metamemes | TEST DRIVE MEME: OCTOBER EDITION

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TEST DRIVE MEME: OCTOBER EDITION

TEST DRIVE MEME

A Confluence, capitalized, is the converging of one or more supernatural forces. It’s common to see these at least once a month, but you might see two or three in an especially wild one. Only one of these confluences brings in people from other worlds.

Your arrival is a welcome one! Though not all the following confluences will be so joyous, the people of this world are taking you as a sign that things are finally settling down.

With that being said, you might notice that the history of this world is… changing. The world itself seems to be altering bit by bit as it settles into its new timeline. Where once metahumans as powerful as you were a rarity, now there’s a plethora of them.

You can be Neutral, living your life as an ordinary person without using your powers. But the moment you decide to make use of them, you need to make a choice.

Will you join the Guardian Alliance and use your powers for the sake of others?

Or will you join The Society, and use them for yourself?

BRAVE NEW WORLD. CENTRAL CITY.

You’re falling through the sky. Wherever you were before, whatever you were doing – it no longer matters. You find yourself hurtling towards the earth at unprecedented speeds. Thunder rolls and lightning crashes, and you smash into the hard pavement of an unfamiliar modern city.

But you’re fine. Not a scratch on you.

Around you, other people are falling like meteors. Colliding into the pavement of this street – it appears as though it was blocked off, as though someone knew you were coming. You barely have the time to process what just happened before you feel it. Something extends its presence to you, equal parts a welcome and a warning.

You are here for a reason, though that reason is yours to define. Do not let Her decide for you.

No sooner do those words enter your mind than do you hear the crash, barely having time to duck as something throws a car towards your head. The city has come alive – literally. Bits of iron and steel are weaving together to form an Iron Giant, one hellbent on knocking you and all those who fell with you right back into the sky.

It looks like you have a choice: fight, or flee.

Whether you defeat the enemy or wait to be rescued, eventually the Guilds will arrive. Heroes and villains in brilliant costumes surveying the scene, agreeing to work together just long enough to get all the new metahumans off of the streets and into somewhere more secure.

With a flash and a bang, you find yourself standing in what appears to be a school gymnasium. There, you’ve given medical treatment, something to eat, and told exactly what has happened to you – you’ve been displaced and granted into another world. You can go home, but it’s temporary – for now, at least. And they’re here to get you settled.

Once you’ve been given the introduction to your situation, you’re given the proverbial keys to a pretty lavish location. Hopefully, the LUXURY HOTEL they've put you up in will ease that sting.

The DIADEM HOTEL is usually reserved for the obscenely wealthy. Its rooms are enormous, the beds quite literally enchanted to offer the perfect night's sleep, and the food would usually cost your life savings for just a small taste. But given the circumstances, the Guilds feel its the least they can do to aid your transition into this world. everything is complimentary, and everyone gets access to a credit card provided by Winters Industries to spend on entertainment, clothing, and whatever other necessities they might need. The cards have an obscenely high limit and there doesn't seem to be an expectation for you to pay it back... unless you go completely overboard, that is.

There's a shopping center immediately across the street. It has an impressive array of outlet shops 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 premiere of RUN BOY RUN, a story about a young boy who is granted the ability to speak to people’s shoes – but spends every waking minute of his life ignoring his calling. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll rethink what it means to have powers – and you’ll come out with a new appreciation for fine footwear.

You’ll also find a celebration in the (quickly being rebuilt) streets. It’s become an impromptu street faire, with food vendors and other craftsmen popping up to celebrate the world returning to normal. A sign that the meta-energy isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon and the weird world you’ve been thrust into is happy to have you.

For now, at least. It’s Central City. Their opinions change like the weather.

HALLOWEEN FRIGHTS. SUNSET FALLS.

Sunset Falls is a terrifying place to live at the best of times, but it’s especially heinous during the month of October. The residents often find themselves plagued by out of towners who visit the leylines to conduct poorly researched rituals. Most of the time, these end with the summon beasts simply devouring the fools who brought them into this world before expiring.

This time, however…

A new shop appears within the village, Randor’s Resplendence, and it offers sweets, treats, and tricks. The proprietor, Rancor, is a tiny man of about fifty with a charming smile and a persuasive attitude. You will find yourself unable to even consider hurting this sweet old man, and though he might not be able to convince you to buy anything, you will find yourself wanting to take a candy or two.

➢ Red candies cause your passions to run wild. You may find yourself suddenly falling in love, or hate. The further you give in to your passions, the hotter the fire within you runs. Careful not to burn anyone!

➢ Blue candies cause you to rethink your life entirely. Abandon your name, abandon your job, and become who you were truly meant to be. If you are an ambitious person you become complacent, and slackers will suddenly find themselves becoming over achievers. However, the deeper you fall into this transformation – the more you find yourself wanting to scream. And a banshee’s scream is lethal.

