etcelsior | throws thumbtack confetti everywhere

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Noh-Varr smiles, but it's not a happy smile. Or friendly, or reassuring. It has more in common with an animal showing its teeth. This isn't the first time he's been drafted for a cause that isn't one he took on his own, and he doesn't like it any more this time than he did before.

But it passes, as quickly as it appears.]

There's some good news: for the moment, there's at least a pretense of letting you choose a role for yourself. I would try to make an analogy to roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, but I am not sure they have put nearly as much thought into the relative individual roles. It would probably be insulting to D&D.

[Let us all reflect on the terrifying and hilarious prospect of Noh-Varr playing Dungeons & Dragons for a moment.]

[ if they aren't going to let him be a lv15 mage, he doesn't even want to hear about it. the analogy is inadequate. ]

You mean the whole registration thing? Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that, thanks. That isn't really choosing your role as it is letting them choose it for you. [ and he's had enough paramilitary recruitment for one lifetime. ]

[Almost absentmindedly, Noh-Varr reaches for a napkin, silently mouthing at the waitress for a pen and favoring her with the most dazzling smile when she does. He might not be Loki, supernaturally charming if he wants, but he still puts up a good show nonetheless.]

That's a fair point.

[He starts scribbling. It looks random. It isn't.]

But I am not sure the alternatives- [How does he put this.] - necessarily come with more choice?

[Noh-Varr is always a good actor, when he needs to be. This sounds like a perfectly light, thoughtless-alien discussion, if you only listen to the tone of his voice.]

If there is one thing I know about humanity, it's that you like things to be very black and white.

[ he lingers on that for a second before rubbing the bridge of his nose under his visor and calling the waitress to order a triple stack with scrambled eggs. it's too early for this kind of trip, even if it's already half past two. ]

I'd like to argue, but when the grey hats keep trading for black, it isn't easy to do. [ he nods over to noh-varr's napkin. ] What's that?

Doodles. Coffee makes me slightly jittery.

[A lie; a very palpable lie. But it could be mistaken for doodles, and to a casual observer, Noh-Varr intends for it to be taken as such. It's long term planning, for one of the few people he would trust to decode it, and comprehend it. In case something happens. A French message transcribed into standard Kree secret intelligence code 7203 filtered through a geometric algorithm.

It's the equations for finding and locating a target universe, and a careful schematic of a flux capaciter as a stand-in for the component mechanism essential to building a functional space-time viewer to be further extrapolated on.

It's missing key things, like coordinates.]

Or maybe that is just having nothing to do.

[Another palpable lie; Noh-Varr is more than capable of being incredibly patient, when he wants to be.]

[ david hasn't seen noh-varr touch his coffee. maybe he had a cup before sitting down, but maybe the patterns he's seeing in the doodles aren't quite as random as they look. it's a cipher of some kind, but what exactly david isn't sure. he knows more about shi'ar than kree, even if he tried picking up what he could while traveling with noh-varr.

the other thing he suspects is that if noh-varr isn't drawing the patterns randomly, he isn't doing so in his presence without reason. david is seeing this because he wants david to see it. he adjusts his glasses, a subtle movement that sets them to record, keeping his eye on the paper. ]

Sounds like you need something to absorb that caffeine then. Get a doublestack in you and enjoy a late breakfast.

Loki and I have been discussing the possibility of a breakfast machine.

[Somebody needs to know this, in case he disappears or fails. David is a reliable person. And Kate wouldn't know what any of this means, much as he...cares about her.]

He refuses to agree on the correct design for producing the perfect pancakes with maximum efficiency. Which is foolish and short-sighted of him.

[Describing the parabolic nature of space-time with a serious of symbols that end up looking something like a tiny spaceship. No, wait, he just drew a tiny spaceship outright anyway.]

[ it's when the spaceship is finished that david raises an eyebrow. at first he's trying to fit the lines in with the others, and afraid he's lost something in translation, some key he's missing that will be pivotal in unlocking the rest. but then he actually notices the shape instead of just the details. you'll have to forgive his underdeveloped sense of humor.

honestly, the recording isn't actually necessary. he saw that file they had when he arrived, he knows what power they gave him, and he's already seen the sketch. but he'd rather trust a hard copy from a device he made with his two hands than a perfect memory that came from someone else. ]

Could be it's the opposite of short-sighted. Depending on the use and applications of the machine, settling on a design could have longterm effects.

[ he nods to the waitress as she refills his mug. ] Like the economic impact of having the best pancakes imaginable available at your whim. People who won't get their tips.

[The paper serves at least the minor purpose of being easily transmittable to another person, if necessary. If something were to happen to himself AND to David, the secret wouldn't have to be lost. But the devil's in the details and some of what he needs David to understand is in the process of drawing the equation, even if he thinks it's probably unnecessary.

Somewhere, David should have the knowledge for this.]

It seems unlikely that we would just stop frequenting diners because we had a pancake machine. Half the fun of being there is in the atmosphere of the place itself, which is far more interesting than your kitchen.

[And it would be a very Noh-Varr thing, a very Loki thing, to do it just for that.]

Also, I swore not to reveal the secrets of Kree technology to Earth at large. So that rules out patenting and mass production.

[But this is an exception. If he fails, someone needs to keep looking for the information to get them back home. He's given it some thought, you see. Because he is going to take this spy thing seriously. This will not be mucked up by emotional impulses.

(Even though he only started giving it thought as soon as he saw David was here.)]

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