THE GREATEST POWER OF ALL

[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 someone else's thread, either!

And remember there's only one rule in Test Drive Meme Club: have fun!

01. The city of Heropa is what one might expect from a small, bright and cheery place, where locals are friendly enough and local shop owners might offer a free drink to welcome you to their fair city. Some of the locals might thank you for always lending your service to the nation, while others might not say anything -- but if you have something nasty to say, better not say anything at all, right?

Unfortunately, tragedy has struck today. Outside a local 24/7 diner featuring waffles and other breakfast food, a large crowd has gathered while several fire trucks keep a steady stream on it and the buildings nearby. The diner is obviously destined to burn, and its waitresses, in bright yellow, stand outside watching with no small amount of worry reflected in their eyes. One of them complains, again, that she'd left her purse inside - and now a good $100 is going up in flames. For what? Won't somebody help her out, at all? The police are so inept! Just the worst!

The windows burst and, clear as day, one can see an alligator trapped inside the entrance, trying to make its way out but dissuaded by a patch of fire in front of the door. EMS and crowd alike gasp and wonder aloud, what can they do? Will no one save this poor Florida swamp cat?

02. De Chima, Virginia, is a large city with a healthy economy, and though it's quieter than Heropa, there are still large numbers of citizens to be awed at your very presence. Look at you! Organic wonder! Science and technology are the lifeblood of this city, so you're likely to come across a good many locals taking your picture with the newest of devices. The imPort craze remains high here, and you may find yourself cornered by overzealous imPort fans, media wannabes and opportunists alike, shoving cameras in your face.

Their questions are likely to be fairly mundane, however; get ready for an interview about your taste in romantic partners, personal underwear choices, favorite foods, and more!

03. Maurtia Falls, Pennsylvania has had its ups and downs since imPorts started reappearing. Several imPort heroes have put focused efforts into cleaning up the streets of this somewhat infamous city, while others have swooped in to help the criminal industry thrive. More so here than the streets of any other imPort city, the battle between good and evil looks more like a war of escalation than a heroic tale. That might make the less than warm welcome imPorts are given in the city a little more understandable. The emergence of locals with superpowers is hardly helping. While some of these individuals have turned to crime, many locals seem more inclined to defend their native powered drug dealer than help the non-native hero bring them to justice. Who are you to tell them how to live?

It's not quite spring yet, but already flowers are popping up—in the form of seven-foot sentient musclebound daisies! A local criminal known as Flower Power has set them on the city, and they're going on a rampage, but a number of citizens have taken advantage. Do you go after the bushwhacking blossoms or the local looters?

04.Nonah, North Carolina, is the liveliest of all cities; loud, busy and there's some kind of energy in the air that gets everyone buzzing with excitement. To be American is to be part of a melting pot, and that there’s more money to be made by the thriving local industries hardly hurts.

Natives may gather around new arrivals and ask both personal and broad questions about life as an imPort, what they are looking forward to, what their favorite article of underwear is. A few night clubs offer free entrance - just this once! And they are bound to notice that a man has taken up a spot in a local street, eating pancakes off of a fold out table and holding up traffic. Many people are taking pictures and more interested in whether or not this is performance art than ushering him out of the way. He does have an extra chair and table, however, and will welcome and feed company, especially imPorts.

Comments

[jojoceanman]

[He nods. Of course he always intended to return to Morioh and visit. Maybe even bring his family, if he deemed the town to be safe enough after Kira's death. That probably won't happen any time soon, but so be it. He doesn't really care for the town as much as the people living there, and Josuke is naturally the most important.]

Yeah. Though it sounds like you have everything handled. [Not that he would ever need to doubt that. Josuke's the kind of quick thinker that can take change in stride. It's a good quality to have.] Catch me up. Has anything changed for you in two years? Only the important things.

[He doesn't need the entire life story for the past two years, because there really isn't any time or reason for it. All he wants is to be informed of the crucial things that happened.]

