toplvl | Time to Make the Donuts

Time to Make the Donuts

THE ON-DUTY MEME

We're all used to playing our characters in special circumstances--sharing a bath, AUed into a robot, in the rain, lost in the ball pit (well that's one way to get your extra hour)...but how often do we get to actually play our characters doing their day jobs?

This meme is for just that.

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Write a starter about your character going about their day at work, wherever that may be.

If your character is a doctor, write them checking in on a patient, or having a meal in the hospital cafeteria. If they're a lawyer, write them at court. If they're a professional ghost-hunter? Yeah, that'd be a pretty neat starter too!

Be sure to include some sort of hook that allows other characters to join in the action, even if your character works alone. Maybe they brought their pile of research out to a cafe? Maybe they need help with something?

2. Respond to other characters' starters. Please tag out if you put a starter up. I know I can't enforce this, but no meme goes anywhere if people don't engage.

3. Thread. Have a good day at work, or perhaps an awful day at work.

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[Some days, for Thiirien, making a few septims means hunting down a couple of deer in the plains of Skyrim.

...some days, it means quietly slipping through a crowd and freeing people of their purses.

It's a festival in the city of Dawnstar, the Day of Lights. Candles and torches are lit throughout the town, and children run from house to house and shop to shop asking for candies from the locals. Adults are in various stages of drunken cheer, and Thiirien is in her element, slipping among them to cut purse-strings with a small knife held close to her fingers.

Unfortunately, she may have chosen the wrong target this time...]

[Holding down multiple jobs is no small feat, but he manages. From being a mascot handling fliers two days a week to working as a waiter in a small restaurant to doing heavier lifting jobs part-time at a warehouse in the city's industrial district, it's pretty easy to find Taemin in the middle of "unskilled labor".

He can also be found training and assisting at a local boxing gym.

He's everywhere, but whether or not he can be interrupted depends on the timing. Perhaps when he goes on a lunch break...]

1: Y the Mystic Battles Evil

The entire city has had an oppressive, dark aura recently, like having a hand hovering over your shoulder all day. The air is sticky in the throat. Music doesn't lift spirits like it normally does. Voices of loved ones somehow seem grating and irritating. Strangers seem dangerous, no matter how they look or act. And just as it all seems to be piling up, darkness poured atop darkness like overflowing tar, thick dark clouds roll in. Just what it needs. Something to push everyone over the edge.

When the lightning bolt flies, it's unnatural, enormous, so bright it's like the sun is shining at midnight for just a second. The shadows in that light show a hidden truth. Horrid, tiny misshapen creatures lurking everywhere, clinging to surfaces and people's skin, whispering evil words. It's a flash of seeing the reality of the situation, but one thing persists. In the sky a single figure outlined against the full moon, the only clear spot in the clouds, surrounded by seven swirling shapes that strike and swoop at the lone force facing them. The solitary silhouette is struck by a perfectly timed combined assault and starts to fall, twirling down to make a nasty crash landing.

Aww, bollocks, thinks Y as he plummets. Maybe he's headed for a window, or a dumpster, or someone with supernatural abilities able to save him. If he's lucky. Either way, his other thought will probably be true. This is gonna hurt.

2: Sam is Sometimes Useful

Sam may be the owner of Solomon International Antiques, one of the world's leading organisations in antiques, collectables and archaeology, but he's also one of their foremost experts. Since he doesn't do much in regards to the direct running of the company, he can be found just about anywhere there are mysterious artefacts about. He enjoys it even when it's mundane, but somehow he's always ending up pulled into magic shenanigans.

"Ah, hello, I'm Sam," he introduced himself as he entered the branch of SIA that called him in. In his civilian identity, he's much less striking than when he's Y the Mystic. Black hair, frame made smaller by a suit, sunglasses hiding he's a cyclops. And whereas Y never fails to put on a show, speaking with his hands and walking like a dancer, Sam moves stiffly and shuffles. "They said you had something no one else could recognise, and that's when they call me."

You wouldn't think he's a multi-millionaire, let alone a flamboyant magician.

