etcelsior | KEMOSABE, JUMP ON IT!

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test drive

KEMOSABE, JUMP ON IT!

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?

No matter how you feel about imPorts, there is one thing the community all must suffer through together: the weather. And time. Two, two things the community must suffer through together. However many things there are, today is celebrating the Dog Days of Summer. Literally. There is an adoption fair for every kind of dog you can imagine, and a few that really take imagination to call them ‘a dog.’ Like cats that have had doggy ear-shaped hats placed on their unwilling heads, or fish with decorative dog art painted on their bowl. Or that baby alligator on a leash with fur (glued? It looks glued) on its back. So while it’s a fine day to come and meet a new friend- or drop one off and run, hoping someone else will take it- it may also be a good day to stop the smaller animals and some wandering children from getting eaten by some of the more carnivorous creatures a few of the local eccentrics have decided to try to pawn off on the public. Or grab a snack from the fried food and ice cream stands and watch the madness. Whatever your choice, welcome to Florida, heroes.

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!

Wasn’t the forgiveness day festival wonderful? What, you weren’t in this world yet to attend? Well, never mind that! There’s still time for those willing to part with a few dollars to show your love for this new world and sympathy for the natives and imPorts alike that have been harmed in it. How? Why with a flower festival, of course! An entire block has been closed off for the seemingly endless sale of flowers of every shape and color. Technically, all the flowers have meanings and a few wandering guides are more than happy to help you pick out the bunch that may speak your true feelings to your intended target. It has all the potential to be a nice, sweet smelling day where you can express your love or eternal hatred or total ambivalence with living flora.

Of course, this is the science city. It can’t be something as simple as only normal, natural flowers. Some of the stands are nice enough to keep their technological wonders neatly labeled and separate from the rest of the foliage. Others aren’t so nice. The best way to get people to try a new thing is to spring it on an unsuspecting public, right? Right! Also for sale are roses that, if you prick your finger on the (oddly able to pierce through even superhuman strong, unbreakable skin) thorns you are compelled to spend the rest of the day with the first person you lay your eyes on. Never seen them before or hate their guts, it doesn’t matter. You simply feel awful when more than three feet away from them. To the point you will pass out if you’re away from them for more than five minutes. Hope you’re good at making quick bathroom runs.

There are also lilies that make birds flock to you and snap dragonsthat offer you supportive messages given in a squeaky voice every time you smell it. For those liking slightly more visibly engineered flowers, a multicolored daisy turns you into a Technicolor wonder, your clothes, hair, eyes, and skin changing rapidly from color to color without any apparent rhyme or reason (or respect for clashing). Putting the flower down will stop the changes, but you’re stuck in whatever random pattern it landed on until an hour passes and the effect wears off. Good luck with the festival!

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?

To say all is not right in the streets of Maurtia Falls is to more or less state the obvious, but this time, the criminal nature of this foe is a little... sillier than usual. One gentleman gifted with the powers of superspeed seems not to have grasped the true potential of his powers and instead of spending his time robbing banks or big businesses, he's decided to be the world's most efficient pickpocket. He zips through the street, pushing people over at superspeed and picking their pockets and snatching their pockets, leaving only a brown blur in his wake, evidently having lost the memo that primary colours are all the rage for costumed heroes and villains.
The more heroically minded among you may want to go after this villain or save a grandma or two that have been unintentionally pushed straight into traffic... but the guy has to stop to rest sometime, and he's really begging for a beatdown with this kind of behaviour.

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!

Today the word on everyone’s lips is branding. It’s not enough to slap on some spandex or hand stitch a mask these days. That’s so 80s. Now is the time not only to get your hero/villain costume professionally made, it’s time for sponsorship! Why should natives be limited to just having some registered imPorts actually working at their place of business? A cape is basically a big, open banner just waiting for a logo. Or ten. Now, they can’t really promise money up front for anyone agreeing to wear their logo and work their slogan into a witty quip during an arrest, but they can do one better: free products. Get all the free socks you can wear by only fighting crime in Jane’s Honey of the Earth socks, underwear, and bras. Or negotiate for free dinners for life if you wear the logo and agree to only appear on dates eating at Overweigh burger shack.

Of course, there’s nothing like an unlikely team up to really get the media spotlight on an imPort (and the brand they now represent). If you fall for the hype or even just get herded over to an audition station (if you are walking down the road today, chances are you’re going to get unwillingly pulled in at least once), get ready to meet your new partner: this random stranger! The company will give you 10 minutes to get to know each other, then it’s time to grin, bear it, and think of the free merchandise as they ask you to perform at least one heroic feat as a team for their cameras. What that is, exactly, is up to you.

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"Like Demeter's daughter, right? The one Hades stole and tricked into eating a few pomegranate seeds."

She named her little laurel tree Daphne, okay, all three years of human high school at least taught her a few things -- and she'd liked anything related to plants even when she didn't know who she really was under that disguise.

It's not exactly clear if she's claiming to actually be the human goddess in question or just some superwhoever named after her, but either way it matches up with some of the weird vibe she'd been getting off her.

But it's not like it's an actual underworld on the other side of that door. Tefé doesn't seem perturbed in the least, heading in first and blinking to adjust to the darkness. "I'm Tefé. You're not into that Registered Hero shit, are you?" she adds, scoffing lightly. If one more person tells her about how great it is, she's going to leave them hanging off a branch of the biggest tree in the city park, she swears.

