FROSTED TIPS ARE IN

[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. It seems like the entire Heropa PD is parked out of a local, popular grocery chain. A huge crowd is amassed in the parking lot despite the best efforts of officers to get them to leave. They whisper about excitement and shame, and you don't have to ask if you just listen in a bit...

"What do you think he'll do to the employees? He sounded so serious..." "He really wants that pussy, huh?" "If I left my man for cheating on me, I'd take the damn cat, too!" "How does he think taking her and her coworkers hostage is gonna make her change her mind about him being a bad boyfriend?" "My wife is pregnant, please - if I don't get her favorite deli sub I might as well not go home!"

Domestic disputes! Tragic. The police aren't too sure how to handle this hostage situation, claiming the man only has a box cutter and isn't actually waving it around at the moment, but...are you an imPort? They'd really appreciate the help, okay. Get in there and counsel the unhappy couple. Or not!

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?

Spring has sprung, and 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

[couldbebeautiful]

Oh? Because I think I got everything important. [She should probably stop pissing him off, but she's loathe to do that, almost as much as she loathes herself. She pauses for a truly loud sip, before continuing on.] Plus, it's pretty much the same thing as what any other jock would say, just switch out the name and the sport. I'm actually kind of sad for you, you're so predictable.

[Another loud sip, as she stares Reggie dead in the eye. Go on. Say something. I fucking dare you, she thinks.]

So you're not that smart? [Siiiip.] Veronica Sawyer.

[bragnificent]

[ Reggie inclines his head slightly, something of a shrug, as if saying maybe, maybe not -- but he doesn't confirm either way if there really is something she overlooked, or if he's just being especially difficult because he's frustrated.

It's a bit of both, but honestly, it's nothing he'd be particularly eager to clarify to her anyway; he was vague in the first place for a reason. And it doesn't matter. He is mostly just being petty and contrary because he's mad, but-- now that the heat of that anger has begun to cool and he's feeling more level-headed again, he may either finally manage to regain his chill, or decide there's always room to get more of a malicious dick. Hmm... ]

Forget it. [ Then he shrugs again, more exaggeratedly. ] That's funny, actually, because I could say the same thing. I know a Veronica, except she's more like... I don't know... the cooler, mirror version of you. But then you sound just like this sullen, fake-deep little weirdo I have to go to school with.

[ Yeah, obviously he went with being a dick. ]

I mean you know the type, right. The pale loner who has literally no friends, yet still thinks that somehow makes him better than everyone else? The kind of guy who decides to shoot up a school because someone bumped him a little too hard in the hallways. He also hates jocks. Especially me. I bet you two would have a lot to talk about.

[couldbebeautiful]

[The kind who decides to shoot up a school.

Veronica's smile vanishes just then. Kurt and Ram are laughing, in the back of her mind, then Ram is dead and it's just Kurt's screams echoing around her head. Her hand shakes, the paper cup she filled up with slush easily giving way to Veronica's suddenly tight grip. She doesn't seem to notice that it's burst, that the cold ice is all over her hand now. Or maybe she's noticed and she can't bring herself to care.

I bet you two would have a lot to talk about.

Heather Chandler whispers, her voice a ragged snarl from the drain cleaner, smiling sharp as a knife or a pen, He sounds like he'd be exactly your type.]

Yeah. I'm well aware of the type. [Her own voice sounds distant to her, over the sound of blood rushing to her ears. Westerburg will knock you out and send you straight to—] You think you know me, Mantle? You don't fucking know me at all.

[She steps closer, come join Heather in hell—]

But you, I know you. There's like a million of you at my school. [Five are dead because of her, herself among them.] You'll do anything to cling to your popularity, to get girls, to earn power. Anyone threatens that power, and you tear them down like they're paper. [She's snarling now, but who's she saying this to? Herself, or Reggie?] You would've fit right in at my school. Hell, better than I ever did, you cover up your damage better than I ever could.

[bragnificent]

[ Though his jaw clenches reflexively and he briefly considers taking a step back when she moves closer, Reggie narrows his eyes and looks at Veronica curiously. On the one hand, part of him feels that smug sense of victory that comes from having successfully struck some sort of nerve, obviously, but on the other... he's a little surprised, actually, by apparently how well what he'd said had landed.

Huh.

And to think he'd mostly only said it because-- well, she's right, at least in a certain way. Reggie doesn't tend to worry much about what people think, and goes about his life accordingly doing mostly whatever he feels like doing... lucky, then, that he's actually much more harmless than many guys like him can be. But though normally he's quite content in that confidence, there are still certain things that get to him and quick, such as dismissal and humiliation. Words like "damage."

Which is usually where the paper tearing begins for him.

The other problem is, of course, pride, which makes it nearly impossible for him to do the decent thing such as apologize or at least deescalate situations, even when he can recognize that perhaps some sort of line was crossed... somewhere. Especially with his mind countering that thought with well, why the hell should he? After all it's her, not him, that's making most of the assumptions and accusations around here, right?

His jaw clenches more tightly. ]

I think I know enough-- like for one thing, how you're obviously a goddamn lunatic. Yeah, maybe I don't know what your damage actually is, but what else am I missing exactly?

