Masks-616 #10 - "If This Be My Personality Quiz"

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

Cue Conflict!

How did the school choose to discipline us? Are we back in detention? Or all of us in the Fortress of Attitude under a mountain of class-skipping homework.

No, we’re before the Headmaster, Hellbinder.

Alex’ program searching for similar sets of transactions, money trail with the school, the museum, or other locations. “A really bad look for the school …” esp. for Hellbinder and SURGE.

Mette is against getting SURGE in trouble.
Joey is definitely in favor of breaking Hellbinder’s desk.

Alex finds plenty of evidence of this having happened. Not quite every semester.
Prior to Hellbinder … definitely happening in the 80s-90s, in coord with AEGIS, and not subtle.
In 2/3 of the cases, the kids it happened to have gone on to success. Unless the scenario didn’t go well.

Mette:
Assess the Sitch! --> 7!
Some people are clear winners. And others clear losers. And others you need to test. The folk picked for these weren’t the shining heroes or the opposite.

In the timeline she remembers, it was a huge disaster. Emma burned half the building down, Nono was injured, SURGE wasn’t involved in the selection.

Hellbinder’s Office

A - Understand we’re not supposed to skip class, but had good reason, and want to ask for some time off, even some school assistance.
H - Your proposal intrigues me. But … understand, you didn’t attend class, your teachers have a duty of care in education. But let’s talk more about this other thing.
A - Ancient temple ruins! Multiple members! Education, also personal development. They should have the right to pursue these things wherever they are located, and the rest of the team may come along for support.
H - Official?
A - Students.
H - I mean …
J - AEGIS.
H - Admire the initiative. The plan. Intrigued by the subject matter. I can’t in good conscience, or justify to the school board, allocate that kind of support, without more official standing for your group. Your press was good last week, but … not one of our clubs.
A - Sympathetic! We will cost much less than $250K this time.
H - But how do you put a price on good PR?
A - Agree. (Slides evidence over.)
H - (Puts in drawer.) Need to be sure academic rigor is ensured. But in future, with proper warning, can allow adjustments to curriculum to this, and maybe some credit hours self-directed study. Need an academic advisor. [Walks to wall of faculty pictures.] You want to approach the faculty to see who’s interested? I’m going to make it contingent that you find a faculty appropriately skilled for this situation. Extra homework.
J - [watching dialog. cracking knuckles, restraining self]
M - Costumes!
H - And code names. and … [pulls out Academy uniform boxes, fire nation colors Lycra suits]

… exit … ((But not before Joe gives a token slap to the desk.))

Fortress of Attitude. Lots and lots of homework. Consultation with throwing names out of potential faculty advisors.

Into the Home Room

Class clubs …
Macaron, Evan, Hunter, Vic, Sequoia.

Evan - Speaking of Saturday, I believe we have plans.

M - The pier. The … arcade?
E - Yes, promenade, amusements, rides, the wheel of iron …
J - [pencil snaps]
E - [seems a scosh distracted] [reacts to people coming in, moving into seat] [Joe stares] [flashes winning smile and chin nod]
J - [snap]

Who notices Evan’s discomfiture about something?

Sequoia is being talked to by Vic.
Paul kinda turned that way.
Aliud is brooding with a frown.

Gothwitch is … flirting? … with Roddy.
G - Museum thing was crazy. … What’s Kiln’s deal? Magic weapons?
R - Fireballs!
Chris becomes really still.
Poly-Anna comes back to Joe, and does small talk about the lab that’s due, but not paying that much attention.
J - Everyone is looking back at him. Disapprovingly.
Sequoia - Glaring at Joe, flirting at Mette.
Evan doing a grenade of lurves.
Jillian - whatevs
A - So much high school melodrama.

Evan … not making eye contact with Poly-Anna. Which seems to have been the point of her wandering over.

Poly-Anna is tapping her fingers on her desk and it is slowly turning to a clicking noise as her hands change shape.

Nono is talking Last Airbender to Vic.
Emma is just smouldering.

Gym!

Gym – applied skills (Superheroing 101). SURGE!

Work in the Real World. “Entering the Super-Heroic Workforce” … photocopied (poorly) reading.
Not just about wearing the suit, you need a media presence (snark). Need support / 1000 followers on HeroTracker. Need to be a star.

Groups up folk. Our team together. Various combos of the others.

Worksheet – 1/person. School form + supers character sheet. Superhero ID. Social media ID. Anti-villain focus / Cause. Team name. (Costume design - color palette, iconic identifier.) Team name. Placement of supervillain/calling (team? self?), dream mentor.

Fill out individually, but as a group. Desks all scooshed over.

