8265/THE COSTUMING

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THE COSTUMING
Date of Scene: 16 October 2021
Location: Avenue of Tomorrow - New Troy
Synopsis: The answer, incidentally, is
Cast of Characters: Toni Monetti, Cassie Sandsmark




Toni Monetti has posed:
DATELINE: TOMORROW

Not that Dateline dammit

As is her wont, Toni Monetti has gone shopping. However, shopping is not something you can just DO. I mean, you can just go out and purchase goods like some kind of caveman if you want, but if you just need 365 pairs of crew socks you might as well go on Lexazon and get them delivered. That's not FUN.

Shopping is about the experience.

About the memories.




And also buying things.

Toni is carrying several shopping bags. She is still in a pretty summery tanktop because Delaware has not gotten that cold yet, thanks to the incipent menace of GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE (and a pleasant weather pattern, not yet disrupted by mutants). She has them draped over her shoulder, her hand on her hip, like some sort of poised coquettish advertising image. She just stands like this naturally. It's moments like this when it's easy to believe she's an alien.

She is in line at the Big Belly Burger because you need to refuel with some indulgence before you move on to the real indulgence.

"Is that like, legal?" Toni asks, eyeballing the Villainous Menu. "Pinhead isn't like, actually one of Batman's enemies, is he?" (He has such shakes to show you.)

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Cassie's fashion is similar in its seasonal lag, and given the fact that they are doing the activity of shopping (as opposed to merely the plebian task of purchasing goods) she has even traded her almost ever-present casual quasi-costume sportiness for something a bit more purposefully trendy. She is capable of such things, even if they are not the day to day norm of a hard working superhero. In fact, it is little surprise, given that her particular hero-brand is one enhanced by a purposeful social media presence. All of this is to say, that along with a similar (though sunny yellow, and also more aggressively cropped) tank top, she is sporting a pair of very artfully distressed and ripped up jean shorts, with visible pocket interiors.

Paying extra money for how normal clothes would probably end up looking after a few rounds of normal hero-business is some kind of statement, to be sure!

Cassie also has evidence of her ongoing haul, a great number of little boutique bags with their handles gathered almost to the point of ridiculousness in her hands, turning the bunched bags into colorful paper blossoms of a sort as they fight for angular real estate. Clearly, she can get her shop on with the best of them, although one might wonder if she does so in purposeful obliviousness to the financial implications (rather than learned, ingrained, as in Toni's case)!

But those are worries for another time, for a less nice day.

"Uh.... like from that movie? I dunno. I wouldn't bet against it. Every time I say that there's no way something's real, I end up fighting it later. And Batman's probably fought just about everyone." She contemplates the menu some, undeterred by either strange names nor posted calorie counts. "Feels like if he WAS gonna show up, he might fit in with that Arkham crowd, you know? Those guys are all super weird."

Toni Monetti has posed:
Toni went with a black top and blue jeans. She likes black. It's dark. Like her soul.

Or something. (It also is part of her low key project to off set her weird skin. It's mostly successful!?)

"Yeah... those were pretty good, though," Toni muses. "But I don't think they'd put a real villain type in a movie unless like, the villain was definitely dead, because you might as well put out a big sign, hey come murder me. I mean, other than Doom, obviously."

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HERE AND NOW: The line moves forwards. "Have you had to like, fight them or anything? I mean, I guess you're more, uh, active than I am," Toni continues as someone looks at them, and then steps over to order fries and a burg.

And they -

"Do you wanna split some fries and Jokerize them or is that too much carbs?" Toni asks.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Maybe yeah. Though it probably depends a lot on the villain. I think there's probably more than a few," or at least, more than just DOOM? "who might enjoy the publicity." Cassie's head tips back, more a sign of scouring different parts of the overhead menu than thought. "If you think about it, being a costumed villain... that's kind of asking for a spot in the public eye, right? For recognition? You want to do crime quietly, successfully, and not have it associated with you... or constantly have people showing up to foil you, you don't put on big colorful regalia. You just, you know, crime it up, casual-like. It's waaaay tougher and much more work when we have to go track down leads and play detective."

