TEST DRIVE MEME #02

[metamods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to 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.

Comments

kate bishop | marvel comics (crau)

[fledges]

i. metastravaganza

[Well, hey, this is all a little bizarre, but it could be worse. So, so much worse. Kate's picked up a hoodie with a knock-off Spidey face splashed on the front, something that's close to the real deal but just a little off in a way that she finds hilarious, and she's wandering around the market. Mostly, using it's an opportunity to pick up the basics and also totally creep. What better way to get acquainted with a new world than to absorb the hot gossip?

And so far, it seems decidedly... mixed, at least when it comes to everyone's opinions on the metahumans running around. She's not really surprised. That was always the case at home, too. What she really wants is some honest opinions on the guilds, but it's not like she can go up to people and start grilling them.

Well. She could. If she were an idiot.

Instead, she sidles up to someone at a booth, examining an action figure that looks discomfortingly like Strange. Not for the first time today, she wonders if these versions of the people she knows are from other worlds, dragged here like she's been, or if they're homegrown heroes, so to speak.

Whatever. Time to make a joke to break the ice.]

Kind of a dorky cape, don't you think?

[Says the girl in the purple aviators.]

iv - dinotopia

[So, things to note—everywhere she goes is a mess. Par for the course? Just her luck? Probably. Like this one, where she finds herself crouching on top of a roof with a total stranger, chaos unfolding below. Admittedly, some messes are infinitely weirder than others. Case in point—]

Does that guy have a dinosaur gun?

[Mildly awesome. Not that Kate wants people being turned into dinosaurs against their will, obviously, but look, sometimes beating up goons with tragic fashion sense gets old. There's a part of Kate that adores a challenge.]

wildcard

[ooc: hit me with whatever! kate is also joining the meadowlark crau ranks!]

i-ish. metastravaganza bc how could i resist

[interloping]

[ You'd think he'd be smart enough not to attend these things in full costume, but it didn't feel like an especially bad idea at the time on account of new world, new rules, new faces. And to be fair, he isn't being swarmed by press, no JJJ's to come at him aggressively, no Screwball to make attempts to smear him across social media. There's just a lot of really quick-made, ridiculously bad knock-off merchandise sharing his likeness.

(And, he supposes, the likeness of his alts. Yeah. Still not quite over that yet.)

He waves a hand in Kate's direction, gesturing to his face (or something like it) over her hoodie. ]

It's like they get my face wrong on purpose, but hey — I can appreciate the spider-rep. That thing better be 100% cotton.

:*

[fledges]

Oh, hey.

[She aims for casual and lands on sort of shocked instead. Is this her Spidey? Does he recognize her? She can't tell. It's not like they're BFFs or she has his number or anything anyway, but—

Okay, focus, Kate.]

It's totally a very economical polyester blend. It'll be repping you in a landfill a thousand years from now.

[Is it weird that she's talking to him while wearing his face on her hoodie? Whoops.]

[interloping]

Reassuring. [ Well, that's one way to be immortalized. ] Aaand a little depressing.

[ Especially after he'd made a couple of quips about planet-saving, too. ]

So can I assume you bought it knowing that was my face on it, and not just 'generic web-pattern red-masked guy'? Does that make me sound kinda full of myself? It probably makes me sound kinda full of myself.

[ He exhales. ]

I swear, it's not about me exactly.

[ikols]

He will put you in time-out if you call it anything but a cloak, you know.

[ Who is this nerd in full horn-come-scalemaille regalia with a bag of merch slung over a shoulder??? Who could he be? A mystery!!

... Loki is 100% dressed up to be given free shit by the vendors who recognise his get-up. ]

Hello, Kate. Buy me, I come with a sword accessory!

[fledges]

[The aforementioned action figures have indeed ruined the surprise—she knew there was a Loki here, or maybe multiple? Who knows. The question is, which Loki is this? Is it Loki straight from back home? The Loki she spent a year with in New Amsterdam? She suspects if he were the latter, he'd immediately try to signal that to her somehow. Another Loki entirely, maybe?

Hmm. Mysterious. Why is multiverse stuff so confusing?

Kate holds up the Loki action figure and wiggles it in his direction.]

Has anyone accused you of being a lame cosplayer yet?

[ikols]

Oh, yes! It happens often when you become well-known in this realm, no one ever thinks you are yourself unless poised in the middle of a fight on the news.

[ He glances up and down, taking in the sight of her. ]

Does "Earth-616" mean anything to you? I have a witch-boy who will be heartbroken if not.

i also

[thecoolerloki]

Kind of?

[says the child dressed like a scene kid obsessed with green. At least he's not in his regular clothes, that'd probably be even more hypocritical.]

Suppose I could dress it up in different outfits if I bought it. But at that point perhaps I should buy a different figure to begin with.

yessss

[fledges]

[Oh look, it's little Loki. She's going to need a chart, she suspects.]

Hmm, let me guess. Maybe one with some cool shiny headgear?

[thecoolerloki]

Depends. What color is the headgear?

[He pauses before giving her a look, as if to make sure first.]

By the way. Hello, Kate Bishop.

i

[robintohood]

[Jason was quietly browsing and listening to pedestrians for anything that could be useful. He was still adjusting to this new city and as tempting as the guilds sound, he still doesn't trust them. They seem too good to be true.

Jason adjusts his red hoodie as the girl in purple aviators talks]

They're all kinda dorky from what I'm seeing.

