sure, jan

[maskormods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Considering apping into MASK OR MENACE? Want to dip your toes into the setting and get a feel of whether your character will fit into it? Or maybe you're just cruising and want to play around? Then you've come to the right place!

Pick any of the following scenarios below or feel free to make up your own, but don't be afraid to throw yourself at anyone's thread, either!

And remember to have fun!

01. Your memory is hazy and you might feel increasingly frustrated or anxious, or maybe you're excited as soldiers march past, barely glimpsing you. One second you're somewhere underground, the next you're enveloped in blue light, and suddenly you find yourself directly under Flordia sun's bright and burning glare. A female soldier steps toward you with a wide smile on her face and directs you to a car, ready to debrief you. You realize you are not the only one, surrounded by equally confused or eager faces... and you're all sporting a digital tattoo on your wrist.

02. Welcome to Cape Canaveral, where the smell of the ocean is in the air and locals are more than pleased to see new imPorts roaming their streets. They wave, they cheer, they ask for pictures as politely as they can. The more inhuman you look, or if you're wearing a costume, the more likely locals are to approach. Hey, enjoy the moment! The popular malt shop is offering you a free drink if you need it.

03. The technology in this world is certainly something. The cars are clearly modeled after popular 50s cars, but they hover several feet above the ground as they drive down the street. There are digital jukeboxes in restaurants, motorcycles also hover through traffic, advertisements can be seen on a digital projector on the taller buildings. Even kids on skateboards appear to drift a safe ten feet off the ground while playing!

04. Wherever you are, you can hear the loud revving of an engine, distance at first before you finally see it: a hovercar bursting around the corner, going beyond the maximum speed limit and just barely making its sharp turn. It doesn't appear to be slowing down any time soon, not with two police cars trailing it... and uh oh. Those skateboarding kids don't have much time to get out of the way as the car comes speeding down the road. You've been brought here for a reason Hero — so you better act fast.

Comments

[kanadian]

"Yeah, I'm --" wow, the guy looked kind of...cowed? He didn't know what to think about it. He frowned. "I'm serious, are you alright? I honestly didn't mean to, I'm really sorry."

And he meant it, was the sad thing. Well, maybe not a sad thing, Kaidan was just genuinely nice. In that kind of hyper-Canadian way that was nearly a stereotype, if you didn't count the fact that he was a marine, and killed people on the battlefield professionally. Small details, however.

"What were you talking about, before? The porter? Are you new?"

[siriusly]

"M-mm, yeah..."

Manabu's nerves were very close to fraying, but he wasn't about to let himself crumble to pieces right then and there. He curled his fingers into fists on his lap and breathed in deep once, and out in a fast huff, shaking his head as if the adrenaline shock was just rainwater or dust.

His mouth twitched on one side, as he tried to puff out a laugh. It didn't quite take. "That was actually what I was annoyed about...people suddenly just hitting me out of the blue." He lightly rapped at the page on his lap with a knuckle. "The concept's written in here, on this stuff I was given right off the bat."

After getting hit in the mouth.

[kanadian]

"So you're -- Your power is to be a punching bag?" he asked, his voice cautious, almost worried. Why would they do that. He was lucky, he had his biotics and his omnitool, but to... get a power like that?

Jeeze, what kind of cruel person was making decisions like that? Kaidan wondered how much of a gamble it was that he had the powers he had, or how much of a gamble it was that this guy was going to have the sorts of powers that ended only in...well, misery? He'd always thought of himself as unlucky, but this was taking it to a whole new level.

"I'm sorry, that kind of...that's awful. You're going to have to get used to pain, aren't you? Or... I guess it works if you already like it."

Kaidan Alenko: saying weird and mostly awkward things since 2151.

[siriusly]

Manabu grimaced at punching bag. At least the page tried to put it as stupidly scientific and technical as it could without outright saying it like that, but now it sounded even worse. He could hear David howling with laughter in the back of his head – hell, he could practically see Bruce smirking with the biggest aura of serves you right that any universe could manifest...

He tried to laugh, but again, no dice. He just felt like a bigger joke for it. Worse, at the idea of enjoying it; that made his expression screw up with a flicker of horror.

"N-no way! I, I mean, getting banged up is pretty likely in my line of work, but that's definitely not why I joined!"

He was working to stop people from getting hurt...

He huffed, frowning miserably down at the page. He was trying very, very hard to keep from letting his mood tank, but somehow punching bag was the stopper that unplugged the drain.

"I'm just waiting to wake up, because this feels too much like a bad dream to be real..."

