metamemes | TEST DRIVE MEME

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!test drive meme

TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to

metaheroes! You do not need an invite in order to play on the test drive meme.

Test Drive threads can be used as game canon and can be treated as your character's arrival to the game. The first Arrival event differs from this Test Drive Meme and takes place a week later which also gives you the option to start fresh.

The first application round is closed to friends of the moderators. If you are interested in joining the game and do not know anyone involved, you can reach out to the mod team via here to request an invite for the February app round.

CRASH LANDING

A confluence is defined as the convergence of one or more forces. A Confluence, capitalized, is the converging of one or more supernatural forces.

Confluences have been mild ever since the Godfall Event occurred in the 1980s. The older generations tell their children of the confluences they remember as children, the earth-shaking events that transformed the landscape of the world (and the people) every time they occurred. Now they're largely inconveniences. An explosion of experimental alien nanobots here, a magical lightning storm there, nothing particularly disruptive to day to day life.

Bad ones still occur every now and again. Something big and bombastic that shatters the peace that the world has cultivated over the years. But it’s rare. Where there was once terror any time a psychic or a precognitive seer predicted the future, people often simply shrug and make mental note to ensure they've renewed their meta-anomaly insurance.

After all, the Guilds have always been good about reporting when something big was happening well before it actually happened.

And so imagine the surprise when the sky splits open over Little Love, Kansas in the early hours of the morning on January 4th.

No one sees it coming. Especially not smack dab in the middle of Kansas.

Little Love is a small town — really more a handful of connected streets than an actual city. A gas station and a water tower proudly welcome drivers into town off the interstate, and a statue of its greatest hero, Featherweight, stands proudly in the middle of its tiny central park. Crops and cows sprawl as far as the eye can see in every direction. This is the place people go to get away from it all, the kind of place where nothing is ever supposed to happen.

Awareness hits you in a rush. So does the ground. You barely register it hurtling towards you before you make impact. Whatever surface you strike - the pavement, the frozen fields, someone's shed - is pulverized, but somehow, you're unharmed.

You're not alone, either. All around you are others who fell picking themselves up from their own craters, equally and impossibly undamaged by the impact that should have pulverized you.

Perhaps they know what's happening. The town is still and quiet, there's a chance to speak now in what is surely the calm before the storm.

As you move through the sleepy town, it comes awake. Lights flick on. Townspeople step outside in their pajamas and nightgowns to find the source of the commotion. Some grab blankets to offer to the newcomers who clearly aren't dressed for a midwestern winter, but they won't go as far as to invite anyone inside and quickly step back once blankets are accepted. They appear quite apprehensive and seem to be keeping their distance.

TOO MUCH POWER

It's nothing personal: new metas rarely have full control of their abilities. The fact that you all just came tumbling down form the sky makes it pretty clear to them that something strange is afoot. Confluences almost always make for chaos, and newly powered people don't handle that kind of stress well.

Perhaps you're one of the lucky ones, who have already had powers or who are capable of taking this in stride.

But perhaps you're not. Perhaps energy crackles within you, and before you know what's happening, your new powers are activating. You don't know how to control these. Perhaps your new eyebeams suddenly blast from previously unpowered eyeballs, destroying the water tower. Perhaps your new ability to shift density has you stumbling back and disappearing into the walls of houses or dropping through the earth.

And it's not just those of you who fell from the sky. Some of the citizens appear to be experiencing similar problems. A scared preteen phases through you. A farmer who fused with one of his bulls rampages through Main Street, destroying cars and street lights and terrifying those he once named friends.

Cause problems, or step up as a hero and help minimized the damage, or do your very best to calm down and coach these new metahumans.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

As the energies fueling this Confluence reach their conclusion, something smashes through the local library's roof, gleaming in the moonlight. Smoke chokes the air, made thicker by magic. Perhaps that is why you struggle to process the cybernetic dragon clawing its way free of the wreckage. It lets out a mindbending scream and lurches skyward, and in its wake other impossible storybook creatures follow suit. Ghosts, goblins and - Pinnochio?