➢ Green candies seem to have a delayed effect. You may find yourself looking at an item you never cared about before – and now you want all of it. And you can and will attack that stranger for their pretty broach. Before long you will find yourself sprouting scales as the dragonification process sets in.

➢ Yellow candies cause you to burst into song, singing your heart’s greatest desire for all to hear. Those who hear you will be drawn to your siren’s song.

All of these candies will wear off after 72 hours.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. EXCELSIOR.

Excelsior has had it rough the last few months. Though the power grid is back on, the lingering effects of the outage have left their mark. Entertainment is scarce, and in these dire times, the kids make up their own fun. Rumors of a dangerous new game spread quickly throughout the schools, both civilian and guild alike. Passing by any infected device turns you into a player, whether you want to be or not.

It spreads through an app. The app, called SURVIVOR, appears on your home screen after you’ve encountered it. The icon is a garbled mess of pixels, seeming to glitch further the more you look at it.

The moment you interact with this app – whether to open it or to delete it – you’ve sealed your fate. The connection between your mind and body is severed, and your mind is thrust into the realm of the game. And much like a zombie from a horror movie, your body begins to move on its own – wandering the streets to spread the infection, at least until other orders come.

As for your mind – well, SURVIVOR is just as it says: it’s a survival game.

You find yourself standing in the middle of a replica of Excelsior. Some will find themselves designed as HUNTERS, armed with a weapon of their choice and told to do as Hunters do: hunt. Hunters who fail to fulfill their roles will find themselves forced into it: they'll be transformed into a monstrous creature, feral, bloodthirsty, and lacking self control. There are many Hunters in the game who have already suffered this fate; they stalk the streets, eager to find prey to devour.

The rest are PREY. There are more prey than Hunters, and they are given no weapons. Death in this simulated world is not permanent, though the pain is very real. Any who fall to the hunters will find themselves trapped in a digital hell, able to watch but do nothing to assist their team until the Gamemaker resets the match. While Prey are given no weapons, they are welcome to find makeshift weapons to utilize to the best of their abilities.

Discerning who is a Hunter and who is Prey is easy: clothing is color-coded. Hunters are dressed in all black, Prey all have bright colors. Changing clothing within the game is not possible, but Prey may attempt to hide what they are by painting over their clothes with paint, or dirt, but it's not a permanent fix, and any substances will fade after an hour, leaving them to need to find something else to cover it with.

In order to survive this nightmare you must outwit, outlast, and outstand your opponents – and, most of all, outsmart the Gamemaker. There are weaknesses in the code that can be manipulated by magic, technology, or might – break the game to break free.

CLIFF NOTES.

➢ In Central City, the city itself is coming alive - forming into a massive Iron Giant that's intent on shoving Starfallen right back to where they had originally come from.

➢ Off in Sunset Falls, tourists are enjoying all things Halloween-y. There is also a new shop that is offering out some suspicious candies that, depending on the type, cause different status effects.

➢ Excelsior is experiencing a virus problem - one that is causing people to get stuck in a virtual reality horror game where everyone must fight to survive.

➢ You do not need an invite to play on the TDM! But you do need an invite to join the game. Current players can extend one invite this cycle.

➢ Current Players are welcome to treat this as a bonus event. These events are canonically happening within the game but can be largely ignored if you'd prefer to use the month for personal plots.

WILDCARD

The world you've landed in is one that takes inspiration from all walks of comics. Explore the CITIES away from the chaos occurring to get an idea of what day to day life life is like. Something is always happening, whether it be big and bombastic as supernatural entities invading or as subtle as cats getting stuck in trees.

Perhaps you've encountered a supervillain (or hero) who needs to be thwarted, or a metahuman with unusual powers creating bizarre effects. Maybe you yourself are here to take advantage of the chaos, benefitting from other's suffering.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Huh. We have...two? Ish. There's the third one, and then there's the fourth boy one. There was briefly a blonde girl between the two of them. Not me. I think the third one called himself Red Robin for awhile or something? It's...a mess of names.

[Says the girl who switched between Flamebird and Hawkfire.]

Wait, where you're from, who is there? I'm assuming Batman? Nightwing? I'm sure there's like at least a Batgirl?

[But a Flamebird? Somehow, that seems less likely.]

Batman, Nightwing, Batwoman, and some version of you. There used to be a Batgirl and the Robin count stopped at two.

[Jason isn't ready to admit who he is yet]

Don't know what Huntress's status is but I've heard of reports of her too.

The quiet, scary Batgirl isn't in my world but she's been here before.

Batman seems to be one the constant everywhere.

