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etcelsior2015-01-30 02:34 pm
maskormods) wrote in etcelsior2015-01-30 02:34 pm
sure, jan
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.
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BUT HOW MANY OF THEM ARE ALSO INTO GOOFY IDIOTS WHO PRETEND TO BE HELLA BADASS, JAIME? HOW MANY. She needs charts, or something. )
Damn.
( She looks so crushed as she reaches for her milkshake. Morose milkshake times. )
Back to the drawing board, I guess. ( She glances down at her drink. ) Is it a bad idea to ask what you got?
( 'Cause she's curious and all, but. Superheroes. Powers. The whole nine yards. )
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Well. Not lying so much as fibbing. He has the power he claims he has - he would be a fool not to - but it's not the only power he has, is all. That's not exactly the same as lying, is it?]
It's, like, this body-scanner thing? I can tell if someone's pregnant, or if they need to fix up their diet before they get diabetes, stuff like that.
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( All in good humour, though, the grin before she dunks some more of those fries in the milkshake undermining the dismissal.
Also, lying by omission. It's a good thing she's not a cop any more. Not that she ever really got to being a cop, exactly. And also she's not so crash hot on definitions. Or mind reading. Oh well.
Her eyebrows are raising with the description, but it's not incredulity - just surprise. )
Huh. So, what-- like you could be all "hey man, get that mole checked out?"
( Or, "hey man, maybe don't take up smoking again just because you're in civilization!" ) That seems kinda...
( She doesn't want to say useless... ) Awkward?
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[And by turning it off, he mostly means that he's told Khaji to knock it off. He doesn't need to know when people are pregnant before they themselves know. Sure, if someone was in dire straits, it would be his responsibility to tell them, but... it was just too much. He couldn't listen to every single person's condition.
He cracks a smile, mostly because he's used to being told his power's lame, and because he knows the truth.]
Maybe you'll get something better. What would you want?
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( Such sympathetic face, such concern, as she totally steals a fry. Never mind that she has plenty of them. It's to illustrate the point.
She does turn her plate a little so him counter-stealing some fries is easier, brow furrowing as she thinks. ) I dunno. Forcefields? Then I could keep my people safe, or like-- teleporting, flying.
( What power would even be any good, against the undead? They keep walking when they're burning, so that wouldn't help. Never ending ammo doesn't necessarily mean you have time to shoot them all. She's turning it over in her mind, considering all the options. ) Stopping time, maybe. So long as I could let some other people keep moving, too. Then we could all make a clean getaway.
( And maybe if you could control time, you could go back and fix mistakes. )
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Every time, they'd start off with flying, just like Tara did. It's a little sad to hear a childhood game turn into a frank discussion of logic, because for some people - a lot of people - getting superpowers in their home worlds is the difference between life and death.]
Those are some pretty good ones. I've never heard of anyone being able to stop time before, [he says, and yeah, he lets her steal that fry. He'll steal from her later.] Maybe you got lucky and got at least one of 'em.
[Flight, he wants to tell her. If she wants anything for the sheer joy of it, she'll want to fly.]
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( Or, worst case scenario, she'll be able to raise the dead. Ehem. )
Do you know how they get the files on us in the first place?
( Tara's file looks... well, it could be heftier, but it's got a decent amount of stuff in there. ) I'm not gonna find any embarrassing photos, am I?
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[He hates how they have files on them. He hates that they keep them. The main reason he's Registered right now is that there had been no chance of keeping his secret identity away from the government in the first place, simple as that. The government would have to be full of idiots for them not to take full advantage of them, but that doesn't make it any less creepy.]
Either way, we get the second copy of these things. The government knows your life story now.
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( She's just sipping her shake, although she looks up sharply with second copy. It's obvious, makes sense that the government would keep a file, but her skin is going pale, and slowly getting that unhealthy greyish pallor that happens when shit is fucked up. )
I am really not prepared for this whole "living in the twilight zone" thing. Can other people access your files?
( People other than the government, what if they had access? Cops or politicians or-- can just anyone pull your file. The looks she shoots at her file is somewhere between 'horrified' and 'oh god oh god trauma town.' The things she's done to survive, and the choices she made? The people she wound up hurting? )
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[She's already freaking out, but he has to be honest. This sucks. He's not sure what she has to hide, but if talking to Armin is of any indication, it probably has to do with defensive killing. It's a popular one, around here.]
There was a leak, once. This lady named Freddie Lounds, the one with the leopard print powers? She runs a tabloid, and she's -- well, she's a terrible person. She leaked a bunch of them. So it's not like it's out of the question that people can access them, so long as they have a connection in the government.
[What a bitch.]
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( So. Calm. ) Seriously. Think of the most chilled out song reference circa-2006 that you can and that's me right now.
( Such flat humour. And, also, such bullshit. But at least the delivery was pretty good.