The frightened folks of Little Love freeze in place and the creatures careen towards them, intent on causing mischief and mayhem.

And as the dragon soars above your heads, each flap of its wings send a shower of glowing words falling down upon your heads. If one of these words touches your skin a digitized voice begins to speak — once upon a time — and the world around you flickers like static. The town falls away and is instead replaced with a watercolor landscape. As the narrator continues, the story takes the shape of a children's book of your choosing, and you've been thrust into the role of the protagonist.

Only it doesn't seem quite right. Did Hansel and Gretel's witch always wear form-fitting spandex? Did Little Red Riding Hood always have a plasma rifle? You're fairly certain The Little Mermaid didn't take place in outer space! Yet all around you, these modified, blockbuster versions of traditional tales spin to life out of voxels. The stories each follow their own winding tale, but one thing is consistent: it's a classic you know, but with a sharp sci-fi twist.

Mercifully, you're not alone. Whatever this is seems to have grabbed people in pairs, and so you've got a partner to work through this. Perhaps you can use your knowledge of the original tale to speedrun it to its conclusion, or perhaps you'd rather just blast your way to the end using your newfound abilities.

If you were lucky enough to be untouched by those letters, congratulations: you're left watching those unfortunate enough to be touched blink out of existence. This leaves you and whoever else got out unscathed standing before a horde of cartoony sci-fi villains intent on wrecking havoc on the already ravaged town. The townspeople don't seem to have any real defense against them, leaving it up to you and your fellow fallers to protect what little town they have left.

The dragon makes its way back to the library, landing with a thunderous boom and roaring again. Clutched in one of it's mighty clawed hands is a glowing book. If fairy tales have taught you anything, it should be that beating the dragon and grabbing its mcguffin is the only guaranteed way to save the day. Go forth, heroes!

AFTERMATH

All the monsters have been dealt with. The people who were caught under the book's spell stumble free as the illusion breaks, either because they finished the tale or because the dragon was felled. Those who helped save the day are celebrated. People cheer, eagerly shake hands and embrace you, expressing their gratitude at simply being alive.

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on your new situation, there's a flash, a rush of energy. You find yourself standing in a large white room. Around you are the other fallers and the townspeople who had just displayed a sudden burst of abilities. All look equally alarmed. Anyone injured in the library fight will find the injuries tingling as energies within the space begin to stabilize you.

A robed figure slumps against the outer side of the glass doors, their hand pressed to the surface and faintly glowing. A second later, a man materializes out of thin air and bends down to check on them. He straightens up and presses the intercom button:
"My name is Atomight, and you're at Alliance HQ. You were all caught in a Confluence and as a result, many of you have developed metahuman abilities. There are power nullifies in place so please don't worry about losing control. And the space is enchanted and will give you whatever comforts you ask of it.

"We won't keep you here long. I apologize for this, I truly do. This is not at all the way we want to welcome new metas. But we need to ensure that your condition is stable, and there are far more of you than we could ever have anticipated... This one wasn't on the books. I've got to go back to help, but I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."
And then he's gone.

The room responds to sentient intent, materializing whatever you wish from thin air and rearranging the space to fit whatever is brought in. Before long, a massive spa-like bathroom fills the far corner. Rows and rows of doors spring up, leading to little cubbies sporting beds as soft as dreams. A chest of drawers spits out the most luxurious clothing you can imagine. Tables spring up groaning under incredible amounts of food.

Ask it and it provides. The only thing it won't give you is an exit.

The room will keep you safe from outside forces and put a cap on those new hard to control abilities. It will also stop you from killing each other, should that urge be one you struggle with. The room is attuned hostility and responds to the intent to harm. The moment you think to lash out at someone, you'll find yourself hauled away into a quiet time out corner.

