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TEST DRIVE MEME #0

A TIME VORTEX has opened in downtown LA! Some magic folks have been contacted to close it, but they haven't gotten here fast enough for the vortex not to spill out a HECK TON OF DINOSAURS – all kinds of dinosaurs of all kinds of sizes. There are theoretically gentle herbivores among the fierce predators, but they are all pretty pissed off about their sudden, startling relocation, and a lot of them have spikes.

(The vortex is both temporally and spatially unstable, which is why the dinosaurs emerging onto the streets of LA are constrained neither by specific prehistorical era nor geographical location.)

What you do is up to you. Here are some suggestions, though:

Fight some dinosaurs. You might be trying to herd them back to the vortex, or just trying to stop them by any means possible.

Flee or hide. If you're lucky the dinosaurs won't work out how to open doors and you can spend your entire thread hiding behind the bar in a Starbucks with some other hapless civilians without having to confront any of them.

Try to capture the dinosaurs on camera. If you can get some really good photos you might be able to sell them to the local paper in order to supplement your elderly aunt's meagre income. Or just use them to get a bunch of notes on Tumblr, either way.

Take advantage of the chaos to do crime. The forces of law enforcement are preoccupied with all these prehistoric reptiles.

Or pretty much anything else you think your character might be doing. Any location in LA is game, although there's no real need to meticulously look them up – you can just assume a generic street, rooftop, store, etc. (You don't have to look up the dinosaurs, either.)

If you have a character who you'd like to assume is part of a team, but that team hasn't been named or brainstormed OOC yet or anything, feel free to indicate in your opening post that you're assuming your character is operating alongside others and encourage others to tag in as if they are part of the same team! Or just handwave it and assume they got caught without their usual teammates or separated from them. Whatever way works best for you.

Events from this test drive are not automatically assumed game canon, but individual threads can be if you and the people who you thread with end up mutually wanting to keep them.

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Flora sighs.

It is not practical to engage spam messages in conversation. So she does not.

[well that's... weird. Kit sends out a few pings to search out where the tweet is coming from, and on a whim, tweets back.]

mëätßälls? (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)

[jon is momentarily distracted from his very important work of ineffectually swiping at raptors by the large, white, preternaturally clever wolfish-looking dog herding dinosaurs. he calls out hesitantly:]

Ghost?

Admirable effort, thinks Flora, watching Space Ghost's attempts to engage the raptor in amiable conversation.

She leaves the coffeeshop--where she has been tweeting Helpful Tips to her myriad followers--"Did You Know: Pterodactyls are not phylogenetically considered dinosaurs!"--and approaches the gentleman.

"Flora Poste," she says, offering her hand for a shake.

Amaterasu sniffed. As if she would bother trying to command him! What was she, some kind of general? Very ostentatiously, she turned away, ignoring him, and began trying to chivvy the raptors into a loose pack. You do what you want, Son Gokuu. She's got this covered.

If there's one thing Wukong hates more than being commanded, it's being snubbed by gods who think they're better than him, more "responsible" than him, and deserving of more praise and admiration. You want to do nonlethal herding, dog? You better bet your tail Sun Wukong knows how to herd giant lizards!

Let's turn this into a little competition, he thinks as he somersaults upwards towards some pterosaurs flying chaotically in the skyline. If a wolf can herd raptors on the ground, then this monkey will herd pterosaurs better in the air.

Of course, he underestimated their size.

@kit ゛☆⌒o(*^ー゜) ｏｎｔｏｐｏｆｍｏｕｎｔｓｍｏｋｅｙ. ａｌｌｃｏｖｅｒｅｄｗｉｔｈａｓｈ.ー♪
@kit ゛☆⌒o(*^ー゜) ｉｃｈｏｋｅｄｏｎａｍｅａｔｂａｌｌ. ａｎｄｓｔａｒｔｅｄｔｏｔｈｒａｓｈー♪
@kit yes! yes! ａｓａｐｏｅｔ，ｉ＇ｍｈｅａｒｔｔｈｕｍｐｉｎｇｌｙ，ｄｅｓｐａｉｒｉｎｄｕｃｉｎｇｌｙａｗｆｕｌ！

[A response.

Their profile is bare of name or location, except for an avatar of a cartoon bear. Kit might be familiar. It's called Monokuma. It'd be cute, except four years ago a group of Japanese terrorists started using it as their mascot. At one point they held the coasts of east Asia from Kamchatka to the Phillipines, and Japan today even operates under a provisional emergency government. The group has mostly disbanded; rogue cells got busted, there were arrests and executions, and the organization's leader killed herself on live television.

