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etcelsior2019-12-20 12:35 pm
maskormods) wrote in etcelsior2019-12-20 12:35 pm
Entry tags:
SLAY BELLS RING
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.
Although even Florida can get chilly during the winter, they won't let that spoil the fun. It's not beach weather, but it's time for a palm tree decorating contest to bring everyone into the holiday spirit! Note that isn't technically Christmas decorating. Pick a theme, any theme, from holidays to puppies to capitalism and have at. The natives will judge and vote for their favorite- so really, there's nothing wrong with a little pandering. The winner will get both the honor of having defeated their rivals, and a free lifetime supply of Italian frozen ice and hot dogs from the sponsoring local stand.
Those who just aren't interested in competing might be called in to judge another competition down the beach: a youth sand-sculpting contest! Only one team can walk away with the grand prize of a laser tag package, but can you bring yourself to be harsh on those wide, hopeful eyes?
Speaking of that Italian ice, there are some free samples being offered to tempt you into competing for the prize. And, shocking to no experienced imPort, someone has meddled with it just a bit. Each of the three flavors will have a different effect and, fates help us, they can be stacked, though the effects only last about an hour. Strawberry with fill you with team spirit, encouraging you to decorate a tree in a group or spontaneously form a new rock group. Even those that usually Only Work Alone will want to form a team. Lemon will spike your competitive nature. You're not just going to win, you are going to wave the severed heads of your competitors before their weeping mothers-, er, that is, win by a lot. Finally, lime flavor with up your silliness factor. Everything's fun and happy at the Holiday season, right? Why not pull a prank or two while you're here, or just enjoy a nice knock-knock joke with friends. Hopefully you didn't get that lemon-lime mix and now must pull the most epic prank ever or show that you are the single happiest person on this or any other world. That could get complicated.
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 overzealous imPort fans, media wannabes and opportunists alike, shoving cameras in your face.
With Christmas coming, the producers behind a guerilla new reality show are hard at work getting new footage—starring you! Areas of the city with the most foot traffic have been absolutely blanketed in mistletoe. If you happen to pass beneath a sprig, you might find a small camera crew jumping out of nowhere, urging you to give the person next to you a smooch—and thanks to the strange radio waves coming out of the unit on the executive producer's wrist, you'll feel a little compelled to do so!
...except the compulsion isn't that strong, so those who don't kiss on the first meet can easily break out of it. Your next choice: give the camera crew a piece of your mind, or ask the would-be kissee out for coffee? They are pretty cute...
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. 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...
The downtown mall is tilting the balance solidly toward welcoming to imPorts with a Winter Welcome Festival. All the storefronts and many temporary kiosks occupied by local vendors are holding special sales, and newly arrived imPorts are given a coupon book to make the most of them. The food court has some free goodies for participants to mix and mingle.
Unfortunately, a local rogue with the alias of Klone Kringle is here to spoil the fun. After a small boom echoes throughout the mall, everything dissolves into chaos as dozens of copies of a man dressed in a polyester Santa Claus costume begin looting the retailers! The guns they wield that shoot snow and ice might not be lethal, but they can certainly slow you down (and give you a cold). Will you be the hero and help take down Kringle(s), or will you seize the opportunity to do some theft of your own?
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.
Although Nonah sees milder winters than some imPort cities, it's strangely snowy today, with icicles hanging everywhere. They definitely weren't there this morning, and no storm has passed through, so what gives? A downtown disturbance makes it clear: a would-be supervillain calling himself THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN has attacked. Is he some kind of mutant, a scientifically modified human, or is there just a lot of arctic-tech stuffed into his snowsuit? Whatever its source, he's spraying ice and snow far and wide from his hands, turning the area into a winter wonderland and absolutely ruining sales for local businesses that depend on foot traffic! Also, some citizens have been frozen in blocks of ice. That's bad.
Come, heroes, and defeat this icy menace! That, or build a really cool snowman. It's your call.
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.
Saturnalia is just around the corner and Jeopardy is in full festive swing! The seven-day marathon of festivities includes a parade, with a ((cw: arachnophobia)) very special float from the Web Mistress's church; a day long city-wide paintball game; an attempt to break the world record for largest bingo game with everyone playing in dead silence; and a feast!
Usually the feast focuses on the symbolic ritual sacrifice of a giant chocolate Santa Claus, but this year is a little different. In an effort to display their gratitude for imPorts keeping their city from being ground zero of the apocalypse, they are making an entirely different set of effigies: you! Instead of one Big Chocolate Santa there are over a hundred 1/6th scale chocolate humans, each lovingly recreated in the visage of their favourite imports. Whether or not that loving visage is accurate may be up for debate, but... Hey, want to eat a chocolate rendition of your own head? Now you can!
no subject
As Nox turned on the camera crew she watched them be turned away without bloodshed. The anger was there in tone and the way he moved but she did not see him use lethal force. What sith practiced moderation? When had they ever held back? All the teachings told that Sith were killers, they would strike in whatever way made their target most vulnerable to set them up for easy dispatching.