Might as well grab a bite to eat and mingle a little. Ask the room for a magical puppy to pet so you can calm down a little, or ask a stranger for a nice warm hug to cope with a very strange and stressful day.

Atomight eventually returns. This time, he steps inside. Evidently, you're all safe. His smile is warm and apologetic, but he's here now to answer your questions and ask a few of his own to gain an understanding of what has happened.

WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

You're not going home anytime soon. That becomes all too clear in the hours following your arrival. Reports are coming in from across the world - dimension hoppers can't open portals back home, time travellers are temporally locked to this point in time. Something is wrong and it's going to take a little longer to fix it. A week at most, they assure you, refusing any offers for your help.

And so 24 hours after your arrival, the Guardian Alliance makes arrangements for somewhere less... well, like their gym.

The Diadem Hotel is a luxury hotel usually reserved for the obscenely wealthy. It's rooms are enormous, the beds quite literally enchanted to offer the perfect night's sleep, and the food would usually cost your life savings just to sample. But given the circumstances, the Alliance feels it only fair to offer you a little comfort on their dime. Everything is complimentary, and everyone gets an alliance credit card to spend on entertainment, clothing, and whatever other necessities they might need. The cards appear to have an obscenely high limit and there doesn't seem to be an expectation for you to pay it back.

There's a shopping center immediately across the street. It has an impressive array of outlets that cater to your every need. Food, clothing... and swords? If you can think of it, it's for sale. Although anything clearly supernatural or metahuman seems to be at a minimum and offered under the table. You can grab clothing made to withstand any superpower and a surprisingly mediocre Taco Bell order while you're at it. There's a Super Cinema in the shopping complex across the street that's showing the latest Mystic Mike movie, a franchise wherein a fictional male stripper gets magical powers and begins fighting crime using a pole as a staff.

Central City isn't exactly the nicest place in the world. Wander too far from the shopping district and you'll find yourselves thick into territory controlled by the local non-meta crime syndicate... but maybe that's where you want to be. Maybe you're here to see just what this world is dealing with. If you're going to be stuck here you might as well make yourself useful, right?

Or perhaps you're not the heroic type. Maybe this is simply scoping out the competition.

Regardless, it won't take long for trouble to find you. Test out your new powers, do a little thieving, stop a few muggings - this is your time to use as you see fit.

CLIFFNOTES

Your character has been dropped into the farming city of Little Love, Kansas.

Characters may lose control of their powers. You're free to destroy as much of the town as you'd like.

A giant cybernetic dragon rips out of the library, freeing a ton of sci-fi infused storybook villains. The villains start destroying the already wrecked town. Characters can step up and stop them, or take advantage of the chaos to do something nefarious.

The cybernetic dragon holds a magical book that is the key to releasing the characters trapped in those twisted tales. We won't be threading this battle out, but please feel free to assume it falls and 'powers down' multiple times.

Characters may also get pulled into classic children's stories if they are hit with the word shower from the dragon's wings. These stories have a sci-fi twist to them. You're free to choose whichever classic tale you'd like and warp it as you go along. They'll be released from the story if they reach the proper conclusion (eg. Hanzel and Gretel escape the witch's candy spaceship) or break it in a fundamental way that means it cannot continue along the intended route (eg. you shoot the witch with a ray gun before she ever gets her hands on them). They need to get to the end of the story to escape it. Everyone will be released when the dragon is destroyed.

NPCs arrive on the scene just after the dragon falls. Player characters (and the residents of the town who have gained powers) are magically transported to the Guardian Alliance's headquarters. They will be held in a magical room for a period of about a day, and then will be transitioned to the Diadem Hotel.

Characters are given luxury suites at the hotel, and a credit card with an unlimited balance. They're free to mingle, eat, shop, and check out the world they've been dropped into.

You can talk with Atomight here. While we will not be directly threading the encounters out, we will summarize any answers and responses he will give.

