maskormods: (Default)
Mask or Menace | MODERATORS ([personal profile] maskormods) wrote in [community profile] etcelsior2020-07-25 05:52 pm
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ON MY WAY

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.

    WOOF WOOF! This Friday is National Take Your Dog to Work Day, and everyone seems to be out with their pooch, enjoying the summer sun! (At least until they start to sweat and have to make a beeline for someplace with air conditioning.) However, the thing about superheroes is that their work can take them anywhere, and with the Top ImPort contest leading the news, EVERY imPort is a hero in the minds of the public!

    Got a costume on? Here's a corgi. In line for an iced coffee? Come kiss this old lady's schnauzer. Allergic to dogs? Have a Claritin...and then brace yourself as this Great Dane tries to sit on you. And be sure to smile! Can you imagine how many likes a pic of the coolest new imPort cuddling man's best friend will get?

    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.

    Welcome, everyone, to the sugar fueled festivity that is National Hot Fudge Sundae Day. The celebration is taking place on two closed down city blocks, with a market in between them selling all the pun filled souvenir shirts and stuffed ice cream cone toys, fudge bottle body pillows, and every kind of craft fair knickknack in between, that you can imagine. The powers that be in Nonah have clearly tried to divide the celebrations up into the ice cream and ‘normal’ food sides, but this is America. They can’t tell you what to do. Go try those meat and potato ‘fudge sundae’ monstrosities or cover your ice cream in wine from an adult beverage cart. Dip your deep-fried cheese in hot fudge. Disgusting food choices are in the constitution (somewhere).

    But on the pure ice cream side, there are certainly enough choices to make ‘real’ food not super necessary. In addition to your normal food flavors that range from the tame you’d see in any ice cream parlor, or the slightly more hipster flavors like ‘lavender’ or ‘bacon maple,’ there are existential flavors. Yes, inspired by some previous imPorts, these flavors induce a specific emotion in the person while they eat it, which lasts up to about 10 minutes after the dessert has been consumed. These range all over, from ‘full cell phone battery’ to ‘the bitter-sweet satisfaction of vengeance against your sworn enemy.’ Maybe try a ‘puppy love’ and ‘first day of autumn’ twist covered in fudge for a true moment of contentment. It’s all in your hands. Careful though, things like ‘moment you first realized your parents were only human’ or ‘pain of failure’ are also available, though obviously not as popular. Hopefully, you don’t create an emotionally devastating mix out of curiosity (or a prank on another imPort).

    In addition to ice cream, there are all kinds of family fun activities to pick from. Traditional carnival themed games have been set up, with the normal employees yelling at the crowd to attract attention. Throw a ball in a milk can, get a goldfish in a an (empty glass) ice cream cup! Pop balloons with dulled darts, get a sprinkles themed pair of sunglasses. This is Nonah, though, which means hard work deserves a reward. The bigger prizes for big point getters are a little insane: genetically modified fish that can breathe air, stuffed animals the size of a minivan, a free years worth of ice cream (to be taken home all at once now). There are also some bounce houses and slides that kids and adults alike can enjoy, just no ice cream allowed inside the rides

    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.

    Welcome to the Church of the Ancient Webmistress' annual cookie sale! To raise money for a variety of community organizations, card tables line the street where the church is located, and boy, do these baked goods look delicious! Cookies, brownies, pies and more are all for sale for very reasonable prices--and to help out such a good cause, you're definitely going to buy some. Right, hero? The watching crowds certainly expect you to set a good example (when they're not busy purchasing tasty treats themselves.)

    It seems there's been a mistake, though--mixed in with the cookies frosted to look like spiders are, er, a tray of someone's special brownies. Edibles, as it were (though everything here is edible--and delicious!) Just try to keep it together, okay? After all, there are kids here, and you're a role model! Or possibly not, but if you end up feeling the need to stare at your own hand for an hour, maybe find a side street. Or at least purchase some extra munchies to support any number of charities.
cantgetanyworse: (071)

[personal profile] cantgetanyworse 2020-08-17 02:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh.

Now he's looking at her she isn't sure what to say. There had been a half-formed thought there, something lingering in the back of her throat not quite making it to the tip of her tongue and out...

Her cheeks pink slightly and she grips her canvas a little closer under her arm.

"I'm-- dreadfully sorry. For a moment you looked somehow familiar to me."
vampiris_tesla: (impish)

[personal profile] vampiris_tesla 2020-08-17 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Behind his back, fingers tap, a bit eagerly. Oh, he likes this. She's bashful, and it's familiar and yet not...his brain picks at it, moment to moment, adjusting and rejecting theories. Because the best thing about being here? It could be anything. He's in a interdimensional linkage point - there are no outlandish theories here.

It makes the heart sing.

"I get that a lot," he replies, smile becoming impish. "But let's see if we can't shed some like on that?"

He offers a hand, slowly. "Nikola Tesla. That one."
cantgetanyworse: (121)

[personal profile] cantgetanyworse 2020-08-17 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Jane hesitates for a moment, looking down at the offered hand. Her experience with meeting strange men in dark streets has not been stellar of late (though Batgirl had saved her from potential tragedy), but this is no cad sneaking up on her with a knife.

"Ah... Jane Porter."

She takes his hand, shakes it, and looks up at his eyes.

"Nikola Tesla?" she repeats, then gives a little shake of her head and a bemused smile. "It's an unusual name. You sound as if you expect I might have heard of you."
vampiris_tesla: (not liking this)

[personal profile] vampiris_tesla 2020-08-17 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)
And, of course, there it was. The flatulent, tuba-produced note in the middle of the little mental concerto he was putting together.

"Really?" He says, looking a little crestfallen. "The inventor? Father of alternating current? What kind of-"

He pauses, realizing he was about to venture down the rather rude path of inquiring what sort of backwater universe she had to have been from. The more horrifying possibility, of course, being that in her world, they'd only had Edison.

"Apologies, most of the native population knows me, here. Which tells me, Jane Porter, that you're not. But, oh, that accent." It sounds a lot like Helen's, actually, he realizes - which does nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. "British, end of the 19th century. That's a sexy accent."
cantgetanyworse: (041)

[personal profile] cantgetanyworse 2020-08-17 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, he does look disappointed. It could be that Jane's own line of work keeps her ignorant of his own achievements, or it could just be that around the time she lives, Nikola Tesla still remains relatively obscure when compared to the likes of, oh... Thomas Edison.

Still, she would have been quite ready to defend herself from insults.

His choice of segue does throw her off step, and being called sexy is new-- even if it was only her accent that he was talking about. "Well, that's--"

Ah, just let her take her hand back. Ahem.

"It's the only one I have, though no one has been able to tell I'm from the past before." She shifts the canvas under her arm again. "But I must warn you, Mr Tesla, I'm not interested in any funny business."
vampiris_tesla: (Default)

[personal profile] vampiris_tesla 2020-08-17 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
He nearly claps his hands at all that. Oh, so proper. Yes, that confirms it.

"A past, if not the-" he replies, clearly delighted with her response. And with probably some very obvious glee at hearing the phrase 'funny business' said out loud.

"My past, actually. In a way. I spent some time at Oxford you see with some...rather remarkable friends. Oh, what times. When men still dressed. Women, thankfully, have gained more advantages since. I wonder what Victoria would have done with comfortable shoes."

He gives her a proper look-over, then. "Which you have clearly taken advantage of. Good for you." And then he notices the canvas. "An artist?"