[kanadian]

"I'm uh, sorry, then," he was a half-smile, really, that found him. The kind that said he knew the feeling, but it wasn't to be. "No offense, but..." Kaidan knew how it was, to show up here. To be out of your depth and not know what was up or down, what was right and wrong. What was expected in this world, and what wasn't.

Kaidan had spent a long time thinking about it, working on it, programming his omni-tool and researching for hours and weeks on end. Trying to figure this world out.

Yeah, he knew what this was like.

"That's the kind of dream you're not going to see. Not for a while, anyway. I've been here for eight months, and I haven't gone home yet. I don't know if I'm ever going to."

[siriusly]

Eight months? Manabu looked over, alarmed.

"And that's–" He hesitated, trying to recall and properly understand remarks others had told him. He got gradually a bit more worked up as he puzzled it out aloud: "And...that's just time here, right? So...so if you got really old or grew a beard or something, and then managed to get back, you'd be older and have a beard and nobody you knew before would know why! Because you suddenly just changed from younger to older in a second!"

Not that beards were awful, but what if that guy's job required no beards? What if Manabu got really old, too? That wasn't something you could pass off as a prank.

(Eight months was not enough time to be fretting about something so dire, but Manabu couldn't help it.)

[kanadian]

"I don't...think that's how it works..." he said, giving the poor guy a look. What was with the fascination with beards? Did he think they didn't have razors here, or something? Was Kaidan already sporting stubble? He rubbed at his chin, just in case, but it felt alright.

"You go home, and it's...just like when you left? Nobody sees a difference -- and you're the same age as when you left? I think. I'm not -- I'm not exactly an expert on this sort of thing," he admitted, holding up his hands, but kept them well out of his distance. He didn't want to slap him. Again. That might be bad.

"I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself, nobody's been here that long, I think."

[siriusly]

Manabu's eyes winced. Yeah, yeah...he may have been jumping the gun, but...

"I-it's all well and fine if nobody home has to worry about me," he explained, his expression pinched with worry. "But if I go back and I can't do my job, that's! That's pretty bad..." He slumped back in the seat, rubbing the side of his head where he was struck.

"I mean, I guess it all sounds pretty bad, but still..."

He wasn't some genius, he was just a regular guy. It was hard to wrap his head around this sort of thing! "One weird time loop was bad enough..."

[kanadian]

"Only one? You've been through something like this before? How did you --" cope? Manage? Kaidan wasn't exactly adept at this -- in fact, he was entirely out of his mind with how incompetent he felt.

Then again, this is a guy who was getting promoted to high-ranks in the middle of the galactic eradication, he was already doing everything he could to stay above water, but this was apparently the last weight, he couldn't handle much more than that. He frowned, and shook his head. "I mean, this place isn't bad, and you won't -- you'll go home the same as you were, as far as I know?"

It was a small comfort, of course. Kaidan hadn't been through nearly so much that it was a worry, but give it a year or two, and he'll be thinking it too. After all, he didn't want to be that old a soldier when he finally got back to his real fight.

"I'm not an expert, though, I've never gone home myself."

[siriusly]

When Manabu looked up to reply to that half-finished remark, he stopped short as well. The manner around that guy was...well, not really sad, but somber enough. That was probably eight months of uncertainty, if he was being honest about it; Manabu had no real reason to doubt just yet.

Except for the part where the conversation began with getting smacked.

He tried to smile, and it come out a bit crooked. "There's a spot along the Galaxy Railways where time can distort," he said. "Sometimes trains get stuck in a bubble of the past. It happened to me on the day I went to join the SDF."

[kanadian]

"The, uh, Galaxy Railways?" he asked, his voice sounding more and more interested by the minute. Well, he was used to space, that was kind of his thing, so when he leaned forward in interest, it was because that was a lot more like home than he'd heard from a lot of people. Anyone who'd been to space was someone Kaidan was interested in knowing in no small measure.

"You mean space? Are you -- some kind of..." he paused, and looked down, like he was looking for something -- looking for the right words. "What did they call them..."

"Astronaut?"

[siriusly]

In contrast, Manabu leaned away, but only after a moment to realize that he ought to. And for that, and the astronaut remark, he chuckled weakly.

"No, not like that. The SDF protects the railways, so it's kind of like...like a mix of military and police, I guess. I'm not sure what would explain it best to you..."

[kanadian]

Oh. Well that made perfect sense to Kaidan, and he nodded. "So, what are the railways? Are they your... travel lines? I assume that it is in space, right?"

He sounded more interested than anything else. Then again, Space. And space cops, on top of that? It was hard not to be a little bit interested. "I'm, ah, not quite the same, but... I'm a member of the Alliance Military." And a council spectre, but that probably wouldn't mean much to him, would it?