The threads in this Test Drive Meme threads can/will be carried over into game canon. If you do not get a chance to tag into the test drive, don't worry! The game's opening event will be a Confluence taking place a week later.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Not necessarily. But I did want to see your reaction."

He knew by now David wouldn't give him something over the top and obvious, but a controlled reaction is still a reaction.

"It's impossible for Loki to die anyways."

That was fair and cunning.

"Well, you're here, so clearly the old man who Thor grew up with is dead," David counters. And Loki as David knew him had said he murdered Loki so...

"Dead as a doorknob, yes. But I am Loki, and from my perspective, I am very much alive."

But that was only the story as he had experienced thus far.

"Were I to die, another Loki would be born in my place. This is all hypothetical, of course, but it would allow you to answer my question regarding my morality rather easily. Perhaps I should've phrased it differently then. Is Loki, as you know him, evil?"

Now that was an interesting approach to getting answers out of David. And one he even respects. It earns Loki a smirk, but one laced with approval.

"He is complex. I'd call Loki as I know him a darker shade of gray, but definitely lighter than the one everyone thinks of when they say Loki. He understands shame and guilt and feels them powerfully, tries to make up for things if he makes mistakes. And, I think, he thinks a lot more for other people."

So perhaps that can be some comfort for this young man.

"Not to be rude, but I genuinely do not care."

A lie in some ways, but he didn't particularly care at this very moment.

"Whatever sort of complicated crush you might have on my reincarnated self we can discuss later... For you've just oh-so-casually confirmed my death. And again, no intentions of being rude here, but I really would've liked to find out in some other way."

"You're the one who asked," David counters. "And the one certain you're dead and not that you change in your future."

Really, Lokis are just frustrating creatures.

"Yes, and I would've liked a straight-forward answer to begin with!"

Dragging it out and having to piece it together... not great.

"You clearly consider this gray Loki and I to be different people. So! Either I'm dead or I suffer a mental break. Obviously I am basing this off Midgardian viewpoints, as I have always been and always will be Loki. As much as I may despise my past self, he is literally that. Myself."

Really? This is just going to be a thing. David breathes a deep sigh and turns himself to fully regard Loki.

"Listen, I can tell you everything, but that doesn't mean I want to. I stressed that I don't want to tell you the future. I believe in time flowing properly. I've already told you Mutants are really notorious for fucking shit up. My boyfriend back home almost stopped existing because Kang the Conquerer found out, not much older than you, that he'd become evil and tried to prevent it. Altering history, making some people stop existing until he was forced back on the proper course of history that had already been established. So forgive me for not wanting to be fully blunt with the future. But if you want to know, ask me again. And you get to deal with the consequences."

"And I traveled through time to create an entire person through nothing but my superior penmanship. We all have these sorts of stories, David Alleyne."

Obviously this was why he belonged with Mutants.

"But I must ask you, is our meeting here in this place part of time flowing "properly"? Your wants or wishes no longer matter, nor do mine. Whatever consequences there are, I shall deal with them, as I always do."

"These places, from my experience, exist outside of normal time. And, if I have my way," which had barely been foiled the last time, "we'll be going back with memories for a change. So yeah, this could carry a lot of weight. But since you insist."

David sits back, his chair shifting to sculpt in a pleasant way to his body. His coffee was replaced when he reached with another cup, and he sipped it before starting into it.

"From the way I understand it, even though when I first meet Loki of Asgard he wears an identical face to yours and poses as you, he murdered you. Or was rather the weapon that the Loki people hate used to murder and replace you. By the time I met him he was up to some of his old tricks, trying to capture the power of the Demiurge for himself, and partnering with a multidimensional parasite known as the Mother. That said, when I met him he radiated nothing but guilt. None of us knew until later that it was over what he did to you."

A sip of the coffee before David continued.