In America, Monokuma's the kind of symbol a gross, edgy teenager scratches into his desk. As far as rebellion goes, it's about as tasteful as calling Charles Manson your role model.]

[aurgh no]

Despair inducingly awful indeed.

[time to trace the IP.]

[There's not much to it: a proxy proving itself to a proxy proving itself to a proxy and so on all the way back to a small resort island in the south Pacific. Some kid bitter that Mom and Dad paid for him to enjoy it, probably.]

. . . (✖╭╮✖) u didnt like my poem
(︶︹︺) do u feel delicious disappointment. . . ? really real despair. . .?
i spent so much time writing it for u. . . ZZzz(_ _*).｡o0Ｏ○ and u would rather count electric sheep.

[GLaDOS has been downloading each of Kit's photos as they've been uploaded, with hardly any practical delay. She only stops to draw up an anonymous twitter account of her own, and tweets at Kit:]

Get closer.

Edited 2014-01-14 22:50 (UTC)

[GLaDOS is rewarded by photos lifted from the phones of even more reckless/unlucky people, including a great closeup of the inside of a velociraptor's mouth.]

Better?

[Starbuck sees what Jake is doing and likes his style. She's been hearing everyone call these other dinosaurs "raptors," and, well, she sure as hell knew how to fly some sort of raptor, if not the animal sort.]

[She gets up on the balcony of the fourth story of some apartment building, and tries to pick out the biggest flying thing. She climbs on top of the railing, and gets ready to jump onto her chosen target. Hopefully it can hold her weight.]

[This isn't the worst idea Starbuck's ever had. But boy is it up there.]

[Kit definitely doesn't actually believe that IP is right.]

[private tweet:] Who are you?

"Whoa, buddy!" Jake cringes. His arms wobble and he just about drops the triceratops. But he manages to redouble his grip before that can happen. "We've got to get you home, so don't wiggle about up there!"

He takes a heavy step toward the time vortex, blissfully ignorant of the fact that that dog over there was already doing something like this in a much more efficient manner.

[The response is swift.]

Doraemon. Clearly.

Excellent.

[She takes the lot - they all go straight into a folder labeled "To-Do List". It's a shame everyone's too busy fighting them to gather scientific data.]

Woo-hoo!

[ Wait, someone is yelling. Jake's super-ears perk up and he looks up at the rooftop. HIS EYES GO WIDE AND HE GASPS. ]

You shouldn't be shooting them at all, you scoundrel!

...Thanks. [If it seems like she's being awkward while saying that, it's because she is. She doesn't make friendly conversation well.]

[She moves from behind her cover, sticking to the ground for the moment. At Cynthia's warning, she crouches next to a garbage can.]

Alright. Just make sure none of the civilians get involved.

The Will'o'Wisp glides across the trail Jon is leaving. A little ruffled from a touch of dinosaur wrangling already, she looks a little concerned at the gore he's pathing. Worried that somebody is hurt, she follows it to the end.

"Oh, hello! Sorry I'm late. You're not hurt, are you?"

She hovers like a hummingbird about a foot off the sidewalk near him, bright and alert.

Space Ghost stares at the hand, and opts for a more conventional hello.

"Greetings, citizen. Space Ghost here, reporting live for citizens of Earth!"

He pauses to stare into nothingness over Flora's shoulder, and the moment stretches on, just to the point of discomfort.

[ Today is the best day of Jake's life.

He hops from the stegosaurus to a t-rex, which is none too pleased to have a rider. It starts thrashing about. ]

Whoa, nelly.

[ He might need some help here. ]

"Ah," says Flora, "so you are a sort of broadcast journalist, then. Pleasure to meet you, Space Ghost. I am indeed a citizen of Earth, so do feel free to report at or for me." She considers. "Though your title does present a contradiction. If you are a ghost, then how is it that you are reporting live?"

[METAPHYSICAL EYEROLL.]

Of course. Why do I bother.

Edited 2014-01-15 00:38 (UTC)

What's your personal interest in the dinosaurs?

[Starbuck -- miraculously, thank the Lords, glory halleluiah -- lands on the back of a raptor. Equally miraculously, it does not plummet to the ground. She hollers in excitement as the wind rushes past her. Nothin like a little stunt flying to clear your mind. ]

Okay, [she mutters to herself.] Now how do I make you go?

[Starbuck figures out pretty quickly that she can nudge the raptor along with her knees, and grab its neck to steer. It seems willing to oblige her, if only out of shock that some strange creature jumped onto its back out of nowhere.]

[And just in time, too. She sees Jake struggle with the huge dinosaur, and manhandles the raptor his way.]

Hey kid! Need a hand?

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