etcelsior | HERE I COME

NOTE: This is the final test drive of 2019 as apps will be closed in December.

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, Florida 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?

The recent dimensional anomalies have disrupted people's daily business more than a little, but the latest danger is a herd of zombies shambling towards the annual Mister and Miss Corncob beauty pageant. Right in the middle of the swimsuit competition, too! Of course, who gets the crown is partially based on audience appreciation — are you going to take out some of the undead or cheer your favorite participant on to victory? Either way, you're (probably) a hero!

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! 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!

It's nearly Halloween, and the annual city parade and costume contest are underway! You've got one, right? The locals just love it! If you don't, well, that's okay — just for imPorts, there's a special costume rummage bin at the start of the parade route. Try cobbling something together from costume shop donations and items left behind by ported-out heroes! Then strut your stuff and prepare to be cheered for!

03. Maurtia Falls, Pennsylvania has had its ups and downs since imPorts started disappearing. The city's political core now gutted with its mayor and supreme ambassador exported out, the streets have returned to the hands of the local people -- and incidental, the local criminal element. 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.

Despite the lack of gratitude that's in it for you, you may want to step in once you see a very, very sad supervillain wandering Maurtia Falls' streets. Dressed in a cape that appears to be a large swath of fabric purchased from a nearby sewing store, galaxy-themed leggings and no shirt is a man who runs right into your vicinity before striking a pose and yelling, "Everyone, stop before me and my wrath! I am Mister Mars, and provided you give me what I ask for, nobody needs to get hurt!"

At which point Mister Mars snatches an old woman's purse, loudly laughs in her face, and begins to float upwards. By the time he reaches the height of the tallest building in the area, he's beginning to look slightly panicked as he fails to really be able to move anywhere but up. Meanwhile, the old woman has begun shaking her cane at him and screaming quite an assortment of alarming expletives.

Maybe you should help one or the other out? If not, just lean back and enjoy the show.

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. 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!

In the middle of the city's biggest park is an autumn tradition — a corn maze! Of course, it's not real corn, since there hasn't been time to grow it. But craft supplies store Mikey's is sponsoring a maze built with genuine imitation corn, and hundreds of locals have already enjoyed getting lost inside! Curiously, few of them have come out the exit, and those who venture inside will discover the maze is twistier and deeper than they ever could have anticipated. Somehow, it's bigger on the inside, thanks (no doubt) to some dastardly villain's powers. Will you try to navigate a way to the exit, forge your way through the stalks, or have a nap?

05. Jeopardy, Nevada by all rights shouldn't exist. A glowing neon city smack in the middle of the desert, the only reason it's still here is that the central nuclear power plant has tapped half a mile down into a subterranean lake for its water supply. So though the desert around it may be barren, the occupants of this small city are happily self sufficient. Those weird figures you see out of the corner of your eyes? Don't worry too much. Probably just weird radiation after effects. Jeopardy has a lot of those.

Things are quiet in Jeopardy. Weirdly quiet. In fact, way, way too quiet. But if you ask any of the citizens of the city why they won't talk to you, they just raise a finger and make a shhhhing sound and then point down the street towards the church. If you try to shake them, they grit their teeth. WHY WILL NO ONE SPEAK TO YOU?

(The one who is silent the longest wins a new fridge.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stop assuming it’s only us they did that to, Scott. This place doesn’t have mutants natively. This isn’t an us against them situation, no matter how much you want to make it that. Fuck, sometimes you’re so...

[Wait, what? A mutant...? David narrows his eyes and jerks himself away from that touch at his shoulder. Scott lost all right to that long ago.]

Our mutant nation? You’re fucking crazy. You’re just trying to get us all wiped out all over again! Did Genosha and Utopia teach us nothing? And don’t you dare mention Charles like he’s around after you murdered him. After you betrayed us all. After you betrayed him and his legacy and everything he ever stood for!

[David barely knew Charles Xavier. But the ways he had? More intimate than Scott could ever have had. And David’s still livid over what is, to him, a relatively recent event.]

[ oh. so that's where he's from. this is going to make things a little... difficult. ]

David, if you still think that was really me back then-- if I would have willingly killed the man who raised me, who I consider a father, then I don't really know what to tell you.

But I grew up this way. Fighting for my life, for our lives? And guess what? It's never changed. How am I supposed to be kidnapped to another dimension and believe that suddenly things will be different here? The only thing I really know for sure is that what's happening now? Back home? It's the happiest any of us have been in a long time.

[ a pause. ]

You included.

[Back with the X-Men? Hardly. He knew that back home Josh could give him his powers back. But with his mind opened the way it was? David didn’t know that he could trust himself with them. He didn’t dare. He even sets the Xavier thing aside, Scott’s stupid denials, in the light of that statement.]

Don’t. You. Dare.

The happiest points in my life were when I found my balance with my powers before Dani was sent in and my life got fucked up because of the X-Men, and after I was done with you and your manipulations and lies, when I found myself with the Young Avengers, working with humans and aliens and Erik’s grandchildren.

Well, I guess that's probably something you should take up with future you, isn't it?

[Future him. David scoffs. Future him may or may not be a harbinger of the Demiurge that has lost everything that resembles humanity. So he doesn’t like thinking that far ahead.]

Sorry, if memory serves, you’re the one prone to fucking with time, not me. Still don’t believe you. Because going there would mean acting like what you did to us didn’t happen. How you left us all adrift for months because you couldn’t fathom having to be an X-Man. It would mean forgetting how your choices mean I know what the scent of burning human flesh smells like. How you abandoned kids because they were ‘merely human’.

Hell, everything before San Francisco is more than enough to prove how bad you are.

HERE I COME

no subject

no subject

Does David even show up in Krakoa stuff?

uh i honestly have no idea lmao it's very confusing atm

Fair.