"Mostly he seemed to be using Billy to try and get at his power, because his guilt was so deep that it was acting as a strong barrier between himself and his magic, including the manifestation of an echo of a young woman named Leah, who blamed him for exiling her or something. I didn't get details on that. I do know that later on we discovered that most of the enemies we came into direct conflict with were actually just powerful illusions created by Loki's magic and his guilt, though he hadn't realized it and had even talked Billy into a spell to make him older so he could in theory access that power. In the end he stood with us to save the universe from the mess of his own creation."

And because it's not right to end there, he puts the cup aside.

"The only Loki I have ever known has seemed to wish he hadn't made that mistake. He was our friend, genuinely even if he wished to make use of the new Young Avengers for his own purpose. When it was all over, when he'd helped us save the world from ourselves, he paid for a party for us. Because that's what friends do. So yes, you pass, he comes to be. But I don't know that he could be who he is without you. There will always be a Loki I suppose, but I expect Loki will always be shaped going forward by the Loki before, and you were a good influence."

That was... a lot. He'll deal with his feelings regarding his mortality later. For now:

"... was this young woman... this Leah? Was she hot?"

That...

David stares for a long moment than bursts out laughing. Holy hell he wasn't expecting that comment.

"Yeah, Loki. I mean, I saw her as a kid, and then more, like, late teens, early twenties. Very hot in a 'I will kill you if you so much as look at me or say my name' way. With lots of green."

Loki grins.

"That is Leah, indeed. I would like to see her in this older form, her younger one leaves much to be desired. Am I hot? You can speak objectively, and obvi, I mean my older form. While I am quite handsome now, such is reserved for Leah in her current state."

Is Loki hot? David stares at the young man in shock. That was quite the question to ask of someone. Even if Loki assumed David had a crush. Which he did not.

"I suppose, from an objective standpoint, you're not bad on the eyes. But you are Asgardian. Goes with the territory."

"Is that what you believe? You've clearly never met Tyr then. I would say of the Odinsons, I'm the most handsome of us all. Balder's average, Thor's... Thor."

Look, this was easier to think about than death.

Edited (how did i use clearly twice) 2022-01-12 02:56 (UTC)

"I haven't," David confirmed. But there were no doubt humans who would find that hot as hell.

"Well, you have something to look forward to I guess."

"Mm," he nodded then flashed David a mischievous grin.

"Which I shall take as your wholehearted approval of my efforts to change my future. Thank you for that, BTW."

Oh come on he didn't mean it like that. David looks at the boy with a very flat gaze.

"Or I realize we have no clue how long you're going to be here, or if someone can spell you older again."

"Except! Both of those options require that I want to be older. Let's say we stay here long enough for me to age. Hypothetically that would be... a thousand years? So the more likely option is returning home, preventing my death, and aging as I naturally would."

Or.

"Or... older Leah arriving here as well. I suppose. Maybe."

"A thousand years?" David asked, shocked. Was it really that long for a Jotun? They really were so very different.

"I don't know that I'd want to see an older Leah, but I won't hope against her, if she makes you happy."

"Or thereabouts." Loki shrugged. "That's my best estimate as to when I'll decide to grow up."

He wasn't sure how long it took him the first time around, only that he was a grown man by the Age of Vikings. Then again, he was a god in a story, which complicated things.

"She's my BFF, you know. It wouldn't do for her to be older than me, so that is the only occasion in which I can see myself aging."

Edited 2022-01-14 07:22 (UTC)

Huh, that... wasn't something he had expected. At all.

"See, this is where I want to say 'age doesn't have to be a barrier for that because Josh and I aren't the same age anymore' but you'll absolutely wave that aside because mortal."

"Apparent age is a barrier when one considers the nature of my feelings for Leah."

David, please don't make him say more than that.

That's a weird thing to hear. And his face bespeaks his confusion.

"You know I REALLY wanna pry, but I'm not going to touch it because you don't want me to."

"... I like her."

The middle school drama of it all!

TEST DRIVE MEME

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i'm sorry he's like this

It's okay. David's actually refreshingly charmed by that honesty compared to the other Loki

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