metamods: (Default)
meta moderators ([personal profile] metamods) wrote in [community profile] metamemes2022-03-04 04:33 pm
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TEST DRIVE MEME #02




TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to [community profile] metaheroes! As the game is invite-only, please bear in mind that new players must have an invitation from a current player to apply. Interested players who do not know anyone in the game can reach out to the mod team HERE to request an invite for the March app round. These invitations will be processed the day before reserves open. However, no invitation is necessary to play on the this test drive.

Threads from this post can be made game canon if players agree upon it. To facilitate this, this log has no new arrival prompt. Please see the PREVIOUS CONFLUENCES for general ideas as to how characters may have arrived. New characters will be arriving with the March 27th arrival log.

For players who do not want to thread out an arrival, they may backdate their characters' arrival to a previous Confluence. These characters were not picked up by the transportation spell used by the Alliance. These characters will have been living on their own for the last few months, so please address this in the 'Brainstorming' section of the application.


01. METASTRAVAGANZA — everywhere.
Things haven't been the same since Confluences started again. The last two months have been more exciting than the last twenty years! The skies are full of new heroes, the day is saved and threatened by unfamiliar faces, the media is having a field day trying to report on every single new face while companies try to snag them for brand deals.

But not everything in this world centers around costumed combat. Today is a perfectly normal day and you're tasked with the most dangerous mission of all - leading an every day life. Maybe you go to a perfectly normal job to maintain your secret identity - or maybe you've already abandoned that, living full time as your metahuman self.

The sun is shining, and even in the early hours of the morning, parties in the DOWNTOWN STREETS of those CITIES STRUCK BY THE RECENT CONFLUENCES are disrupting the reconstruction efforts that have gotten well underway. These parties celebrate meta efforts to save the day! The streets are full of booths selling food and hastily made knock-off toys of the newest heroes who haven't yet put a copyright on their costume.

But not everyone looks so thrilled about this celebration. Many people look disgusted at this celebration of metahumans interrupting their commute to work, muttering under their breath about what a pain in the ass metahumans are and how much destruction they've wrought in these few short months.

Meanwhile, school-aged metas board the bus to LOFTY HEIGHTS META SCHOOL, hidden somewhere in the sky. There, in-between learning about grammar and punctuation, they are trained to use their new abilities ... Notably, when powers training arrives, the new arrivals outshine the metas native to this world. Very few seem to have any powers on par with the new comers.

Later in the day, the Student Council holds an assembly dedicated to the responsible use of powers. They award any students who have helped save the day with accolades — as well as detention for skipping class to help out as an unlicensed hero. Whoops!

Maybe you should just skip today.


02. SEEDY UNDERBELLY — central city.
Central City is a hard place to live. The city is in almost constant peril, with constant power vacuums in organized crime and city government being filled by worse and worse people. Despite having the Guardian Alliance stationed at its center and doing their best to uplift the people and their citizens, the city suffers from a corruption so deep that it seems to be baked into the very concrete.

The Alliance does what it can to make the city a better place but it's a bandaid over a bigger wound. Because the nigh constant metahuman-centered destruction is the source of so many of Central City's problems - meta organizations are often the last resort for its people. Still, the Alliance makes sure to keep heroes on hand to punch muggers as well as run soup kitchens. Their healers provide healing free of charge, and many of their psychics are trained therapists who use their powers to soothe the citizens' many traumas.

But the real power in the city is held by people like FRANK KAFKA, a crime lord with a finger in every pie. Both guilds leave Kafka to his own devices because he officially possesses no metahuman abilities and he avoids any dealings with them. Tonight, his goons are running their favorite extortion scheme with a twist. A group of them marches through a run-down street, shaking down vulnerable families and businesses for protection money. If an individual resists, the gang threatens to bring the spectre of newly created metahumans down upon their head. Though Kafka himself is not present, his goons will give up his location under enough pressure.


03. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM — excelsior.
With how often the city is destroyed, one wouldn't expect the MUSEUM OF EXCELSIOR to get much in the way of priceless artifacts, but the museum's basement vault is one of the most well guarded facilities in all the country. Practically impenetrable, it stores every conceivable relic of value. But today, thanks to some villainous meddling, there's a lapse in their security that aligns perfectly with the planned time for the changeover of an art exhibit, affording some enterprising thieves a chance at millions of dollars in priceless artwork.