This was...not what she expected. The blue woman eased her posture down to a ready stance and attempted a step forward. She was able to move without restriction and nodded. What the hells was going on here?
"Who are you?"
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Still, he had the benefit of a knowledge of the Force that lent itself well to evasion, so he could at least afford to return his saberstaff to its place at his side. Not out of any trust for the Twi'lek, but more out of a desire to test just whether or not she'd pose a problem he'd need assistance to deal with without a battle in the streets.
"I am Darth Nox. Formerly of the Dark Council, presently the commander of the Eternal Alliance."
Not that either of those positions meant anything here. Every new imPort seemed to be granted the same elevated outsider status on arrival, regardless of merit or accomplishments. They were largely adored, but granted little in the way of official say in what went on and subject to local law. Something that may have worked well enough in some of the Porter cities, but not all of them- Maurtia Falls was easily the most prominent example of the latter, and the place he was most used to skulking about. De Chima was not.
"And if neither of those titles mean anything to you, I hope you're ready this world's idea of a joke."
Not that he was laughing. Frankly it was utterly infuriating, and infinitely frustrating. Three eras of the galactic timeline, and his was the outlier. Not ideal, given the mess it was.
no subject
Darth Nox? She'd never heard of him. Eternal Alliance? Dark Council? Those sounded vaguely familiar but nothing she could really place in her memory. Wasn't there something in the briefing on arrival about other times and cross over and... was he an ancient sith? No, that was impossible.
"I know what the title of Darth means, the rest is nothing I know." Not with any certainty anyway. She had a feeling she was going to find out and not be very pleased.
no subject
True, it still referred to Sith, but given the rule of two nonsense, it felt like it was something just handed out to every newly minted Sith rather than earned. Consequently, the capability and mastery of the dark side in each of those new 'Darths' could have easily varied wildly. And because 'Sith' and 'manners' were more or less mutually exclusive concepts, he'd seek to test that hypothesis by momentarily halting his efforts to dampen his presence in the Force.
"In my time, it is a title earned by merit. It does not merely identify you as Sith, but as one beyond the reach of even your fellow Lords."
He had no qualms about being identified as a member of the Dark, but...well, the full scale of that power was almost nauseatingly grand. There was a reason he could handily deal with any Jedi masters or even many of his fellow Sith Lords. He didn't have just the power of one highly capable force user, but six. And depending on just how adept Master Secura was with the more telepathic abilities of the Force, she could very well sense traces of the other five that had been forcibly bound to him. But, largely for the benefit of everyone else present, he only allowed his presence to remain unchecked for a few moments. While there was certainly fun to be had in annoying the Jedi, he had no interest in terrorizing the locals. And even non-force users would feel the presence of the Dark Side if exposed to it in sufficiently high concentration.
"The most powerful among us govern the Empire and the Sith as members of the Dark Council. And due to the events that necessitated the formation of the Alliance, most of the former council is dead and the Sith at large decimated. The same is true for your order, from what Grand Master Shan has shared."
One thing that never changed with Sith: They liked games. Even the more practical, less openly murderous ones. Nox was no different, and was doing his level best to just keep dropping potential clues to the exact location of his own timeline to see if he could build a reference to Master Secura's from her own reactions. Or lack thereof. Because obviously, just asking her would be boring, and Nox was juuust a bit of an unhelpful ass. Besides, even if he riled the blue Jedi up too much, he could always just ask Ahsoka about her later.
no subject
But then something changed and Aayla rocked back on her heels like a boat hitting the wake of a much larger craft. Her sensitivity to emotion and individuals made Nox a haze of indistinct and multiple forms. A squelching noise of varied energies made her turn away as she was unprepared to face it.
It was nothing like she'd felt, even when Master Vos had turned or her own walk on a darker path, this was true darkness and it chilled her to the bone.
"Master Shan? Satele Shan? She died thousands of years ago and would not likely commune with a sith." Yeah pull the other lek on that one.
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"How wonderful. After all these years, the Jedi are still capable of propelling their self-righteous arrogance to new and staggering heights. I salute your dedication."
He's even bowing his head, because while moralizing the general populace may have been a common trait amongst Jedi, for Sith it was being unnecessarily dramatic. It really was for the best that Nox wasn't one of the ones with a fondness for capes, or he would have no doubt found a way to make this entire display even more unnecessarily...extra.
"I suggest you abandon those preconceptions quickly. And that insultingly simplistic view of how Jedi and Sith are to behave. There may not be a grand threat to necessitate cooperation as there was with Grand Master Shan and myself, but there is a truce here. As well as a limited number of force sensitives."
A number that, based on his own research, had actually been shrinking. Something Nox was not at all comfortable with, even if he had not been present for many of the previous 'guests' from their galaxy. It was even more frustrating to discover that he'd only just missed a reunion with Marr- Jadus he didn't trust, Marr he could have at least counted on to further something productive and bring some measure of organization to this entire mess. It also meant the absence of one more dogmatically flexible force user, and those were a rarity even in his time. Now, even more so. He could, in fact, name only one...