Option 1: Mid-twenties Minoru

No one ever took on a hospital night shift expecting it to be quiet. Minoru was two pumpkin spice lattes into his shift as an orderly and the people just kept coming in. Beds had to be made. Rooms had to be cleaned. Patients had to be moved. Nurses needed help. Whatever the task, Minoru was on it!

[Are you a doctor or nurse needing a helping hand with a difficult patient? Are you said difficult patient? Oh, the chaos!]

Option 2: Mid-Thirties Minoru

It was hard to tell what Minoru liked more - helping people or moving. So, going back to school to be a physical therapist assistant was a natural fit. Now, it was his job to help people move. And the outpatient facility certainly didn’t mind that his repeated stints on American Ninja Warrior were earning them some good press these last few years. Those little paper fans on the wall weren’t just for show.

[Are you doing rehabilitation after an injury? Wanting to meet a local celebrity? Are you just here for a sports massage by a cute guy? Hey, sometimes getting hurt has its perks.]

The woman on the other side of the counter is short and blonde, and looks quite familiar to Sam--though she shows no sign of recognizing him at all. She has a unique piece of silver jewelry laid out on the counter. It's completely mundane--no curses, nothing.

( you've come to this pleasant, and perhaps a little old-fashioned restaurant — you're in Naples, Italy, for whatever reason it may be, either you're visiting temporarily or otherwise. Libeccio is built on its classic, genuine heritage of Napoli culture, and on this side of the immense city, there seems to linger a historical charm. an essence of tradition clings to the buildings and the old streets filled with an immense diversity of independent businesses, owned and operated by Naples' people. it's beautiful, idyllic to the eye.

however, you're probably not here at this restaurant on pleasant business.

you've come to speak with Bucciarati, head of a group of bodyguards tied to the famiglia — the Mafia. someone's hurt you or someone you care about, perhaps, and you're afraid; or you might need some temporary protection while you travel through the area. if you're going to pay well enough, you might be able to make some...other requests. they are not assassins (and he isn't going to help you find that team; he probably couldn't lead you to them if he wanted to) but if you perhaps know a dangerous person that needs to be intercepted and...spoken to about their terrible deeds, or have some intel on a potential threat to yourself or others...or if there's a threat on your life — Bucciarati will take a meeting to listen to your cause.

he takes a cut of your payment up front prior to meeting, non-refundable, a show of good faith and respect. after that, he can't make promises as to what he will agree to do for you.

you were instructed to hand it to a blond man with a strawberry-iconed necktie (and weird as that was for an instruction, sure enough...that happened) before being brought by the host at the door to the furthest end of the restaurant — to a secluded, quieter section, partially closed away and fitted with south-facing windows. despite feeling like some sort of deeply-embedded den for a mobster to be taking meetings in, nothing about the room feels ominous or entrenched.

Bucciarati meets you alone, sitting at a circular dining table, where glasses of white wine have already been poured in preparation. a menu sits at the empty and only other place setting here, directly across from the man in white, and cleanly-cut long hair.

he's looking up from his wrist watch when you arrive, and he's patient to wait until you sit down with him before he remarks— ) You made good time, given the midday traffic. ( it seems as though you passed some preconceived challenge somewhere; of course, it would have been an insult to arrive late to a meeting like this. ) I appreciate you not keeping me waiting. I trust my associate Fugo was here to greet you, as I instructed. ( obviously he was, so what is the hint there? not about his own team member, certainly, but that you completed your part of the bargain. )

Begin where you would like — unless, if you're hungry... ( Bucciarati doesn't have a menu before him, only a yet-to-be-fulfilled place setting. is he planning on eating? should you? would it be rude not to? your choice — a waiter stands actively at the ready, waiting to be called on, or dismissed. )

( canon mates (even across parts) and cross canon equally loved. ocs welcome. no medium preference. Bruno is a mobster with magic abilities, though those abilities are a. typically largely made a secret between all similar magic users and b. not visible to people who don't carry a similar ability, but i am happy to throw rules out of the window for the sake of fun. canon blind people looking for more info and ideas can read more about Bruno here, and these magic abilities here. if yours is also magically-inclined, i'll happily work with cramming both schools of fiction together. if yours isn't, then none of it has to matter! (but if it's help you need that's magic-related...hella cool.) )

(ooc: I'm canonblind, but eager to jump in. Phaedra does have funky vampire magic powers, including psychic sensory abilities up to and including telepathy. She doesn't intend to use that level of power here, though, unless she feels the need, mostly preferring to skim the surface emotional currents instead.