Heroes affiliated with the Guardian Alliance are asked to patrol and keep these relics safe, while the members of the Society of Villainous Reformation are called upon to pay favors forward by getting in their way. As the untested new kids on the block, player characters draw the short straw and are sent in pairs to complete their task, regardless of whether it's to steal these artifacts or guard them.

Villains, now's the chance to get rich quick! Heroes, protect these treasures from falling into the wrong hands!


04. DINOTOPIA — excelsior.
Confluences are back.

And that means new unaffiliated supervillains are running rampant in the streets, causing the kind of directionless, clumsy chaos that the Guild typically frowns at. A little mischief is good if it serves as distraction for a heist, but this is...

Well...

This a very large velociraptor with human arms standing in the middle of Excelsior. If anyone asks, he calls himself DINO DAN. But why would you ask when he's busy transforming people into dinosaurs - or partially into dinosaurs - using his aptly named Dino-Ray? The people of Excelsior are used to a lot of chaotic shenanigans, but this is a little much even for them. The newly transformed dinosaur-people are losing themselves to their instincts and charging at bystanders. Of those that retain (or regain) their senses, some appear strangely delighted to have this new experience, while others wail in horror at their lost humanity.

As heroes line up to stop him, he'll tell anyone who listens about his displaced rage and the revenge he seeks on an unfair world that let him turn himself into a dinosaur. Not surprising, out of an Excelsior local. However, confronted by metas who can stop him, Dino Dan hooks the Dino-Ray on his belt and grabs a second ray-gun. Anyone he shoots with this one disappears with a comical POP!

Those unfortunate enough to be hit by this ray will find themselves standing in a land before time, right beside a research station. Those clever enough to pull out their cell phones will notice that they still have reception, and rule out time travel.

In addition to clippings of ancient and extinct plants, characters who venture inside will find a half dozen prehistoric humans have apparently been displaced through time and held captive in Dino Dan's remote island research station. If that wasn't obvious enough, his research notes suggest the use of time travel — though like all other dimensional travel, it stopped working in January.

Characters may trigger a trap in the research station and find themselves also temporarily transformed into reptiles, or they may take it upon themselves to rescue the poor folks this mesozoic maniac has been holding hostage! Whatever the plan: if he's causing havoc in the city, that has to mean there's there's a teleporter in his lab to get back. But there's no shortage of Guard T-Rexes blocking the path.
hevenly: (on guard)

001.

[personal profile] hevenly 2022-03-06 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Angela does not often frequent festivals. In Ryslig, they often went hand in hand with catastrophe. She finds herself feeling an obligation, however, to safeguard the same from happening here, in this shining city full of heroes and villains, more like the Earth she knows than any other realm she has been trapped in.

So, she walks the crowded thoroughfare of the Metastravaganza, idly licking an ice cream cone and keeping a watchful eye out for trouble. Trouble finds her, however, when two men collide with each other in front of her and begin a yelling match. She rolls her eyes, not really feeling like getting involved in such a petty squabble... But as the wronged man gesticulates wildly, throwing insults at the man who bumped into him, one of his arms swings in Angela's direction, knocking into her hand and causing her ice cream to fall out of its cone and onto the dirty pavement.

Okay. Now she's involved. Her eyes are narrowed, completely stark white with no iris or pupil, and her voice is as cold as the depths of Hel when she speaks. ]


One of you, I care not which, is going to buy my a new ice cream cone.
skagzz: (Default)

Re: loki odinson | mcu

[personal profile] skagzz 2022-03-06 09:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Look Tina has been here for like 6 hours (days? what is TIME son) and she's already BORED because all these people do is WORRY ABOUT STUFF and tell her that CHILDREN can't go out ALONE and biotch she took down a god damn corporate EMPIRE and ALIEN TECH and CHAOS AND SHIT so pfft whatever she's going walking.

It's been pretty boring. Like, people yelling. A few powers. All LAME. She's seen better with her own two eyeholes.