[faithfulson]

[ What, it's not like Luke was trying to figure out what part of him was alien or anything. His ears looked human, face looked human... maybe he had-- okay, never mind. ]

Tatooine. It's a dust ball on the outer rim.

DE CHIMA

[admemoriam]

You didn't bring any pets?

[Noah Czerny can no longer blink into existence, but slipping out from a crowd has much the same effect. There's a skateboard under his arm and a flannel shirt around his waist, and he approaches Adam like it's the continuation of a friendly chat, like it hasn't been six months since he saw him. In actuality, he just doesn't want to overwhelm him. Adam never seemed to have fully warmed up to him, the last time he was here.]

You should have at least, like, brought a dog or something. We could totally use another dog.

[Is he joking? Is he being serious? More at eleven.]

[legionnaires]

Tatooine huh? What's it like? [ Dust ball almost reminded him of home.

Almost.

Now he was going to keep it cool and try and get to know someone that wasn't Team Voltron.]

[faithfulson]

[ Well, at least Keith chose the friendliest not-alien to try that with. ]

It's a desert planet; not much else to say beyond that. I grew up on a moisture farm there.

[admemoriam]

It's already spit on me. It was pretty cool.

[He didn't even wash it off until he had run upstairs to show Ronan.]

Maybe it'll spit on you.

[reexamined]

[Doing some quick math- he was built seven years after it was established, which means-]

You're from my future by three years, and the Alliance still exists.

That's a surprise. I didn't think they'd make it that far.

[faithfulson]

[ A bit of a lopsided grin came to Luke's face; what kind of talk was th-- wait. Could this droid be from before he joined on? If he was from three years previous, that was a possibility. Which... yes, he could understand that reaction then. ]

Well, destroying the Death Star helped.

[ You're welcome. ]

[legionnaires]

Moisture farm?

[ what ]

Though desert. I kind of miss that -- grew up in the desert myself. The humidity here is terrible.

[ So after freeing the gator from a burning diner, they're just chatting outside while it burns down. Oops. ]

So hey, why don't we go find somewhere else to talk? I don't think there's much more we can do here.

cw possible TRB spoilers

[tenebrarius]

[Adam knows that voice. He stares at Noah for a moment, uncomprehending, because his brain is half telling him that this is Noah, and half telling him that this is not Noah, because Noah is blurry and quiet and this stranger is vividly alive.

The people around him are still asking questions, but Adam's so busy staring at Noah that half the locals start taking up asking Noah questions instead, to see if he knows anything about the reticent newcomer.]

Am I dead?

[He's serious, really, because it seems like the most obvious option. They're not in Henrietta. He can't feel the ley line, though he can feel--what feels like many, tiny, disconnected ley lines that he can't make sense of, rippling at the edges of his consciousness. Noah is alive. Therefore, theoretically, Adam is not.

There is, however, a tiny quirk of a smile that says he's glad to see Noah. And he's especially glad to see Noah looking so vibrant and happy.]

[turned_to_steel]

I am grateful for that as well. It could have been worse, I could have been trampled.

[ It could almost sound like she was teasing him but the smile on her face was simply gracious as she continued to watch him. She had no issue with him or with what had happened. She'd had her own experience with overzealous admirers in the past.

Then she blinked a little. ]

Oh, that? That was nothing. It was just a catalog.

[wayschway]

I heard ya! 'S why I'm not asking for mozzarella sticks too.

[ He sticks his tongue out and tries to duck under Terry's hand and fails. He JUST finished refixing his hair too. ]

Ah slag it Ter, just you wait 'til I'm taller then you.

[planetarybreak]

[... he's about ready to question it but no. This is Tomoko we're talking about here. She'd curse him in an instant. And with all these other people around? Yeah. Nope.

So he's going to smartly keep his mouth shut for once on this one.]

[reexamined]

...It's been destroyed.