I leave it up to you to decide if Bruno knows the club is run by vampires.)

[Phaedra Lamb is here representing Rhea Ashtifar and a local occult-themed burlesque club in the city. While it could be viewed as an insult that Rhea wasn't here herself, she was never seen outside the club.

Rumor had it that in recent nights, there had been trouble at the club--a local gang of thugs stirring shit. And Rhea, tired of her girls getting pawed by brutes, has finally decided to hire help.]

Thank you for offering, but I ate before coming. All the better to get down to business right away. I don't want you to feel like I'm wasting your time tonight.

Sam’s heart skips several beats when he sees Phaedra is the client. He did think it was strange how late the meeting was, but it all makes sense now. At least, he thinks, the slightly nervous energy matches his current persona. The real him is somewhere in the middle.

“Oh, uh, a chatelaine. I love these,” he says as he snaps on a pair of thin rubber gloves. “So, what did you want to know about it?”

He goes out of his way to keep his attention on the piece rather than her. Not only to try to keep her attention there too, but also because it fits the image more.

[ He shouldn't be concerned that the boy he hands the money to looks as young as he does, not when he recalls what he was up to at around the same age, but the older that one gets the more worrying these kinds of things are. It doesn't sit well with him.

Very few things about this sit well with him, from Polnareff's disappearance to the spirit photograph of a stand that can use an arrow to create other stands to the fact that the Speedwagon Foundation itself seems to have been infiltrated by someone, trying to deter anyone from investigating either of those things.

The good news is that he can wear a suit well. ]

Am I right in thinking it would be a terrible insult to the chef to leave food on the plate? I probably shouldn't, if so. I never can manage to eat more than a few bites.

[ Which is true. And it's a shame, because the food does smell wonderful. He pulls his chair in and tucks his hair behind his ear before reaching for the glass of water rather than the wine. ]

I'm looking for a family friend - a frenchman. He was travelling through this area the last time I heard from him, and I havn't seen him since. I have photographs of him. Some of his jewellery. I'm not expecting miracles from you. But if you could look at them I'd be grateful. At the risk of being impolite to them, even that much would be far more than the police have been willing to do.

[ His Italian is near-perfect, give or take some awkward over-formality. Accented, but always correct. ]

"It was sent to me as a present, as thanks for...some work I did."

A blood sorcery ritual of divination on behalf of another vampire; Y had seen the aftermath, when she was a somewhat out of it from opening her mind to the abyss. The abyss has a bad habit of poking a finger through those openings. She had probably been out of sorts for a couple nights afterward.

"I know nothing about this sort of thing, to be honest. I don't know whether to keep it to hang on a Christmas tree or to sell it. And you're said to be an expert in your field."

1. Mechanics anonymous

[ Phobos groans as a component snags and sends dark foul-smelling oil spurting out of the half-dismantled control panel of his aircraft. Of fucking course. First a programming error, then a fried chip and now... this. He rummages in the pocket of his jumpsuit to find a hair tie and pull his hair up before returning to the task at hand.

His fingers are slick with oil, his peevish attempts to extricate the wires too clumsy, and the next thing he knows, the tool he was grasping in his hands arches into the air, bounces on the canopy, skids down a wing and clatters to the ground.

Phobos pops out of the cockpit. ]

"Hey, could someone give me a hand here?"

2. It's never too early to get smashed

(ooc: continues from previous)

[ Familiar laughter echoes in the hangar. It's Cain, jeering a him from his own ship. And that asshole is pointing at him. Does he have something on his face? He looks down at his hands. His fingers are coated with insulating oil. Oh shit, he probably does.

Irate, Phobos stands up in the cockpit and gives the other soldier the finger before scrambling down the ladder and skulking out, intent on the only destination worth his time on a day like this.

The on-base bar.

It's packed, already, and there is only one stool left. Phobos drops in it with a sigh, propping his chin up in his hands before he remembers he didn't take the time to clean them. Oh well. It's that kind of day. ]

"Whiskey. Keep it coming."