Then like half the people's clothes (she's not great at math she's actually a fucking genius at math if explosives are involved but like def half right, like the way men thing 10 women in a group of 100 is half) turn green and gold. Some tall pretty man says it's an improvement.
]

You're not like, wrong, tall-dark-and-scary, but PINK and RAINBOW would have been EVEN BETTER.
wordiness: (009)

[personal profile] wordiness 2022-03-06 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ despite everything billy knows about loki, he is a cute kid, and his excitement about the bacon kind of reminds him of his younger brothers. ]

Yeah, we used to get breakfast after saving someone or putting out some kind of emergency.

[ he leads them over to the other stall, pulling out the alliance card to buy the food in question and passing the little paper container of bacon over to loki. ] So what point are you from? Before we met, or is it some kind of time-space thing?
skagzz: (Default)

[personal profile] skagzz 2022-03-06 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
| 1. Night at the Museum |

[ Look MOST people are either running around like skags tryna swipe some sweet loot, or swipe the bros tryna swap the sweet loot. And that's coo'. Coo' Coo' Coo'. But Tina has PRIORITIES.

If you happen to walk through the halls of the actual museum, you may do a double take in the furniture galleries, where a 13-year-old girl has uh dragged historical china onto priceless furniture, put various masks, statues, and precious objects in the other seats, and is....having a tea party????

She sips...some kind of beverage out of a $20,000 chalice and gestures for you to join her.
]

Ah, good sirma'am. You are late. Fashionably. Please. Sit and regale us with your tales of the war.

| 2. Dinotopia |

[ Look, she just wanted to be FRIENDS with the DINOSAUR MAN who was TURNING PEOPLE INTO DINOSAURS. That seemed like a thing they might HAVE IN COMMON. But she guesses SOME PEOPLE can't take a JOKE when aaaaaaaalll she did was FOLLOW AROUND BEHIND HIM doing an EXCELLENT IMPRESSION that may have involved ACCURATE stupid SOUND EFFECTS.

Dino Dan god what a NAME how do these people NOT SCOUR THE ECHONET for better NAMES sheesh hit her with his ray gun. The La-aaaaame one. So now she's in this weird hot place with gross plants and shit and Lilith isn't even here to like shoot them and crap and she doesn't have ANY EXPLOSIVES like what the EF HOMES?

So she pulls out her phone because hey she can play tetris til SOMEONE shows up and sees she still has connection.
]

Squiggly squiggly say whaaaaat? Okay maybe this IS my favorite gun. Dino Dan how'd you know i wanted a childhood themed ADVENTURE? But you know what would make this BETTER?

[ Tina summons a life size unicorn made entirely of diamonds with a main made of rainbows. ]

i love this place.

| 3. Wildcard |

[ Hit me up here or on plurk [plurk.com profile] portolan ]
wordiness: (024)

[personal profile] wordiness 2022-03-06 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering how many realities are already represented here. [ he plants a hand on his hip, rubbing the back of his neck with the other. ] I thought I was really done with alternate universes for a while.

[ does teddy even know he's gone yet? will he? he rubs his thumb over his wedding ring for comfort, then takes a breath and turns to the stranger with a small smile, offering out his hand. ]

Sorry, uh. I'm Billy, it's nice to meet you.
skagzz: (devious)

METASTRAVAGANZA

[personal profile] skagzz 2022-03-06 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Tina isn't technically in a hero costume, but she's absolutely wearing hot pink and neon green and and bunny ears. She's also 13. ]

GIRL I'm so sorry your REPRESSIVE CULTURE taught you that the joys of COLOR are out of your reach. Allow me to liberate you.

[ She throws pink glitter on Clara, and basically everything else in range of Clara. ]
wordiness: (012)

metastravaganza

[personal profile] wordiness 2022-03-06 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Clint?

[ it's clearly him, but he's also.. different? so maybe another version from another place, he's not sure. billy finds himself smiling helplessly at the sight of the archer wandering around with a balloon and a hot dog like he's completely lost.

he steps out of the crowd to stop the older man, brows arching questioningly. ]
Hey, are you okay?
skagzz: (pls pls pls)

i. metastravaganza

[personal profile] skagzz 2022-03-06 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh my god you literally make children cry will you be my teacher?

