Mask or Menace | MODERATORS (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
maskormods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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!
no subject
Sitting here, doing nothing, waiting for someone to get her a drink. She feels a little too much like a damsel, honestly. It's not that she's not appreciative - Ochako does often leap into things when her heart tells her to, and her logical mind is playing catch up - but it really hammers in how much she has to grow, and develop her powers for all types of situations.
She jolts a little when Peter suddenly appears before her, too wound up in her thinking to have noticed his approach until he was shoving a bottle of water in her face. Her eyes wander to the water, then to the webbed up bundle of tiny robots. Geez, he was getting her aid and doing more work? Mm...Ochako can't help the tiny bit of jealousy that bubbles up in her stomach. Thankfully, she snuffs it out, and replaces it with admiration instead, and gratitude.
He's a pro, he has to be. And if she's lucky, she can be like him someday, too. She just has to work hard.]
Thank you, Mister Spider, you're very kind. Your quirk is pretty useful for this type of thing, mm?
no subject
[Help him he's kind of an idiot in the weirdest ways]
And you can just call me your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Or, y'know, any number of nicknames. Most of 'em from the bad guys, but hey: dumb goons make sure to keep it memorable! Spidey, Webhead, Webslinger, "the bug" ...
[He's just gonna keep counting them off. At least until he runs out of fingers to count them on.]
There's a lotta easy ones in there. Not a lot of creativity required for henching.
no subject
But you can call me Ochako, Mister Spiderman.
[Listen, it's better than Spiderman-san. She was considering it, a second, but it sounded weird on her tongue, so....Mister Spiderman won out. Until Ochako is more comfortable with Peter, she'll probably keep using the honorifics and titles, unless her tells her not to. It's just part of her personality to be a little more polite with strangers. Make a good first impression.]
no subject
He'll have to think about it.]
I don't think anybody's ever come up with a name for 'em, Ochako. The whole thing's pretty new. Even counting me, as far as I know there's maybe like...ten of us with some kind of "quirk." And I'm the only one not using 'em to scoop up felonies like subway tokens! Rest of the bad guys all use fancy tech, if that counts at all.
[Does it count? Help a spider out, here. They didn't even have special prison to hold these people until a few months ago, supervillains were that new.]
But hey, thanks! I think the webbing'd more a trade secret than a "quirk," though. Turns out, there's still some spider things I can't do. Are there really that many people with 'em where you come from, though? Like powers, or quirks, or some sort of special abilities I mean.
no subject
But, as Peter goes on, Ochako's smile slowly dissolves into a look of sheer puzzlement. No name for quirks? Relatively new?? ...Wait, wait, hang one there--...only ten people have super powers in America?! How in the heck is that possible?! Okay, the tech is perhaps the only thing that makes sense in that speech there - plenty of villains and heroes alike use support items to boost or aid their innate abilities, so that's not weird.
It's just everything else that has her slack-jawed.]
Eh...that's-- [Give her a moment.] Nearly eighty percent of the global population has a quirk! I-It's not new at all! All sorts of pro heroes have existed since before I was born - each one having a quirk. A-Are you telling me America is the...twenty percent that doesn't? Even regular civilians have a quirk of some kind!! They manifest at five years old!
no subject
[Okay maybe the Tombster, but it's not like he had any way of knowing for sure. And it definitely wasn't anything that'd come up in any conversation they'd had, even if you counted the ones where they were beating the snot out of one another.]
How's that even work out, anyway? Because no offense, but that sounds like a recipe for all kinds of chaos. The whole city practically ground to a halt when the Sinister Six partnered up, and that was just six bad guys. I can't imagine what it'd be like if even a fraction of that many people went bad.
no subject
I...have a few questions, but I'll answer yours first, Mr. Spiderman. [It helps ground her, talking about something she actually knows about.] It's not as terrifying as you'd think. Once our quirks manifest, each child in mandated by the government to undergo quirk counseling with their families to better understand the capabilities of their newfound powers and are immediately registered in the nation's archives. Sort of like an identification system, but it also registers their quirks.
There's also schools built to help young children focus their quirks and learn how to use them, because each one can be different. Some are more destructive than others... [COUGHBAKUGOCOUGH.] Not only that, but Heroes are present in nearly all aspects of life in Japan.
It's an occupation as much as it is a way of life for some. I'm actually in a school specially designed to assist in Hero training.
It doesn't stop everyone from becoming villains - they still exist, and rage from petty crimes to...more severe occurrences - but prepares those who want to stand up against evil and work toward the safety and well-being of the populace. That's what I'm hoping to become - someone who can save people, but I'm still just a rookie.
[She takes a deep breath, because as much as their aired out her own knowledge of...what she thinks was universal, Ochako is now coming to grips that it's not the case.] Now, what did you mean about our universes?
no subject
[He might. He might be a little too into personal space all of a sudden, because oh my god someone from a place where there's actual instruction. He remembers himself soon enough, however, and with a sharp cough promptly takes a step back since. Yeah. Personal space, webhead.]
Sorry, uh- back to that later.
[And he would definitely be coming back to that later, but first he'd let her finish because Ben and May didn't raise someone who'd forget their manners so easily. So he'd at least try to answer her question before coming back to...well, several of his.]
Well, I mean there's sort of this hypothetical concept called the multiverse. I don't think it's ever formally called that, but it's a convenient way to account for all the different models and hypotheses, like Many Worlds Interpretation, Cyclic Multiverse, Brane multiverse-
[Parker. For normal people.]
...basically, uh. Think of it like we're both from Earth, but it's not necessarily the same Earth? They're separate and distinct Earths that don't normally interact. But whatever this place is, it can pull people in from those different universes and Earths. You've got a whole 80% of the population with pow- ah, quirks, but on mine it's basically a brand new phenomenon. I've even run into people from places where it's kinda in-between, and people from places that are kinda like Earth, but not quite.
I mean the only other explanation is you're from the future, and no offense but I'm hopin' that's not the case. Kinda got my hopes set on flying cars 'n hoverboards. I don't wanna find out television's let me down- let a spider dream, y'know?
no subject
[She puts up her hands, because yeah, uh...personal space, but clears her throat a little. If she does have any notes, it'd be in her schoolbag and class notebook, both of which are not on her person at this very moment. Which Ochako just seems to realize as she taps her shoulders for the usual pink straps and nothing is there, oops. But, yes...back to that later, because this seems far more pressing.
Slowly putting her hands down, Ochako listens and places a finger to her lips as her brows furrow in thought. The more scientific mumbo jumbo Peter spews flies well and over her head like a speeding bullet - she's not an A+ student, probably just about average - but Ochako is a young teen. And if there's on thing young teens know about, it's video games and manga. She hasn't played very many of the former, other than the ones on her phone or the super old school console games, but--]
It's sort of like an RPG. Where two or even several worlds hang on the, erm... [She smiles sheepishly, looking him up and down.] ...web, but never cross with one another until something big happens in the story. O-Or an isekai! I never really thought the concept was anything more than just made up fantasy, but...I think I'm starting to really believe it.
But, ehehe, no flying cars where I'm from. I mean...not normally. If you want one to float, just let me know. [She claps her hands together, all five fingers touching, and begins to float a few feet off the ground slowly.] That's my quirk. Zero gravity! Anything that's not nailed down, I can make weightless!
[And she means anything. A car is no big deal for her, though she may get a little nauseous from overuse... Ochako is still a rookie.]