[Jason then holds up a caped purple and red figure with a pointy-eared cowl and a bat symbol on its chest]

[fledges]

[Kate frowns down at the little action figure, and yeah, okay, maybe her eyes go immediately to the bat symbol, but a bat doesn't mean anything. Probably.]

What do you think the little horns are for? Headbutting people?

[robintohood]

[Jason chuckles at the mental image of Batman headbutting like a goat]

Maybe? Or maybe they're bunny ears. What's with the caped dork you're holding?

metastravaganza...

[wordiness]

[ the figure whips around at kate's voice, and it's definitely billy in like.. one of those cute wide-brimmed goth hats, which is what i'm going with to say she didn't immediately recognize him from behind, it's fine. ]

Kate! Wh-- [ forget knock-off doc strange, he's quick to pull her in for a fierce, grateful hug, the force of which actually knocks said hat off. ] When did you get here? Are you okay?

[ he pulls back to squint at her as if searching for signs of injury, but his expression smooths again a moment later, helplessly grateful to see her. ] Sorry! Sorry, I guess I kind of-- I'm just really glad to see you.

Yessss

[fledges]

[Kate lets out a surprised little squeak which devolves into bubbly, delighted laughter when her brain catches up to what's happening. It's Billy, here, and he recognizes her. She wraps her arms around him and hugs back, so tightly it might count more as clinging, but who cares? It's not like he'll judge.]

I'm okay. Are you okay?

[He pulls back and she releases that iron grip, settling her hands on his shoulders instead. Maybe she's a little misty eyed. It's fine.]

I missed you.

[Which might sound weird, depending on where he's from, or when, but whatever. Details.]

[wordiness]

I missed you, too, [ he says softly, and reaches up, gently thumbing away any moisture on her lashes. ] God, I haven't seen you since the wedding. And it's been weird, both at home and here, but I'm okay. Loki and David are here, and Doreen! I don't know how well you know her, though.

[ he ducks down to grab his hat, jamming it back onto his head, then hooks their arms together, tugging her away from the display. ]

Let me get you a bubble tea or something, I want to know where you've been and what you've been doing.

I - Yeah, Joining the bandwagon of this prompt

[helpdesk_hero]

[All David can assume when he walks up and hears the person comment on the cloak on the knock-off Strange doll, is that she either doesn't know him, or didn't catch sight of him. Still, he feels he has to respond, and not to the actual question. Rather to what she's wearing.]

Are you really going to say that while wearing purple aviators?

[Says the guy in the yellow shades. Granted he's about as tied to yellow as Kate always has been to purple, so he knows he's in a glass house and throwing the stone isn't rally the best choice.]

:*

[fledges]

[Hmm, her David or another David? Maybe she should just stop being cagey and ask. God, multiverse hopping is so exhausting.]

You love my purple aviators.

[helpdesk_hero]

[Oh Kate, the multiverse hopping is even more tiring when you get trapped in these worlds for a few years.]

You're not wrong. It's got 'Hawkeye' written all over them. But not really, because you've got more taste than Clint.

[He tilts his head toward her, a quiet invitation to take that as 'yes, he knows you'. From here it's determining universal designation and time, which is often more difficult.]

i

[tosavethisworld]

Seems impractical, yeah.

[Says the girl with a gigantic mass of red hair. Aloy holds the action figure up with the deep scrutiny of someone who’s never seen this kind of toy before, except maybe in videos, turning it over in her hands.]

I can’t say I see the point in making something like this. Seems like the kind of thing someone might choke on.

[And she just hands it back to the vendor.]

Do you have—what did the Old Ones call it? Backpacks. The big ones for camping. [To Kate:] The cape was nice, but I can’t see it holding up in a fight. You could step on it by accident and then where would you be?

i didn't realize i needed this cr until now

[fledges]

[Kate bursts out laughing, because, well. Yeah.]

Sometimes you have to sacrifice practicality for aesthetic.

[Exhibit A: Her hipholes, which she will defend to the death, thank you.]

What Old Ones are you even talking about?

truly the start of a beautiful friendship

[tosavethisworld]

[Deadpan:] Well, at least he’ll die in style.

[Is this thing floor-length? It looks floor-length. So many ways this could go so terribly wrong. But hey, she can’t deny this action figure looks really good, at least.]

It’s—uh. [How do you tell someone that in one timeline, the world they know is wiped out in a matter of months, and humanity was reborn centuries later and had to struggle back to even a rudimentary understanding of the world around them? She can’t, so instead she’s somewhat vague:] Where I’m from, these [gesturing to the toys on display] would be ancient artifacts, from a world we have barely any readable records of. We call the people who belonged to that world the Old Ones.

everyone else did 1 so I'll go for 4

[hevenly]

[ These rooftops are so crowded lately. If you're not running into a Spider person or other, then it's... A seven foot tall redheaded minotaur lady?

Yeah, okay, that tracks. Probably.

Angela leans out to peer down at the chaos below, illuminated by the full moon overhead (the only reason she's currently in her minotaur form), frowning. ]

Yes, it would appear so.

[ She's still trying to decide if she feels like doing anything about it. ]

:*

[fledges]

[You know... a minotaur isn't the weirdest thing that's ever happened to Kate. It's a level of weird she can take in stride, at least. Seems impractical for the rooftops, but who is she to judge? There are more pressing issues at hand, right?]

Is that a thing that happens a lot around here?

[hevenly]

I am still relatively recently arrived myself, but from what I can gather... It is not unlike the typical events occurring in this realm.

[ Still, it's better than the last universe she was trapped in. Better to be (hopefully temporarily) turned into a dinosaur than to be tortured and killed... ]