blades, pulls out one of their home-made smoke bombs, dashes it against the ground and is immediately enveloped in a purple cloud. Darting away, he runs with every inch of his trained speed. If he can get a good distance between them, if he doesn't get cornered, he should be able to escape. Shredder has all that heavy armor, and while he's incredibly fast, he surely can't run the way Leo does...

Can he?]

[ Now this is definitely interesting. That fear is consuming, pulsing, and Pitch isn't about to just let him get away. The smoke is a clever distraction, but only to those who could not move through it, those who could not asborb the surrounding darkness and pass through like only shadow can. Such fright indeed, so obviously Pitch follows after him.

He remains unseen himself, but he begins to create more shadows further ahead, the same helmet and mask stepping out of alleys and corners. Even further along, he reaches up and grasps the occasional street light, torch, whatever happens to light the way. If he has to surround the stranger in utter darkness to really get to him, he certainly will. ]

[Pitch is led on a chase worthy of the canniest fox with a pack of baying hounds on its tail. Leo is fast and inventive, and the mental and physical tools he has at his disposal have gotten him out of scrapes before. He turns to one after another, resting what confidence remains on the hope that the next one will work.

But as the shadows close in and nothing Leo tries can shake the pursuit in the slightest, he starts to feel desperate. If he was thinking rationally, he would realize this couldn't be his flesh-and-blood enemy - Shredder can't darken the lights, or pursue so closely without ever being fully seen, or start to corner him by appearing at opposite alleyways in a blink.

Unfortunately for rationality, the fear is a creature of its own now, worming its way into the weak points of his psychological defenses and spreading like a disease. Leo can't think beyond the mad dash to escape, and he knows that to make a stand is to hasten his demise; in his condition, Shredder will undoubtedly floor him in less than a minute. So Leo keeps running, far past the point when he should have conserved his energy for the inevitable fight.

As he tires, Leo instinctively thinks of going to ground. But he dares not lead the Shredder to a safe location or to family and he can't access the Keeliai sewers, so he slips into the canals. Surely this will shake his enemy, a human weighted down with heavy armor. But even the teenager's best swimming can't shake his pursuit, and Leonardo - a turtle for goodness' sake - is gasping for air by the time he abandons the effort, hauling himself over the lip of the bank with trembling arms and thudding heart. He scrambles onto dry land and turns before he's even stood up, eyes searching his surroundings; he's got to have made it this time -

But the lights dim, shadows close in and he hears the shink of blades. With a terrorized gasp Leo is back on his feet, expending the last of his energy in a now-hopeless rush to turn some new corner that will magically shake his enemy.

And then he finds himself in a dead end. Leo's throat is dry, his chest aches from the constant adrenalin spikes and trying to hold his breath past even his limits. His shell is against the wall: Leo is cornered. Even though fear calcifies his throat and drains the strength from his knees, the warrior refuses to die with his katana sheathed.

Leo draws his blades once again. His strength is shot, every nerve wound tight as a violin string as he nearly vibrates with terrorized anticipation of the first punishing strike. With his grip weakened by exhaustion he'll probably be disarmed in a matter of seconds, but he'll do everything he can to hold out.

All he can think of now is his brothers. When Shredder's through with Leonardo he'll hunt the rest of them down. Leo's the only one who seriously thought of this inevitability, the only one who truly prepared - Raph is over-confident with their new-found social acceptability and will be downright easy to hunt down, and Mikey - oh god, Mikey.

The darkness closes in.]

[ It was quite the chase, that was for sure. The fighter was quick, nimble, agile. But he had obstacles in the way, other buildings and various evening life in this strange city. Pitch doesn't have to worry about such trouble, passing through wherever he pleased in order to have the most effective results. He wasn't about to let this one just run away so easily, not when there was so much to be gained from that fright just radiating off the other.

He followed, close, almost reaching the point he could breathe down the fighter's neck from a few short paces. But gone in the next moment, just enough for the ninja to garner suspicion and vanish the next. It was more fun that way.