[ Reggie may not be leaning as hard on the subject -- whether something he just said actually landed in some specifically upsetting way or if he just hurt her feelings -- but that's not to say what he's gone with instead is much better at all. ]

Also, I don't care how many jocks you know, none of them can be Reggie Mantle. There's only one of me, and I have nothing to hide.

[couldbebeautiful]

[In a weird way, a good chunk of the things Reggie's said have hit right on target. Veronica did think she was better than the Heathers, better than Kurt and Ram, despite having a grand total of one friend. Had thought herself a good person, even after she served her best friend (and worst enemy) a cup full of drain cleaner. Had just wanted things to be beautiful.

Of course all of that's past tense now, blown away when the bomb had blown up. She's sure it did, anyway. Maybe the explosion deafened her, or something.

She should give in and call it a day now, really. But Reggie's words have ripped open the barely-healed wound of the murders, of the things she's done, and Veronica's got to unload all that self-loathing and disgust somewhere. Reggie, with his smug grin and his arrogant introduction and his conviction of being right and all those ways he keeps reminding her of poor dead Ram and Kurt, is a convenient target.

And, well. It's not like Veronica can claim to be a good person now.]

It must be so nice, having absolutely nothing to hide. [Her sardonic tone makes it clear that she does not believe him. Almost everyone's hiding something, though Veronica's pretty sure Reggie's secrets are not half as dark as hers.] I might be a fucked-up mess, but at least I can admit it.

[why you always lyin' oh my goooood]

You? You sound just. Like. Them. God, you've even got their smug as hell attitude down cold! Is it some kind of universal constant that you assholes just have to make people's lives hell as long as they're in high school?

[bragnificent]

[ No, definitely not as dark, although she's right not to believe him completely; Reggie's not as much of an open book as he likes to boast (really, almost no one ever is) nor is he exactly a poster-child for honesty. He does has secrets, though not directly ones that involve murder.

Not to say he's unfamiliar either, though, just not from the position of the killer or victim. Where he comes from, obviously, everyone already knows, but here it could probably count as a secret here that one of his friends -- one of two football captains before Reggie himself succeeded the title -- was murdered. Because who talks about that kind of thing? Not Reggie, at least.

Hell, he doesn't even like to think about it. ]

Hey, I don't make lives hell-- and the people who think that need to learn how to just accept that maybe their lives were already hell. Period. Because if anything, I improve lives.

And yeah, surprisingly, not being a miserable wreck is pretty nice. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, Veronica.

[ Even though she's completely different from the Veronica he knows -- though he still doesn't know either of them that well -- Reggie still has to catch himself from accidentally calling her "Ronnie" for a moment. Damn, this is going to get confusing. ]

After all, being popular's not a crime. No one's forcing you to hate us for it.

[couldbebeautiful]

[The first thing to break through Veronica's depressive haze in days, and it's fury, burning and boiling in her gut. She believes there is good in people, she still does even now, but Reggie is making it very, very hard for her to keep clinging on to the tatters of that conviction.

He's right, you know, Heather Chandler observes, the devil on her shoulder, the ghost in her head. I improved your life! You were nothing before you got in, you were even less than that when you got out, but in between, you were almost beautiful. And wasn't that all you ever wanted? Veronica imagines her, in her red, red dressing gown, smiling at her with that smug, knife-sharp grin, drain cleaner leaking from between perfect red lips.

Her gaze breaks away from the hallucination of her dead classmate, focuses back on Reggie.]

People can live their lives just fine without your improvement, you entitled ass. And usually that improvement rips them up from the inside, but they're so terrified of pissing you off that they'll keep ripping themselves up if it means you'll favor them for a little while longer.

[Her fists clench, unclench.] If I'm a miserable wreck, it's because of that. [Martha's unconscious face swims up in the forefront of her mind.] If I hate you and everyone else as entitled and smug as you, it's because of that.

[And also because she hates herself, and Reggie is right there, and it's too late to back down now.]

[bragnificent]

[ Once again Reggie finds himself narrowing his eyes, and not because he's offended by what she says but because he finds it... surreal, almost, though he can't place why. Maybe because he's rarely ever been the one to be shoved under this particular microscope lens -- mostly because compared to some of his friends, Reggie's regular behavior could almost be considered harmless.

Not that it is, of course, because for people like him it can never be entirely harmless, and maybe that's what Veronica is getting at. That Reggie can't always see or even know about every reaction and repercussion to his existence, his behavior, but just because he hates letting others affect him doesn't mean it applies the same way in reverse. Chuck, after all, never seemed to think twice about the rumors he spread, and that had built up and brought him down. Jason...

Well, shit. It was hard to say who couldn't have shot that guy... but may he rest in peace.

But Reggie didn't do the same shit as those two did, and what did he have to show for it? Jason's death promoted Chuck to football team captain, then Chuck's suspension and being cut from the team promoted Reggie... sort of. It promoted Archie who gave the position to Reggie -- same difference -- but even that outcome he'd ultimately been prepared to accept. He can be entitled, but also knows no one is really innately owed anything; it can all be taken away at any time.

Except for trust funds.

Cocking his head slightly, Reggie adjusts his hands on his hips and favors his weight on one leg, still squinting at her. ]

Uh huh. [ And for a few moments that's all he says, curt and dismissive. Then: ] So then what the hell did they do? Huh? Because whatever it is you might think I give a shit about, I can almost promise you that I couldn't care less.