The addendum writes itself, and she turns from the menu to grin: "That's what we keep the Robins around for."

"Them who?" she wonders back. "Arkham people you mean? Not -usually-, but sometimes with Robin, er, well, my Robin not the new Titans one-" they don't make it easy to keep track! "-there can be some crossover. But it's kind of different over there. Most of those guys aren't too strong power-wise but they've always got, you know, all kinds of criminal connections and corrupt cops and maybe hostages with a bomb set to go off... you know, just a whole THING. It makes it hard to punch your way through things. So mostly folks leave it to the bats."

"If you mean just like, stuff I thought was only from the movies? I did fight a werewolf once. Actually he kind of WAS from a movie. Weird story."

Fries wise: "Go for it!" Whether Cassie has some kind of crazy demigodess metabolism? Who can say. But she spends a LOT of time doing crazy Amazon training, and she EATS.

Toni Monetti has posed:
"I figure most of them are fuckin- excuse me," Toni says, putting a hand to her collarbone, "I'm being rude. I figure most of them are mentally ill but being in it for the 'gram makes sense to me, because if you just wanted to make money you'd just run smack or something, right?"

The clerk looks at Toni strangely.

"What're you looking at?"

"Uh... welcome to Big Belly Burger, can I take your order?"

Toni nods once. "Okay SO," she says, "Gimme a Power Sandwich with some slaw, put the slaw ON it please, NOT the side, do you get me? Okay and I also want a small strawberry-banana, excuse me, a Leviathan Blood milkshake. Actually make that a medium. Also I want a jumbo fry and jokerize that please, and--" Now she looks over and upwards, "What do you want?" Toni has a black credit card out already.

SOON ENOUGH, AFTER THE ORDER IS PLACED:

"It's kinda funny to think about like 'how strong your power is' even if I guess it makes sense. It's just new I guess, huh? To most people it'd be like, having anything that wasn't like 'hey I can give myself leprosy' would be cool, or terrifying, or both. Tell me about the werewolf?"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Yeah, pretty much. And pretty often the more 'together' big villains have folks like that working for them, sure, running drugs or guns or whatever to fund the grandiose plots or world domination schemes or whatever, but there's definitely a... some kind of gap in thinking between that 'normal' kind of crime and the super variety."

Cassie does not seem too bothered casually discussing such things either, ignoring the clerk's reaction and readily tacking on: "Cheesemeister deluxe and a chocoriffic shake." They can share the fries.

"It can be a little weird, getting used to the idea of those kind of powers at your fingertips... or the idea you might run into a totally bigger fish." This one sets Cassie thinking a more seriously, expression vaguely distant. "That's why the Amazons put me through all that hardcore training early. I was pretty young but dad had just decided, 'boom, go hero it up!' and they probably didn't want me being a total dumbass and acting like I was totally invincible. I still misjudge it, now and then- like we went to space a while ago and I tried to bracer some big alien lasergun and that did NOT go well."

When their food is ready, she grabs the tray and swings around to look for a table. "So, Amazon-thinking wise, powers are tools, like any kind of weapon, equipment or advantage you might bring along. They help, but you shouldn't over-rely on them over your own skills, and you have to weigh how they measure to the task: a patrol cop can't bust in on a drug operation solo and expect that just the badge and a sidearm is going to do the job. And same way, you bring a rocket launcher to a fist fight and you cause more problems than you fix. And sometimes you need a different kind of tool entirely, like a radio instead of a gun or whatever." And here, she gestures to Toni. "Like remember you opening that lock? I've got no way to do that quietly. Wrong tool. It's smash or nothing.

"S'how I try to keep it in my head, anyway."

And then once they sit and settle, she does the stereotypcial lean forward for storytime: "Okayso... uh well, basically back WAAAY early, before I was a Titan but when I'd just met Robin, we did some like really amateur crime fighting stuff, a bunch of us. And this girl who hung out with us, she had kind of a famous public thing going, and so she got invited to be on some TV show. You know, one of those things where the teenagers fight monsters? And well, wouldn't you know, this dude who played the main werewolf..."