[ There is a tiny hyperactive 13 year old repeatedly hitting his arm and twisting on the spot with excitement. ]
Edited 2022-03-06 21:52 (UTC)
azulescarabajo: (I mean really)

[personal profile] azulescarabajo 2022-03-06 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
No, it's okay. I get it. I... Yeah. I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with this kind of thing again.

[ Jaime is a polite guy, so he shakes the offered hand, smiles. ]

Jaime. Nice to meet you.
siracha: (07.)

[personal profile] siracha 2022-03-06 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Because it is the polite thing to do, I don't know.

[ What is with this guy? ]

If you want me to go, I'll go. [ She sweeps a hand at the commotion slowly building below them. ] Are we going to argue while the bad guys are getting away?
siracha: (yelbw24)

[personal profile] siracha 2022-03-06 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Sorry, bud. The second Church leaves the room, Yelena wastes absolutely no time getting back to the — ah, mission at hand. Yes, it might involve offering some of these thugs their just desserts, some well-deserved bodily harm, but it might also involve shutting this whole operation down on her own so she might maybe take —

Eh. Not important.

In all honesty, he would only have gotten in her way anyway, and she's just far more efficient dealing with these stupid baddies on her own. And it goes really, really well at first too. The endearingly named 'Krampus' even seems to go down, horns and all, until she's dusting herself off and he bodyslams her into the far-too-fancy flooring.

He pins her limbs and she struggles with a grunt, shifting to reach for a weapon of some kind, or at least get her widow's bite in line with his face. She spots her """partner""" through the archway of the door and shouts: ]


Shoot him!
bossily: (Default)

[personal profile] bossily 2022-03-06 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[He suggests that she goes first, and she points to herself as if she's questioning who he's addressing. But of course it's her, there's no one else here. So she takes in a shaky breath and nods. She's brave. She can do this. There will be absolutely no dinosaurs waiting to eat them.

She turns to make her way right over to the building they're by, figuring that's the best place to start. The door they're near must lead to some kind of service entrance. It seems to be unlocked.

And as she opens it, a few small little dinosaurs come charging out. They don't try to bite, but they are screaming as they run. Clara gets knocked over by them and lands on her ass with a huff. She just stares at the retreating little dinosaurs that the guy she's stuck here with could easily punt if he wanted.

Hopefully he won't do that, because -
]

What are the odds that those used to be children?
bossily: (Default)

[personal profile] bossily 2022-03-06 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
'Fraid not.

[She smiles as she says it, clearly teasing. But there's a quick shake of her head as she has to bite down on her smile to keep it from growing. it's hard to tell if this guy is a good sport when it comes to teasing. Not being able to really see his face beyond a mask makes him hard to read.]

Why a spider, though? Aren't they easily crushed?
bossily: (Default)

[personal profile] bossily 2022-03-06 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[it's in moments like this one that she absolutely doesn't miss her students back home. They're about the same age as this girl, and love doing things like this just to get a reaction. She's very careful to not have one here either, simply staring at the girl without trying to wipe away any of the glitter that she's now bathed in.]

Luckily, colors work just fine for someone your age. So are glitter bombs your power, then?

[There's a huff of air directed and blowing some of the pink glitter off of her face, so it won't get into her mouth while she speaks.]
siracha: (HEEpisode602224)

[personal profile] siracha 2022-03-06 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, okay.

[ Said with a small shrug in easy agreement. She would be curious to know just how she might fare against someone with abilities like that. Most of the people she deals with are like her; no powers to speak of, but highly trained in maximizing every other ability they have: strength, smarts, physical skill. She doesn't doubt this guy might have some of that too, to boot.

She gestures to the thieves retreating down the hall, already pulling a couple of small throwing knives out from somewhere on her person. ]


After we catch them?
arrowsguy: (VvKqiYW)

[personal profile] arrowsguy 2022-03-06 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Over the last few months, he's heard his name screamed, shouted, yelped, hissed, and said in many, many other ways that he barely blinks when he hears the confusion surrounding his name this time.

It doesn't take long to figure out who's said his name but he doesn't recognize the young man who's called out to him. He frowns, eyes narrowing while he racks his brain to figure out if maybe he's just forgotten.

But no, he's almost certain that he doesn't know this guy. ]


Uh, I'm a little turned around. And...I probably look like an idiot. The hot dog's cold now. Balloon's not even my favorite color.
bossily: (Default)

[personal profile] bossily 2022-03-06 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[Wait a second.]