[God, she hopes he's not here, though. Her smile dims a bit at that thought.]

Huntress is fun. In a deadly-I-won't-hesitate-to-shoot-you-with-my-crossbow sort of way. If you're into that sort of thing. Which, if we're working together, you know, yay. But as an opponent? She's scary good.

So...okay, the scary Batgirl was here, and then gone. I have questions about that. But also, who is here that might be familiar?

Edited 2023-10-26 16:20 (UTC)

In terms of Bats? Nightwing, Batgirl, Signal, someone who was at least a former Robin but I don’t know their current codename, three Robins, and another version of me.

That’s another confusing thing. It’s possible to have multiple versions of the same person here too. Two of those Robins are alternate versions of each other. The other is the first Robin.

[Meanwhile, it’s younger Dick Grayson]

Batman is here too but it seems like he’s in his early years. He didn’t recognize any of us.

Okay, but another version of you has got to be like the most disorienting thing! How have you been handling that?

[It's true that the way she talks sometimes comes off a bit vapid, a bit airheaded, but it's a genuine question. She can't imagine what it'd be like to run into another Bette. Pity party for two?]

Not having Batman recognize you...you know, for me, I'd find that refreshing. Not too sure about the Nightwing of it all, unless he's from a world where I don't exist and thus he's never spoken down to me, but I am curious to find out.

He hasn't mentioned you but I'm not the one most in-tuned with the flock anyway.

[Then he answers in a tone that might sound a little clipped]

As for having a double, I'm handling it just fine. Weird as shit but you figure things out.

[Nevermind he's gotten into multiple physical fights with his other self that involved knives and guns]

Popular rumor is that the only reason I even became Flamebird in the first place is because I had a crush on him and wanted to catch his eye. I'm not someone he's ever going to mention, let alone think about.

[Does she sound frustrated? Maybe. Yes, she crushed on Nightwing. Many people have. But the fact that it's become a defining characteristic of her crimefighting persona isn't something she cares for.]

Believe me, Red Hood, I'm even less in-tune with the flock than you are.

[She smiles thinly. All she's ever wanted, really, was to be accepted. To be believed in. To be seen as something other than flighty and flirty.]

Are you two close, or keeping your distance? Weird as shit, I get. I mean, it must feel like having a funhouse mirror twin.

We've been trying to stay out of each other's shit.

[And failed at certain points. Then Jason clicks his tongue]

Seems to me your work lines up better with them than with me. I fly solo these days.

My work might line up better with them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want me to work with them.

[She shrugs. It's not helpless, exactly, but it's one that's filled with a little sadness.]

But what can you do? Like, you can't force people to love you.

[She wonders if the other Red Hood is somehow more accepted than the one she's with, if he's maybe in with the Bat-crowd. If so, that must be awful, but it's also a question she doesn't feel comfortable answering. The cut could be too deep, but it's clear by the way she's looking at him that she's thinking it.]

Though it would be nice for your peers to trust you and believe in you.

How familiar are you with my history?

[The question is asked in a neutral assessing tone. More often that not, Jason doesn't believe someone will be friendly with him, especially when he's using his Red Hood identity]

Not, like, a lot? From what I hear, you were the Robin who the Joker killed, you came back as the Red Hood - which I think was an old identity of the Joker's, but I'm honestly super-vagued up on that, and you have some questionable methods when it comes to crimefighting.

[At that, she looks down at Red Hood's guns, but the expression on her face isn't all that judgmental over them.]

Some weeks you - or the version of you on my Earth - seem closer to Batman and the rest of his team than you do other weeks. I think it depends on whatever interpersonal stuff you have going on on any given week?

But you - him? - and I haven't really interacted, and Batwoman is free to warn me all she wants about you, but I don't know you myself, so I can't like judge you? And honestly, after today, my opinion of you is probably more favorable than you seem to be expecting it to be.

Heh. That opinion’s generous. I’ll give you that much.

[Man, what is it with BatFam members who aren’t Bruce willing to accept him? Jason will always find it strange]

So why are you some kind of outcast?

Give me a reason why my opinion should be lesser-than?

[Whatever his baggage with the rest of the Batfam is, he's been nothing less than a team player with her, even answering her excessive questions about her new situation. It could have been a lot worse. He could have been a lot meaner or dismissive.]

Nightwing once told me that he didn't think I was cut out to play hero, and that I should hang up the costume. Batwoman told me that I was just privileged and wasn't even fighting for anything specific and that she was done training me...though that did get turned around a little until she demanded I go to West Point. I left. It wasn't for me. As for the rest...I don't know. It seems every time I prove myself even a little, it's not enough. So I tend to get left on the outside a little bit. Or a lot.