"I can't say the Skywalker brat would object to your prejudices, but it would be unfortunate if you drove off Miss Tano."
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Well he sure liked to talk didn't he? And that was a test for her, either of her Masters would attest to that. She was not one for standing still or listening. But he did say two things of interest to her.
"Master Skywalker and Padawan Tano are here? Where are they?" How could she find them? Now she had a purpose, if she could connect with them then at least she could form some sort of plan. Together they could work out what was happening here and maybe how to return.
no subject
Neither seemed to consider themselves Jedi anymore, which was ordinarily something Nox could afford to just roll his eyes at. But he'd never pried as to why that was the case, and given the number of potential explanations that could put them at odds with one another, he would be cautious here. Especially as it was dealing with an era of Galactic history a few millennia after his own, and information regarding that period was at something of a premium.
"And especially not one too rude to identify themselves. That's just un-neighborly."
Though, in Nox's opinion, if she'd gone this long without punching him, then she was definitely used to Skywalker. So he'd at least privately do her the courtesy of mentally sending a private message over the network inquiring about the Twi'lek. If she wasn't someone they considered a threat, he'd be a bit more...tolerable.
no subject
This had to be some sort of dream, or perhaps she'd taken an injury she was unaware of, mental manipulation. Frankly any of those seemed more plausible than what she was facing just then; a sith being civically minded.
Begrudgingly she had to admit, reality or not, he had a point. "I am Jedi Master Aayla Secura, though I feel that means means as much toyou as yours did to me." As long as they were kicking that back and forth. She was not sure she cared for him to become overly familiar.
But notice how she isn't attacking, she's just being calm. Master Tholme would be proud of her.
no subject
It was a question he was fairly certain he already knew the answer to, but who knows. Her familiarity with them only necessarily meant she likely encountered them at some point they were still alive. Potentially after, but he'd heard nothing about the Jedi Order rebuilding itself after the Empire's emergence, so it was unlikely she was from either of their futures. At least not their distant futures.
"I wonder, then, if you might be able to shed some light on something for me. Neither of them consider themselves Jedi anymore- and I would personally advise against addressing her as padawan. At present, I imagine the two of you are closer to equals than you might realize."
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"They don't..." Why wouldn't they? Master Skywalker had worked hard to earn his rank and Ashoka was so proud of what she was becoming. There was no way that she could see either of them relinquishing their titles. Yet another thing this sith said which made now sense and yet she could not sense deception.
Then again she hadn't felt him there at all until,she suspected, he allowed it. So ancient powerful sith lord who was not presently attacking her, seemed to be familiar with those she called friends, even family what could it all mean?
It meant that she was somewhere very, very far from home and she was in deep trouble.
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"I assume, then, that your last memories prior to arriving on this world would involve a conflict with the Confederacy of Independent Systems?"
Or the Clone Wars, but...none of what he'd learned showed any real indication that the conflict actually went by that name at the time. The Confederacy- or Separatists, whichever name they preferred- seemed the more reliable identifier. It also meant that sooner or later, she'd discover there were people here from her distant future as well as the distant past. Better to let her deal with that sooner than later, but he'd at least await her confirmation.
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"What is going on here exactly?" Because she was listening to a sith and that was not sitting well with her.
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It seemed like the one most likely to irritate the Jedi when shared, so naturally that's the explanation he went with first. He might get a scolding for it later, but honestly how else was he supposed to entertain himself in this place?
"Another is that I was curious as to when you'd been imPorted from. Evidently you're several thousand ahead of Darth Jadus and myself, and several years behind nearly everyone else. Miss Tano included."
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"More than one sith but at least a few Jedi, I'll take those odds. Once I find Skywalker and Ashoka I'll be figuring things out here." And then this conversation may go differently next time.
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It's the closest he's ever going to come to an apology, really. Especially considering he didn't feel much in the way of regret, as he fully believed his concerns to be well-founded. He was also well aware she could- and, in fact, had already done so- monitor his words for any trace of deception, but she'd find none. He was in the business of keeping secrets and refusing to surrender them, he lacked the necessary discipline to adequately and convincingly pull off any sort of deceit. At least not without having sufficient knowledge of who he was dealing with, so that he could rely on their own biases to form a misleading picture based off of a select set of facts.
With Aayla, he was very much in the dark on that front, and- also taking into account the current state of affairs between the multiple factions represented here- had no real reason to even bother.
"I would also advise you that you've arrived during a native celebration of sorts. It is a confusing one, but one of its traditions is to exhange gifts with your companions. Something you are more suited than anyone else on this planet to assist me with, as when it comes to Miss Tano, you have something to offer no one else does. Assist me, and I will tell you where to find Miss Tano and Skywalker in exchange."
And maybe give her the heads up about one specific detail. Maybe. It might be more entertaining to let it be a surprise, given how Jedi of her era apparently felt about attachments.