Toni Monetti has posed:
Toni puts a $10 in the cup while they await service. She's pretty guilty over getting extremely Jersey at the guy. Well, a little guilty. Not so.

"Yeah, I imagine being kind of invincible is pretty great until you hit the point where suddenly it ain't. I mean, I'm speculating here," Toni says, even as food is delivered and they move for a table. Toni tacks towards an emptier part of the dining room, probably so they can gabble about superhero crap with less concern. Also, one of the family-sized booths provides opportunity to park ALL their bags. (Toni only has like two-- so far.)

(So far.)

"Right, like Scooby Doo," Toni concurs. She then looks down at the fries, which are covered in purple and green powder. She picks one up dubiously and tastes it. "Holy fft," she says. "It's like cajun spice!" She smiles, pleasantly surprised -- then stops, since, well.

You Know.

As she unwraps her chicken breast sandwich, she looks back up to Cassie. "But okay so like... she was a guest star here... she didn't get like, bitten, did she? Like werewolf bitten, infected?"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Nope, that's pretty much it exactly. It's awesome, not gonna lie, but it means... like a lot of time you're walking a very thin line over a really big drop?" And with a laugh, slightly embarassed in tone, Cassie admits, "I kinda get hurt a whole lot for 'invincible.' And then I get a pile of Amazon lectures afterward."

In the booth, she's free to relax, not only in the sense of chit-chat (which she seems fairly lacking in secrecy toward generally) but also in the ability to really sprawl out and fill the space, both with herself and her haul.

"Mmmm, a little less cartoon hijinks and a little more hot supposed high school students played by tewenty-somethings engaged in dramaz," she says this in a way that the 'z'-spelling is totally audible. "'Oh, woe is me, will I take the Vampire or the Werewolf to prom?'" The description is infused with a sense of banality that marks her as not so much a fan of the genre, apparently.

At length, she shakes her head. "Nah, she was OK. I think the guy was kind of more obsessed with his costar or whatever. But it was just... you know, kind of 'what the hell?' Like he was really taking that whole 'hide in plain sight' thing to the extreme, you know? And somehow this never came up in casting?"

"And we didn't have any silver bullets or anything, so, he got away." She throws up her hands, and then lets one fall on the fries, grabbing a couple, and then takes a few incautious bites in succession. It takes a few moments to register, but the result proves to be a little hotter than would be expected of a fast food joint. "Ah, wow, that's hot-" Pant, pant.

Toni Monetti has posed:
"That sucks if it's not like, anything you did or if it was like, you did your best but some super strong dude still bit you on the neck or something," Toni says. (It's the season to think about necking.) She takes a bite out of her own sandwich, a line of white sauce running down the side of the glistening breast as she purses her lips.

"Oh so it was like a SHOW about werewolf vampire stuff, but, there was actually a werewolf. Does that count as diversity? I don't think you could just like, say it, but I bet you could say you're a mutant and they'd totally roll with it. BUT THEN," Toni continues, "what if they find out you're *actually a werewolf.*"

A pause.

"Was he like, evil? I mean if you just shot some dude who's an asshole on TV..."

That sauce in Cassie's mouth, tho.

It does burn. It's a lingering feeling. A sensation of slowly dawning, slowly intensifying horror, as...

The lights go down!
The doors latch shut!
A double handful of screams!
Toni says, "What the FUCK."

And over the intercom comes a statement.

"I notice that there are some... EXOTIC offerings on the Big Belly Burger menu. Going upscale... But that should make this one easy for you. If you can endure the neuro-activated capiscin compounds in that hot sauce you've all so happily partaken of, you can consider this one."

"FUCK" Toni says like, every few seconds even as the sound continues, and she's fumbling at her mouth as well.

"So RIDDLE ME THIS, boys, GHOULS and the RECENTLY DECEASED: If the milk of human kindness can't put out the flames... what animal can?"