etcelsior | June's over? Julying.

T E S T D R I V E M E M E

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 ON THE TEST DRIVE MEME!

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.

What a month, huh imPorts? Changing ages, mysterious shimmering explosions, and uncomfortable weather. The city of Heropa understands. That is why today the largest local water park is having an imPort appreciation day. The cost of entering is waved- so long as you’re willing to do a power display on the way in for the gathered crowds and kiddies. No explosions or mass destruction, folks, keep it family friendly and hopefully entertaining.

While it might be a drag to be treated a little like a circus freak to get in, the park itself is well worth it when it comes to cooling off and forgetting the horror happening elsewhere in the world. High-tech gadgets are here to improve experience. Water proof robot bar tenders wander around the many slides, floating rivers, and tanning areas (or swim around in the lounging pools) making free whatever you orders, alcoholic or virgin. They’re obedient to a fault, so if you want to waste their time by asking them to shake ice then pour it out fifteen times before putting the vodka in there, feel free. Only the people in line behind you will get annoyed. The robots themselves will just offer fun bar trivia and talk with the flair of a 1920s speakeasy bartender.

But of course it wouldn’t be a day for imPorts without a little bit of a weird twist. They’ve got to get the locals to pay top dollar to come watch everyone swim, after all. Some of those free drinks have an extra special free ingredient, one with random effects. Guess you should have read that size 1 font subsection on the ticketing booth that waives park liability. If you happen to be one of the lucky ones to receive a spiked drink, you’ll experience one of the following effects:

1)Hydrophilia – You couldn’t leave this pool even if you wanted to. Which you don’t. In fact, the idea of getting out of this pool is horrifying to you, who knows what could happen outside of these safe, watery depths? You’ll need to get others to bring you food and make some difficult bathroom choices, but for the next two hours even the threat of death would have trouble getting you out of the water.

2)Buddy system – When you took that final sip of drink your eyes fell on another person and you knew- just knew- that this was meant to be. At least for today. This person, whether you’ve ever met them before and whether they’re a human or an AI or a drink serving robot, is going to be your constant companion for as long as you’re in this water park. Whether they like (or know it) or not.

3)Razzle Dazzle – A purely physical effect. Your hair, skin, and even eyes start shifting colors. Some are more or less normal, bright, bright red hair for instance, while others are just out of this world. A shifting rainbow of Unicorn sparkle colored skin, bright yellow eyes, you name it. Anything you imagine, you could possibly be. At least for the next hour.

4) Safety First – The lamest of the effects, but it does make everything easier for the owner of the park. Rules are there for a reason, kids, no matter how nitpicky they may be. And by America, you are going to make sure everyone is following the rules. No running, no flip flops in the pool, no swimming within half an hour of eating, even some special individual rules that only you would think of must be enforced.

02. De Chima, Virginia, is a large city with a healthy economy, with large numbers of citizens waiting to be awed by your very presence. Look at you! Organic wonder! Synthetic wonder! Whatever you might be, those words have meaning here. 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 or recently published PLoS papers. The imPort craze remains high here, and you may find yourself cornered by-- c̨͟o͝͠r͟͞n͏ęr͜҉͞ed̶ ͢b͏͞y͜͏-- c̕ǫ̡҉r͘͡n͟͡e̶̢re͘d̀͏ ̴by ͘th͠͏i̛͟͝n͏g̸͏s̶̢ ͟th̀̕a̶͝t̴̢ ͡use͟d̷͞ ̛t̸̵̢o͏ ͡͝b̛͡e̷̛͞ p͢ȩó͝pl̸͜͜e҉.͘

De Chima is not what it once was. The city is covered by a strange shifting shimmer, and you don't even know how you ended up here, but you did. The sunlight splits into strange rainbow prisms, and everywhere you look things are growing. So quickly that if you stand and watch for more than a few seconds, you can see it growing in real time.