Once the weapons are drawn, that's when things get interesting. Ready for a fight this one is, but Pitch isn't going to bother wasting too much effort too soon on this one. Once he has him cornered, the shadows expand, covering every last inch of the secluded alley and snuffing out every last shred of light. The laughing begins again, louder, almost to the point of deafening and even mixing in with a second voice - his own, merely for effect.

And then, nothing. The shadows withdraw and disappear all together, the laughter a fading echo. Mere moments pass, before it all suddenly seems as though nothing had ever been any different. Like it was all in the fighter's mind, perhaps. ]

[Leonardo’s rational mind, struggling beneath cobwebs of fear, screams at him as darkness swallows the very ground beneath his feet - this isn’t right. Shredder is just a man - a master of the art, skilled, cruel and ruthless, terrifying in combat and probably a sociopath - but a human man. Not a mage, not a superhero, not a mutant of any stripe.

Unfortunately Tu Shanshu hasn’t been great for Leo’s rationality. When the second voice weaves into the laughter that scatters the teenager’s tattered composure like dry leaves, a treacherous thought fostered by paranoia sprouts and flourishes: What if Oruku got here and made allies who possess abilities Leo isn’t familiar with? What if some new ally or lackey controls shadows - or taught the Shredder how to do it himself?

Leo’s mouth is dry; his heartbeat pounds in his ears and it feels as though the heat is leeching from his body extremities-first (not a good thing for a half-reptile). Long past concealing his fear, blue eyes dart frantically as he searches the dark for any clue of an attack, any sign, anything solid he could possibly dodge or counter, something to work with, anything! But there’s just amorphous darkness and whispers behind his head, the ones he knows are there but when he turns it’s nothing.

Exhausted, terrorized, confused and alone, Leo’s skill is drowned by instinct. He knows a blow is coming, it must be. Leo flinches -

And then it’s gone. All of it. The alley is low-lit as normal, the only sound that of kedan nightlife issuing from a few streets away.

There’s a moment of frozen silence; then Leo gasps in shock and stumbles, half-falling and half-crumpling to the ground, braced on hands and knees. One katana escapes his grasp and clatters on the ground; the other remains grasped in his fist even now, but practically useless in the turtle’s current grip. He’s blowing like a racehorse; only part of that is the exertion of the chase. The rest is the aftermath of panic, shock draining warmth and feeling from his fingertips; he’s sick, shivery, trembling.

Why is he still alive? If the Shredder really had been here, Leo would no longer be in one piece, that’s for sure. Is someone messing with him, or is he just going crazy?

With a small groan, Leo leans back on his heels and presses his free hand to his eyes, trying to recover. After a moment he takes a steadying breath, retrieves his errant katana and braces the point in the ground to lever himself back on his feet.]

What was that...? [Leo mutters to himself.]

[ in all his years of being alone ( okay, so it was a year or two, maybe three, and it only felt like an eternity because of how long he was glued to Bianca's side ) he'd never found anything more unsettling than what waits for him on Tu Vishan, and that's people that share in his abilities. common ground. it's supposed to be. . . better, isn't it? he doesn't bump into Pitch exactly, stops short of it and strides right out of shadows.

and he definitely sounds more than a little exasperated about what he's looking at. ] Is nothing sacred anymore? [ a beat ] Alright, let's hear it. Who are you supposed to be?

[ Well. Exasperation is one thing. It's not fear, it's not something he can draw upon and delight in, but. Pitch supposes it's simply more of the usual, more people who can't stand him based on first impression alone. What he obviously must be. Ah, woe indeed. ]

Minding my own business, if you must know. [ hands fold behind his back as he looks the stranger over. He eyes him over - young, but certainly not the type to heed warnings of monsters under the bed. ] The art of people watching is a revered sport.

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TEST DRIVE

pitch black; rise of the guardians

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o-oh mai i just saw RotG recently. Someone to prey upon Leo's fears OMGWTFYES pardon my wordiness

forgive my lateness!

no worries ttly worth it (let's leave the worrying to the mutant turtle he's good at it)

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Went on vacation! Now I'm back!

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