Mask or Menace | MODERATORS (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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etcelsior2020-05-24 09:21 pm
maskormods) wrote in etcelsior2020-05-24 09:21 pm
Entry tags:
DANCE MAGIC DANCE
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.
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, 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. 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.
Today, a company that manufactures tech-based educational toys—"Where Science Meets Fun!"—is running a demo of its latest project, Quincy the QuizBot. Filled with information taken from the curricula of many grade levels, Quincy is whirring through the streets to conduct pop quizzes! Answer a question right, win a prize, ranging from a coupon for a free soda at the local fast food joint to a $100 gift card, based on difficulty!
Except...something's gone wrong with Quincy's programming. An hour or two into the demo session, he starts to approach passersby and demand answers. "WHAT IS THE SQUARE ROOT OF 47284? CAN YOU LIST THE PHARAOHS OF EGYPT IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER? ANSWER-ANSWER-ANSWER-ANSWER!"
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...
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.
Today there's a big lemonade stand on one busy sidewalk, staffed by a group of industrious kids. Aww, isn't it sweet? Wait...is that a cookie stand a little ways down, also run by elementary-to-middle schoolers? Heck, the entire block is full of kid-run mini-businesses — a gathering of pint-sized entrepreneurs! And they have their eyes on you, hero, because as a celebrity imPort, your pockets are full of $$$, right?
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.
Despite the weird constant hum and the creepy cultish bingo, Jeopardy is usually a pretty calm place. A safe place. But not today. Today, someone has released a couple hundred tiny praying-mantis-like robots into the city, and the place is in chaos. Shops are closed up early because though these little destructive creatures don't have bullets, they do have some weird arm appendages that like to just crunch everything in existence. Like a locus swarm of cockatoos, anything made of wood or plastic is being crunched up and left for scrap. But at less than six inches high apiece, rounding them up is proving extremely difficult. Luckily, the mayor in her wisdom is giving out titanium nets to any imPort who wants to help round up the trouble makers. And, in the spirit of the city, she's offering the imPort that catches the most robots a free meal for two in the swanky Radiation Galley - Jeopardy's top tier, five star restaurant.
Get catchin', imPorts!
Merlin | BBC's Merlin | cw: underage harassment, references to underage nudity. language
Merlin sighs. Why, he wonders, is his life this way? First, he finds out he has magic, then he has to leave home for Camelot, then he arrives in this world instead, over 2000 years after his time, and now this? Argh. He is sure, really, that his luck is just not going to turn up, ever.
He had been here to just see the sights and check out a computer store that had invited him to try one of their newest models of computers that had come in, and it had been fun! But when he came out, laptop slung behind him with his new computer, he had been rushed by a crowd of young, and older, women who wanted him to give them his autographs. He was not... really, comfortable with this, but he had agreed to sign a few books, and even a printed out picture of him and his unfortunate shirtless appearance in De Chima. But this is too much.
He sighs as he looks up at the girl still eagerly holding out her pen with one hand and pulling her shirt aside with the other and oh god. Her mom stands beside her, just as eager, and looking like she might just duplicate her daughter's act. He closes his eyes as he shakes his head, his voice breaking as he speaks and firmly holds his hands behind his back.
"Miss, I, ah... I am really not comfortable with doing that. You are lovely and those are, really, very lovely breasts, but I don't think I can sign them. Nope."
"Who the hell do you think you are? A snob like those other kid imports were? What kind of asshole celebrity are you?"
Merlin winces, and with his cheeks red as a tomato, he backs away, still hoping this is all a dream. Does anyone want to help the poor young wizard?
***
2. Earlier, in De Chima, Virginia
Arriving in De Chima had been strange, to say the least, and Merlin is trying to avoid most of the trouble that he has heard that other imports get up to, with fans. Or so he was, that is. What he had not anticipated, when he came to the high tech town, was that because he was coming quietly, half the stores would be sold out of what he was looking for. And when he had finally found a store that said their Heropa store would hold one for him, and headed to the next door store to try on some new clothes, he had not realized that one of the employees was calling some import fans.
Nor did he anticipate coming out of the changing room in the clothing store to be confronted by a crowd of fans. Or that he would end up having to run, losing his shirt in the process, down the length of the mall to try to make it out and to his ride, if his ride was even still there.
Shirtless, tired, and completely over this imPort craze, he had been photographed, touched, and otherwise harassed all the way to the food court near the end of the mall, and right into the loud sounds and sights of what looked like a metallic golem losing all of its brains all at once.
Quincy the QuizBot, as it declares itself, wants answers, apparently, and is not exactly either patient or gentle in trying to get them. Spotting the thing attacking a small crowd who are cowering before it, Merlin skids to a halt and concentrates. Despite everything, he can't, ever, leave others to their fates. With a yell, and a surge of magic, a table shakes, rises, and flies to slap the golem being aside and allows the crowd to escape, but that just means the thing is now turning and headed right for Merlin.
He sighs.
Now what?
***
3. Maurtia Falls, Pennsylvania
Attending an orientation thrown by a local Wiccan group who had wanted to meet him has been one of the few pleasant times Merlin has had this week. Some times he had feared that this world's people were just crazy, but this has been fun! He and the others spent a lot of time talking about magic, and while they seemed disappointed at how little he knows, they still welcomed him, and even gave him some books they use as focal points for their ceremonies.
Walking out of the meeting, he feels more invigorated and happy than he has in some time, and finds himself soon at a local tea shop that one of them had recommended to him. Soon ensconced in a corner with tea, and one of the books on Wiccan herbs and ceremonies, he is smiling for the first time since he arrived on this planet.
He even is happy to smile and pose for a few politely asked for autographs. Come say hi!
Heropa!
"GET AWAY FROM US, YOU ALREADY GOT SOMEONE I KNOW KILLED AND YOU HARASS MY SISTER AND I ENOUGH ALREADY!"
His yelling mixed with the threatening growling from Umbreon got them to leave, but not before the mother hassling the boy started yelling about ungratefulness, but he didn't care, he was sick of all these pushy fans.
Turning to the person who he practically shouted in his ear in his anger, he gave an apologetic smile before shaking his head with a sigh. "You alright? These crazy people don't know how to take no for an answer and get us imPorts put in dangerous situations to avoid them."
Re: Heropa!
He blew out a long breath and nodded. "They don't seem to know how to take a no for an answer. Thank you for the rescue. I didn't want to hurt them, and there are so many of them, I don't think I could get away without doing so."
The creature at the man's side drew an awed look from Merlin, but then his eyes went back to the other man.
"This world has some nice people, but this is... a lot."