[ It's surprisingly packed, so early in the day. Might as well try to make small talk while he waits for his drink. ]

"What's your excuse for drinking so early?"

Thinking through recent events, Sam does reach a conclusion the two events are related. Hopefully, the friend isn't sending Elder God themed jewellery for a reason. The problem with having finely trained mystical senses is that when you don't detect something is magical, you don't actually know if it's not magical or you just didn't sense it.

"That's what they tell me, but really, it's all just reading a lot." He holds it up with one hand and pushes his shades up his nose with the other, making sure she doesn't see that distinctly shocking blue of his eye. "Well, uh, like I say it's a chatelaine. You don't hang them from a tree, but from your belt. And then, the little chains, you affix things to them."

He runs a finger down a chain each time he offers an example.

"Thimble, scisorrs, keys, mirror. Traditionally, worn by the lady of the household. They're kind of like a feminine version of... those really big keyrings jailers in fantasy dungeons have. So... that's what it is!"

He hopes that was suitably dorky enough he seems nothing like Y. Now he just has to figure out a way to keep his hands on it long enough to do a proper scan.

Witchers have a single, unwavering and inescapable occupation: the life of a solitary killer and Eskel is no exception. Indeed, Eskel completely lacks whatever piss-poor curse of luck which frequently diverts his far more famous brother, the White Wolf, from the Path. He's a good witcher, very good, so it's days and nights investigating and stalking and killing at the edges of human settlements or deep in the underbelly of the great cities. Haggling for coin and getting run out of town when somebody didn't want to pay. Scrouging for jobs.

He's doing the latter just now, looking over a noticeboard, peering around and under postings about animals for sale or the airing of petty grievances, or decrees from the local religious nuts, etc. Looks like there was an endrega infestation in a local mining concern, the usual problems with necrophages digging up corpses. But maybe there's something interesting here, somewhere. He's so absorbed in his rustling he doesn't notice if anyone else is trying to read the board.

((Canonmates from book, games, show all welcome; perhaps other adventurers or monster-hunters-- competition for a trophy, or a team-up-- or people looking to hire a witcher would be good company.))

"Oh! Something like this might be useful, actually. Maybe. Do you know about how old it is?"

She glances from the chatelaine to Sam, head tilting to one side. In a way, she's playing down her public persona, too. Pretending to be human, breathing and blinking and all. Just an eccentric person who's shown up late at night.

~~At least she used the front door this time.~~

"Useful, maybe, but a little over 100 years out of fashion," he says as he gently puts it down, and repeats the shade pushing move. After so many times staring lovingly into each other's eyes, it's his biggest worry. After all, his physique, hair and height are seemingly different. And the problem is he can't take his eyes off her, as much as he accepts her vampirism, it's nice to see her looking so... alive. "They stopped being in vogue in the 19th-century. And the method of making red glass like this was uh, rediscovered in the 17th, so we have a window."

"Aha. Even if it's 19th century, that's pretty old. Do you think it's sturdy enough to use and wear still? It might not be in vogue, but I definitely think it might be nifty to wear around."

He's wearing sunglasses at night, and keeps drawing attention to them by pushing them up. It's weird, and puts her on edge somewhat. She's now paying closer attention to him.

Contracts were growing too scarce for him to stay by Aiden's side as of late, and so that morning, after a very passionate goodbye, they'd parted ways. The Cat witcher was headed out to find the Dyn Marv Caravan, and Lambert had decided to take advantage of the warm summer days by heading north. He could potentially make it into Kovir and quickly fatten up his purse, then have time to meet up with Aiden again before he had to make his way back to Kaer Morhen.

A witcher's life was meant to be solitary, but Lambert reveled in being different from his brothers.

He's just ridden into a town and stabled his horse in the hopes that the notice board will have a job that will earn him a night at the inn, at least. Camping is getting old. And speaking of old...

That red and black gambeson is as familiar to Lambert as any of his own armor, so he has no qualms walking up and jabbing an elbow into Eskel's ribs. "Move over, jackass, other people wanna read the board, too," he sneers, then tosses a roguish smirk to his brother-in-arms.