Tara's listening, brows knitted together. She understands a lot of things. She can forgive a lot of things. Eugene and the lies that got people killed, Abraham and his dangerous snaps of temper. Not necessarily herself, yet, but she can accept that those things don't have to define her. They hurt and they wrench pieces off her, but they don't define her. Not any more.
She's not sure what will define her here, because at home it was protecting Maggie and Glenn, Rosita and Eugene, protecting the whole rag-tag family as best she can (as much as she knows she isn't the best protector amonst them by a long shot.)
Leaking files on people, though - what would it do? Would the information be keeping people safe? Would it endanger others? Was it just a straight up violation of privacy when you'd been torn away from home and that was kinda a big fucking violation all on it's own?
She's quiet, for a time, the conflict of emotions and thoughts more apparent on her face than she might realise. The most predominant thing is the sadness that seems to roll off her in waves. )
Did people get hurt?
( Voice quieter, hoarseness creeping in, while her wrists rest against the table. )
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[He drums the flat of his hand against the table, trying for Tara's sake to keep some of the anger he still feels over it at bay. There are few people here he wants to throttle as much as Freddie Lounds. Ellie's only crime had been existing in a dangerous world and having flagrant lies spread about her, and yeah, maybe Shinjiro had a drug problem at one point, but that was for a reason. He was better now.
And they're still two of the finest people he knows. It makes his blood boil, it really does.]
Anyway. It didn't go as bad as it could've gone.
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She latched on Brian, Alisha, and then she latched onto Glenn and Maggie and Rick.
And now she might just be outta life rafts. Unless she's about to latch onto a teenage boy who bought her a burger, but maybe she needs to start learning to be independent. )
That doesn't really say much. People get scared or they get that mob mentality thing going and suddenly it's a shitstorm.
( Her voice is a little flat, a little sad, before she shrugs. )
Your friends doin' okay?
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[And neither of them have gotten jobs to replace their first ones, but... Ellie's got Isaac, and Shinjiro's got Akihiko. As long as they're doing okay, Jaime's fine with it.]
No one came around with pitchforks and torches, or whatever. Whatever it is you've done that you don't want people to know... if I'm guessing right, you probably don't need to worry about it. It's -- a lot of my friends have had to do some bad stuff to survive. More people will understand than you think.
[It doesn't take a huge leap of logic to guess that Tara's done something she regrets, the way she was swinging that gun around. Contrary to his initial impression of her, he's not getting serial killer vibes out of her, though, so he's willing to give her the benefit of the doubt - whoever she's hurt, if she has hurt anyone, it's probably done to survive. Like Armin. Like Ellie.]
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( She hadn't noticed that she was twisting her napkin and she drops it immediately onto her plate, grabbing a couple of fries instead. Back to the old game of dunking them into her shake, although she doesn't pull them out right away. )
You gotta do bad stuff to survive sometimes, I know that. I get it. Sometimes you're still making a choice.
( This is hard. And Jaime is obviously a good kid. He probably shouldn't be getting tangled up with someone as screwed up as her. )
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Some people don their secret identities by putting on a mask, or acting far more stupid than they really are. Jaime's never done that, but there are other ways to keep secrets, both those of his friends and his own. Sometimes, normalcy and a firmly bland sort of politeness is all he needs.]
A lot of people are making their way to fine. It's a start.
[And other people are getting worse, but he's not going to point that out. Jaime's watching her, the sick way she looks, the way she's twisting up that napkin, and he can already feel his heart twist with sympathy.]
Anyway, you're always making a choice, no matter what you do. But if you don't like some of the ones you've made, you can start making a few better ones here.
[How many redeemed killers are in their midst here? Too many, some would say, but they've certainly been chasing after redemption.]
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( They trusted her. Maybe they weren't right to do that in the first place with all the shit she'd done - Glenn lying to Maggie about exactly who she was, that wasn't great arguably - Tara liked to think that maybe she was getting to being the right person to count on. Get in trouble and Tara will be the first person lining up to help you out of it (or attempting to tackle someone much bigger who can hit much harder, as dumb a move as it may be.)
Tara rescues her drowning fries, eyes them for a second, and drops them on her plate. Maybe that appetite is a little diminished. )
Yeah. Cool.
( If she wasn't do very distracted then it might have come across as dismissive. )
Hey, um. I gotta roll. Go wash my hair or something.
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[He's obviously not going to question that. He's just going to wave her off, because she has a heck of a lot on her plate right now. New world, new place, new roommates, a new hope that she needs to squash down and a heck of a lot of information that she's going to want to have to deal with. He feels a lot of sympathy for her, having to deal with all this, but it's something they all have to go through.]</small. Good luck with everything, okay?
casually sneaks back over to wrap this up
( She's taking a step before she makes herself fall back a little, catching his gaze. )
We cool to hang out more, later? ( Because this has fun, even with the... you know. Brain melt. )