You're a villain, aren't you? Sending people to volcanoes.
skagzz: (im ready)

[personal profile] skagzz 2022-03-06 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[ SCHOOL is for lame BABIES who have HOMES AND PARENTS AND STUFF. ]

How rude! One cannot ask about one's companion's powers without first exchanging some fantastical token of trust and secrecy.

[ If she has powers, she has not found them yet. ]

wordiness: (009)

[personal profile] wordiness 2022-03-06 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Can't lie, you do look a little dumb, [ he agrees fondly, and turns the balloon into iridescent bubbles that float away with a flick of his fingers. ] They're bad for the environment anyway.

[ there's zero recognition in clint's expression, so billy figures his first thought was right and this is a version from some other reality. but unless clint's a supervillain in his reality, well.. he's still him. ]

You have no idea who I am, do you?
siracha: (HEEpisode501436)

[personal profile] siracha 2022-03-06 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm. [ Yelena hardly deigns to react to Natasha's little jab, or to the way she leans in steal a sip of her drink. It starts to sink in now, in these very few seconds, that this is actually happening, and it is very real, and she isn't dreaming the whole thing up like a childhood fantasy.

She lets out a breath. ]
And you look the same. Yeah.

[ She's looking at her now like she's studying her for cues: what does she remember? When is she from? what does she know about Yelena? What happened to her before —

It's hard now to even know what to say, all those silly things she'd muttered at her sister's gravestone, all those jokes and conversations and 'I wish'es stuck to the roof of her mouth. She won't know that Yelena was sent on a hit to kill her best friend. She won't know that her little sister spent a lot of time learning to deal with her grief, and not all of it very successfully. Yes, it's easier to speak with the dead than it is to know the right things to tell the living. ]


I got a new coat, see? [ She gestures to herself, at the colourful patterned print. ] It also has pockets.
arrowsguy: (F5mKvjJ)

[personal profile] arrowsguy 2022-03-06 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't but I have taken a lot of hits to the head lately so —

[ Shrugging, Clint looks up to the spot where the balloon had been and waves his hand through the remnants before he glances down at the hot dog.

He takes a bite after a moment and, well, it's not terrible. A little too much with the toppings but not terrible. ]


No, I don't know who you are. Should I?
wordiness: (009)

[personal profile] wordiness 2022-03-07 12:02 am (UTC)(link)
Doubtful. [ he huffs a laugh. ] Either I don't exist in your reality or we just haven't had a reason to meet yet.

[ either's reasonably possible. clint had still been dead when billy and the others formed the young avengers. .. feels like it's been a long time since then.

after a moment, he offers out a hand. ]
Billy Kaplan-Altman. I'm-- Do you know Wanda Maximoff? I'm one of her twins.
dissemblance: (pic#15035410)

[personal profile] dissemblance 2022-03-07 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
there are things you carry. edges that you can't worry down with repeated, insistent touch. injuries are not always carried in the physical, and the red room is vivid scarification, rent down deep into the soul.

their wounds of it, like their memories, don't quite match. but all these years later, natasha can still look at her and know.

you look the same. as when she died. sad little social media posts on a private instagram that the world probably poured over because black widow wasn't allowed to keep any secrets — she had to turn out her pockets and empty them into the waiting hands of a public hungry for heroes.

because she did die — on a lonely little planet in the middle of nowhere, with wind in her hair and chipped yellow polish on her nails, a sacrifice, a love letter to the only people she's ever given the whole of her heart to. what would she truly have done, to bring back yelena? clint's family? sam?

and the answer, every time, is every thing.


Well, pockets are always good. You think it'll fit me too?

their eyes are almost exactly the same shade of blue-green-grey, natasha meets yelena's now in brief apology, there and gone. she carries on without waiting for an answer:

So I hear 2024's a pretty good year.
Edited 2022-03-07 00:03 (UTC)
exasperation: (024)

[personal profile] exasperation 2022-03-07 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ ripley physically recoils. ]

What? No, I don't want to be anyone's teacher about that!
exasperation: (086)

[personal profile] exasperation 2022-03-07 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ his voice goes a little shrill. ]

What, no. Of course not. And it wasn't a volcano!