The costumed weirdos club is pretty exclusive. What made you wanna do this in the first place?

[Because Jason knows no normal person wants to be a vigilante]

[Isn't that a loaded question? Why? WHY? If she knew more about the secret lives of people she was related to, she could have said it was because it was in her blood, but those are things she's still unaware of.]

Okay. Fine. I admit, that originally, it might have had something to do with the a crush on Nightwing. He was cute. He was challenging.
Please don't judge me too harshly.

But after actually...you know, the publicity stuff, the glamour stuff, the celebrity of it all, I've already experienced that in my private identity, and I realized there was something more to wearing a costume and going out to fight crime. It wasn't just the thrill of it - there was something more. Good that I was doing outside of what I could do with my private life.

Plus, the Titans are kind of a family, and that...that feels nice, when you can get it.

[She shrugs.]

Maybe I'm not fighting from some deep-seated trauma or something, but it's for more than just glory.

What about you? It can't just be as simple as Batman recruited you, right?

[Bette’s response has Jason somewhat comparing Bette to Barbara. Neither women have gone through a traumatic event pre-vigilante life but they also recognize the amount of good they can do behind their masks]

Before him, I was born and raised in Crime Alley.

[Which says a lot already about what he’s seen as a kid, even if one were to exclude the Waynes’ deaths]

You don’t just forget that. Like all of you do-gooders, I’m trying to make a difference.

[It's not as though Bette can't do good without the mask - as both a celebrity athlete and as a daughter of the Kane family, she has power, privilege, and connections, but the things she can do as Bette Kane, she can't do as Flamebird, and vice-versa. Why not use both identities to do good, if she can?]

The only time I've really been to Crime Alley is to - [see the spot where her Aunt Martha, who she'd never even met, had been killed, but it's not like she can let all of that out without spilling on her secret identity, and thereby spilling Kate's secret identity. She already did that with the DEO once, and she'd promised herself never again.] - check it out. I can't imagine what life must have been like there.

[She was pretty, privileged, pampered. Crime Alley is such a different world from her LA mansion or the guest house out behind Uncle Jake's mansion. She's of course familiar with Gotham's darker aspects, but to have lived in it...she eyes Red Hood with a little bit more understanding in her eyes.]

Of course you're going to want to fight for Gotham. That makes perfect sense.

Yeah. I just got ideas different from the others on how to clean up Gotham.

[Like taking over the Gotham’s gangs and becoming a crime lord]

And instead of allowing you to do things your way, I'm guessing that Batman wants you to shut your operation down. It's his city, and so it's either his way or no one's way, right?

[She takes issue with that. There were heroes in Gotham City before Batman - Green Lantern, Black Canary - and Gotham is literally situated in a county named after Bette's own family. She has as much right to operate within Gotham and protect it as he does.]

[Jason barks out an unpleasant laugh]

Got it in one.

[Jason finds it funny that Bette doesn’t know how right she is about what Bruce doesn’t like about his own approach to fighting crime]

[Judging by that laugh, she's clearly hit a nerve, but it's clearly a nerve that Batman's already frayed. Don't get her wrong, she doesn't hate Batman, but she hates that anyone who wants to operate in Gotham City needs to be beholden to him and his rules. Like Jason's said, Bette's style aligns pretty closely with how the Batfamily operates; it's ridiculous to restrict her activity as Flamebird.]

But, like me, you haven't let that stop you, have you? Do you find it more freeing, being here, able to set your course in a city that isn't ruled by Batman?

Somewhat. There are other rules I gotta be mindful of and some of the other birds being here. But yeah. This isn’t Gotham and I’ve developed some stuff here.

[Like restarting his crime lord career]

Edited 2023-10-29 23:53 (UTC)

Good! That gives me some hope for myself, honestly. Maybe it won't be perfect, but at least it'll be something, you know? Better than what I had before.

[Though what that'll look like is anyone's guess. Teaching tennis by day, fighting crime by night? Could be a good start!]

Though it'll be interesting to see how meeting the 'other birds' goes. Whenever it happens.

It might be confusing. A lot of us seem to come from different timelines and different universes. The Nightwing here might not even recognize you.

[Though Jason doesn’t know if that’s a bad thing as he’s not familiar with the personal history between Dick and Bette]

Weirdly, I'm fine with all of that. Maybe it'll hit me later, that Things Are Different, and maybe down the line, I'll start to miss some of it. But a fresh start with familiar faces, without the baggage? Things could be a lot worse.

[She's tried fresh starts before, back when she revamped her Flamebird costume and gadgets when she was trying to help Beast Boy clear his name, when she trained with Uncle Jake and became Hawkfire. None of it stuck for long. Maybe this time, she'll be lucky. Maybe this time, it'll stick.]

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