Not just growing. Changing. It isn't just the plants. The animals, the tech, the people, the land - everything is changing, morphing, dissolving. And you're changing, too...

y̛̜͈̪̹̤̲̣o̪̘̱u̸'̬̻̳͈͎r͖̯̫ͅe̸̠͕̟̜ ̧̝͇̠c̤̹͓͈̱̻̜h̼͔ͅa̝͇̟n҉̖̯ͅǵ̝i̖͎̫̜̩̝̻͞n̮̖͚̠̳͉g ͕̺̗̞̭ͅa̺̭̘͕͉̳̺n͙̦̹̙d̹̤̫̪̦͔ ̮̙i̝̺̺t͏̱̟͙̪̳͈ w̥͎̹̦͍o̩̬͍͍͕͠ṉ͓̠͖'̧̦̝̘͔̳̫t͓̫̹̥̬̹͕ s̪̤̗͙̦͎t̛̯̩͙̦͇̤o̴̘͍̝̣̼̙͙p͓̱̜̹͖

03. Maurtia Falls, Pennsylvania has carried a reputation for ups and downs ever since imPorts began reappearing again, just those few years prior. Several imPort heroes have put focused efforts into cleaning up the streets of this somewhat infamous city, while a handful of others had 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, even with Ambassador Padme and imPort Mayor Baelish gracing the headlines. Everything from the classic bank heist to brutal bloodbaths can happen around the corner. You have to keep your eyes open and your mind sharp when you live in Maurtia Falls, and hostility against imPorts can spike. The emergence of locals with superpowers is hardly helping... #THANKS TONY STARK, #ya muffin.

The protests from earlier in the month have left their toll on Maurtia Falls, as the damage done from the riots are still being painted over, cleaned up, repaired and repaved.

Walking along the streets of the city, if you stick out at all like an ImPort (or even have a visible ImPort tattoo), you’re immediately honed in on by one of the various members of the clean-up crew, who wear bright yellow vests.

“You’re an ImPort, aren’t you?” They’ll say, gruff and slightly accusatory. “Well, help clean this up. You’re the reason this happened.”   And with that, they’ll shove a vest, a broom, and a dust pan into your hands, before taking off. Maybe they were trying to get out of doing the work themselves in the end.

04. Nonah, North Carolina, is the liveliest of all cities; loud, busy and there's always some kind of energy in the air that gets everyone buzzing with excitement. Today, the biggest buzz comes from a tech-cosmetics company, ReNew U, which is offering free tests of its new flagship product. What looks like a can of hair spray actually has the power to temporarily change one's appearance. A spritz to the face could add or remove freckles or provide a new makeup job; a spray to the head might provide not just a new hairstyle but new hair. And going all-over seems to change one's entire body! Of course, it only lasts until someone takes a shower, but why not experiment?

There's just one catch—thanks to the social component of ReNew U, these new looks aren't generating temporary changes out of thin air, they're copying the appearances of others in the area. Got a killer new haircut? So does someone else, thanks! Walk around for a while and you just might meet your doppelganger—so you're going to take a picture together and post it via the special ReNew U app, right? #twins #goodlooks

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't make this any weirder, it's just getting cleaned and sharpened. And maybe a proper display instead of just being dropped into my Duat locker.

Yeah, kind of. We usually make them out of wax, though, whereas I think traditional golems from Jewish folklore are mud or clay.

That would be a good start.

Functionally similar, though? I don't know Egyptian ... anything, really.

They operate under the same principle, I think: inanimate material is shaped into figure, then animated with magic. I'm honestly not the best at statuary magic.

I don't even know other kinds of magic. I can do all of two spells, neither of which are even remotely as interesting as what Mickey does in Fantasia.

Is it just because you haven't learned more yet, or is it a limitation of what you inherited?

I haven't learned more, and no God is interested in actually teaching me. I had to learn the second spell from another demigod.

I might be able to adapt some of my lessons to work for you if you want to try sometime. I mean, provided you don't turn out to secretly be some sort of villain, I guess. You never know over text.

I can't even defend myself and say "I'm not some sort of villain," because that's what a villain would say.

But I don't know if it would work. The rituals for my magic are... different.

That's exactly what a villain would say.

If it doesn't, it doesn't. I'd be interested in learning the theory behind yours, though. It might be nice to make some records. [ thank gods sadie isn't here to remind him that he's a nerd.. ]