"Uh huh," she answers to the first question as they walk. They go through a hall, then through a door at the end into another hall, and then they turn right and go down some stairs and then they turn right twice and go down again and then they walk through the first hallway they'd come in through again, but this time backwards. It's a little less clear whether they are underground or Underground.

"Hell no."

"Good."

Tefe trails her fingers along the wall, paying attention to the quiet roots beneath the soil beyond. "You want to explain where we're going?" she asks, still surprisingly fearless for a girl that just wandered off alone with some random stranger.

"Bar, unless you had a better idea." She in fact has no idea, at all, where they are going. She couldn't help her draw to the other woman, but then had realized that the last thing either wanted was to stay in public eye. But that's fine, enough confidence and power can make up for a lack of plan.

"I don't care." She still has no idea what to do with herself here. And for all of her incensed feelings at the flower festival going on not far away... it's just one more thing she can't really solve, can't make a difference in. She just keeps wandering the city, trying to figure out where to stand with all these humans, and has no answers, only questions.

"Why did all those people listen to you when you wanted them to move out of the way? You didn't do anything," she asks, following as they go down another flight of stairs.

"I'm a god. People like listening to me." It's not just oversimplification, but genuinely inacurate. Around here, people paid attention to her for her power, charisma, and celebrity than for any actual divinity. But the kid looked like she wanted to keep answers simple.

"Great." There sure isn't any sign Tefé is the least bit intimidated by being around a god, with that dry reply. "They'll listen to one of their own 'gods' but not to anyone trying to tell them about what they're doing to the planet."

Not like this kid's bitter as hell, noooooo.

She pauses, looking back, "So what do you tell them?"

"That it's not that many more years before they fuck up things so badly that they'll destroy the Green." Not that the Green exists here as far as she can tell, but in principle, it's the same. She's still angry about it, no doubt, but honestly at this point... it's almost more sad and depressing than anything. "And when the plants go, so will everything else. Not like it matters to humanity. They're too busy with their own stupid wars and building cities to care."

Actually mostly she just tells them they're being fucking idiots, but hey. Either way, it's still a step up from killing them and stringing them up on the trees like fleshy paper dolls.

"Yeah, if you're worried about what they're doing to the planet, you should see what they do to each other." She pulls out a box of cigarette and puts one in her mouth, "Seems like most versions of humanity are pretty fucked."

"I've seen that, too. At least plants know how to live with each other, instead of against..." The cigarette gets a narrowed glare. After what she just said? Fuck you. She's not going to strangle anyone with their smokes, not now, but nothing says she can't just reach out mentally and...

Those are definitely roots sprouting from the filter, green sprigs with tiny tobacco leaves unfurling. It won't survive for more than a few days down here, but that cigarette isn't very smoke-able now.

"Holy shit," was this supposed to intimidate? Because she is DEEPLY PLEASED. Concerns about humanity and destruction put aside because something cool just happened. She cups the cigarette in her hands, "Is this you? This is you, isn't it?"

Tefé's encouragement makes it slowly grow a little more, until it's a full-fledged little seedling a few inches high in Persephone's hands.

"I'm an elemental," she says bluntly, simple fact. If that wasn't enough to prove it, she can sure do something else. People tend to believe her after a demonstration. "It's not like I'm just confronting problems because I watched a fucking nature documentary and felt inspired. I know, okay."

"Elemental? The fuck's an elemental?" She runs her hands along the wall, feels a place real enough to plant an actual plant in. No such luck. "Wait, you actually a plant?"

"Yes. Well... kind of. My dad was," she admits. Oh my god Persephone, it's going to need light too, you can't just leave a plant underground. Shouldn't you know about how things like that work?

But it's easy for her expression to soften a bit at just how excited Persephone is about the little thing.

"Oh. OK, so, you're a demi-plant? Here to tell people to stop fucking it up all the time?"

"That's what I've been trying to do lately. Not that it seems to be making any difference."

"Maybe you just haven't found your medium." OK she's . . . well, she's more than a little interested in the girl and what she can do. Still, she's trying not to come off too strongly. "If you want to be listened to, you have to be loved and hated."

"My... medium?" Tefé, child who grew up (mostly) without TV, in the days before social media took off, looks a little confused. "Hated isn't a problem," she adds, sourly.

"Lucky you. That's the one that takes talent." Persephone pushes open a door. The place is, well, there does seem to be something like a bar, and there is alcohol, but no one present. The place seems to be decaying. Persephone's pretty sure the place is condemned, and certainly abandoned. She hops the counter confidently and starts looking at the bottles.

"Do you actually drink?"

"I can," she replies, although from the tone of voice it's pretty clear it isn't really a thing for her. She sits down at the crappy, dusty bar anyway while Persephone does her thing. "I still don't get why you people are so fascinated with the stuff. It's just fermentation."

"Sounds like you don't know much about humans." She selects a bottle of something expensive-looking and takes a swig. "You want to try your luck with the tap water?"

"Sure." Tefé finds a glass somebody left on the bar ages ago, and, giving it a skeptical eyeballing, slides it down towards Persephone, if she's going to play bartender. That's how it's done, right?

"I don't know. I know there's some of them that are trying to do good... but as a species, they're so shortsighted and stupid."

"Uh huh," she says, spitting out the obviously spoiled alcohol, as if to illustrate.

Thanks, Persephone, you're a shining example. The look she gets is considerably nonplussed.

"Are you an actual god, or just picked up the name?" she has to ask now. It's not like the Greek gods were exactly known for refinement, after all. She's not going to be too surprised either way.

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pummelgranite - 2017-09-09 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

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beyondthegreen - 2017-09-09 00:41 (UTC) - Expand

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