[He tries to sound deadpan, but there's disbelief in his tone, as if the wind has been knocked out of him. You know, if he had lungs.

He's already thinking of several hundred things he wants to ask, like how, and when, and if he knows if anyone made it off Scarif despite the absolute zero percent chance odds...

But instead: ]

You look awfully smug.

[switchcraft]

[Okay, but she is still psychic. And you are getting a Face.]

Afraid?

[kingsroads]

Not entirely? For instance, when I started using magic, most of the spells I used were of my own creation. But I could only use that sort of magic after casting a spell that was already written—it certainly wouldn't have occurred to me to do anything myself.

[ Granted, that was mostly because the magic of Strange's world was practically nonexistent when he became a magician. ]

And then you have older magicians and their descriptions of faeries. To the best of my knowledge, there's no record of faeries casting spells from books of magic, just with their own innate power.

[ Better stop him now, Jotaro. Strange's tone of voice implies that he's about to launch on a lecture about English magic should this not get nipped in the bud fairly quickly. ]

[orphangirl]

[There's a hint of a smile on Opal's face at that. She wouldn't mind being spit on. She'd probably spit back.

She hops up from the bench.]

Show me the llama.

[admemoriam]

Not that I know of.

[It's a serious statement, delivered dry. Time has tugged him back and forth, showing him what he needs to see, but if Adam met an untimely death it was a well-hidden event.

The light turns, and Noah gestures for Adam to follow him into the crosswalk. He looks at ease against the city backdrop, bouncing just a bit in his sneakers.]

This is De Chima. It's where we live.

[Classic Noah. Short and cryptic.]

[orphangirl]

[It's better that he doesn't offer platitudes. Opal wouldn't appreciate them anyway.]

Opal.

[She took a few moments to decide to offer him that infomation.]

[nastygram]

Your mom.

[Flippant. She shoves a forkful of pancakes in her mouth.]

This isn't a best friends moment, okay, we're occupying space together. Eating free pancakes. [Even so, she'll probably answer in a sec. But first things first:] What's your name, hon?

[payback]

[Thank God she's used to rude people and finds prickliness rather relatable, or this all might be offensive. Instead it's just... kind of familiar.]

My name's Rin. [Pancake.] You're pretty suspicious of this place. Did something bad happen? [Like, catch her up, please.]

[tenebrarius]

[Adam keeps up with him, staying closer by Noah's side than he would normally stand, because Noah knows this place, knows where they're going, and if Adam doesn't look so hopelessly new and lost, hopefully people won't keep asking him uncomfortable questions.]

We?

[De Chima isn't a city name Adam's ever heard of. The whole city--maybe the whole world--is so familiar and yet so alien. His skin itches with nervous anxiety, because his brain can't stop with the alarm bells that he's late for class and that if it's not a school day then he's late for work, and it's impossible to accept just yet that both of those responsibilities have been lifted, at least for the time being..]

[tenebrarius]

[That's that, then. Adam doesn't know what she wants from him, and doesn't know what to offer, including conversation, so he doesn't. Slumping a little more on his bench, Adam considered the clouds above his head.

His stomach rumbled and clenched with hunger. He ignored it at first, accustomed to ignoring it, but then he remembered that he had money now. A government stipend, weird as that was to him.

He tilted his head, spotting the hot dog vendor near the end of the path where they were sitting. Jerking his chin in that direction, Adam looked back toward Opal.]

Hungry?

[disentombs]

[It's odd, as though Noah could read his mind. He feels a bit guilty about it but he's never really been big on casual contact by virtue of his upbringing. With Blue is really when he's started to be exposed to it more.

There's a knot in his chest that grows tighter with each name that Noah lists.

Quietly:]

I'm sorry.

[taraincognita]

Uh....I'm not a mage.

[she lifts Shale up a little bit more, eyebrows drawing together in confusion despite the effort and focus it takes.]

And I'm not an 'it.' I'm a 'she.'