The younger Wolf's presence (and his bullshit) is so familiar to Eskel that he doesn't even instinctively lash out when unexpectedly touched, instead throwing a hard elbow back at Lambert in return.

"It's all the usual boring shit." He says. "And I doubt any of it pays very much." He makes a general gesture to the size and condition of the town.

Lambert glances around and shrugs. "Anything is better than nothing." He looks back to the board, frowning at the usual postings. Of course, he hadn't expected anything too spectacular. It was the same problem he and Aiden kept running into.

"Any chance you've already got a room? I'll do whichever job you don't want to do if you'll share. Unless...you were trying to tell me to fuck off."

"Endregas. All yours." He hands Lambert the contract notice. He pulls down the one for the necrophages for himself. "Inn's not much to look at and if the mattress feels as good as it looks...well." He shrugs dismissively. "Guess it's better than the ground. And what kinda brother would I be if I made you sleep out in the rain?" He punches Lambert affectionately in the shoulder. "Sort out that endrega job for me and you can have half the bed."

"For half the bed? You've got a deal." He takes the contract, then returns the shoulder punch. Lambert knows when he isn't in a position to make demands, and he's lucky he ran into Eskel, because if it were Geralt or some other witcher from another school, he'd suffer camping in the rain for the sake of his pride.

Eskel's always been glad to give Lambert the things he needs and this is no exception. Especially if it means not crawling around in an endrega nest.

"Meet you back at the inn." He points to a down-at-the-heels little building off this town square. "I'll try not to get too drunk before you get back." He laughs.

[Meanwhile, there's someone here in Dawnstar who's really, really out of place—or would be, if he wasn't trying to go undetected.

That would be David Puskás, who's on a reconnaissance mission on behalf of Portal Corp. He's here to monitor Praetoria's interdimensional movements and prevent them from finding ways to reach his own home dimension. A Technology-origin hero probably isn't the best choice for a mission to a world like Tamriel, given someone of Magic or Natural-origin would blend in with the locals much easier. Nevertheless, he was the only hero available for this assignment, so—here he is, smack dab in the middle of the Day of Lights festival, trying to keep away from the crowds while relying on his power armor's built-in active camouflage (and the drunkenness of the citizenry) to stay out of sight and out of mind.

Unfortunately for him, this short and squat hero just so happens to be between Thiirien and her chosen target, such that she's got a good chance of either bumping into him or accidentally getting a hold of one of the devices on his utility belt while trying to reach for that reveler's purse.]

Edited (Whoops!) 2020-10-21 01:43 (UTC)

[It really is startling when you go to grab a purse and jostle a person you can’t see. It’s not like you can easily explain what you were doing, but you kind of also want to raise the alarm about a person who isn’t there.

Thiirien reacts, after realizing there’s someone she can’t see, by shoving in David’s direction as hard as she can.]

[The first bump had been enough to make David look around, expecting it to come from a boozer stumbling about—but he really wasn't expecting that shove. That, combined with how hard Thiirien shoved him, causes him to stumble forward into the townsfolk she'd initially targeted.

Which causes said citizen to stumble and fall over into other nearby townsfolk. Thiirien just turned David into an unwitting bowling ball.

For his part, he couldn't help but grunt out a "Hey!" in surprise as he careens forward, but his armor's adaptive camouflage doesn't drop. Yet, it'll be easier for Thiirien to see where he is just based on the way that system works. It doesn't perfectly match the surroundings—almost like looking through glass. There's just enough distortion that if she's paying attention she can just make out his general shape: a man about five foot tall, seemingly wearing very bulky armor.

He's now scrambling to get back up and away from the crowd of citizens-turned-bowling pins. Normally he'd be trying to help people up and apologizing, but he's fighting that instinct pretty hard at the moment—that would really bring in a lot of unwanted attention.]

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Page 1 of 5

Time to Make the Donuts

Thiirien | Skyrim OC | OTA

Yoon Tae Min | What Lies At The End | OTA

Samuel Solomon / Y the Mystic ✨ Superhero OC

Minoru - OC

2, it is TIME.

bruno bucciarati — jojo's bizarre adventure — ota

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Phobos ~ Starfighter ~ OTA

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Eskel || The Witcher || OTA

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