Roddy - Cause: To Be Awesome

SURGE has people hand off sheets to the next person, fill in any blanks.

Roddy -> Joe -> Mette -> Kiln -> Alex -> Roddy

A - This should be online! [So they can hack into the school’s forms system.]

J - didn’t fill in costume (eek, many erasures), as well as the Why I Do This.
M - fills in… “it’s the right thing to do”. Also …

R - didn’t fill in … the social media thing, plus public engagement strategy. The rest is all “It’s awesome.”. Except the team name, “The SURGE Suppressors”. Dream mentor “P…”
J - @TheAwesomeOne … display my unbelievable awesomeness. Underlines, one in each color. Team ^Awesome

M - Didn’t have … social media. Mentor is illegible.
Name: Mette
Superhero Name: Dragonskift
Villain Focus: Fix the timeline. Why Am I Doing This: Fix the timeline
Costume: Tan and Olive with lots of pockets

A - Mentor, secretest secret agent guy.
Name: Alex
Superhero Name: Cybertron
Villain Focus: Dumb ones, which is all of them because of my big brain.
Why Am I Doing This: To flex with my awesome robot arms.

K - It’s all in scratch glyphs.

Get Mette’s, realize what he’s done, just stares and does nothing.
Left social media presence blank.
Team Name … glyphs erased and written over multiple times.
A - copy-paste scratchy glyphs over from another field.

All Right, Everyone? What Are Your Team Names?

Sequoia, Aliud, Macaron, Poly-anna
came up with a group name Variable Stars. No, Outsiders (P pushed because Jillian frowned)

Hunter, Vic, Kid Cool, Gothwitch
Runez (then Gothwitch sighs, “with a z”)

Problem Child, Nono, Hot Mess, Hellblade, Seven Year.
Outsiders (also)
(Sequoia turns to Poly-anna, “See? Exactly …”)

Then us.
… (dead silence) …
and the bell rings.

(Nono, “They probably picked the Outsiders, too, and they’re trying to think of something”)

SURGE - Given the arrangement you’re working toward, you really need to sort. This. Out. [clearly brought up to speed] So … first thing next class.

“SURGE Suppressors”? We owe him more, and Mette would disapprove.
“Menagerie”? Joe is … not amused.

End of Session

• Joe - Closer … Mette (the form) … [Potential] -freak +savior
• Mette - More into self (took this seriously)
• Roddy - More into self (awesome)
• Kiln - More into self (those glyphs were very, very insightful) (present and their role in it)
• Alex - Closer … Roddy (awesome sheet) … +Superior, -Mundane (Superior is maxed) … no, -Soldier, +Freak

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Academic advisor poll!

• Sergeant SURGE (PE teacher)
• Alexis Crowe/Gaia (art teacher)
• Powertronic
• Other PA faculty
• Other hero

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Team name discussion! Either suggest one or more team names, or endorse someone else’s suggestion(s).

Assorted useful links:

• Superhero and villain team name generator
• List of superhero teams and groups
• Alliteration generator

Suggestions (edit below this line)

Alex:

• Timesavers (“hey, three of us have a connection to time. Travelers, or just good at it.”)
• Clockpunchers (“ditto, but a clock-puncher is someone who just wants the day to be over, which I do.”)
• Temple Tracers (“this one sucks but it’s alliterative, and maybe a little too on point come to think of it, you know what? nevermind.”)
• MARK FIVE (“there’s five of us, two M’s - Mette and Mighty Joe Young, plus Alex, Roddy, and Kiln. Sorry, a J fucking sucks for doing a search of scrabble dictionaries”)

Joe:

• “I never got what all the clock punching thing was about. If you punched a clock then they sent everyone home from work because nobody knew what time it was? I could do that. Also, I never thought being real specific in super group names was smart – remember when the Tremor Twins joined the Seven Sailors, and all of a sudden they had nine people, and then after they became the Nine Navigators and had all their merch changed, Deep Dive quit?”
• The Primals (“Because it’s not Primates, but it’s a little close, and also sometimes I wanna just scream.”)
• The Attitudes (“Because we got a lot of them, and we have a Fortress of Attitude.”)
• The Denizens (“Because it’s a weird name, but it’s kinda cool, and it usually goes with ‘of the Deep’ and we hang out in the basement.”)

Roddy:

• The Delvers (“since we are going to spend a lot of time investigating a mystery.”)
• The Research Club, Study Hall Five (the school theme)

Mette:

• Basement Club (“like breakfast club, but more us”)

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

For reference on the Academic Advisor poll:

Teachers of Phoenix Academy

[LordBlackwood] Doctor Gabriel Fryth, of the Society of the Sacred Sand. He is the teacher of Applied Mythology, a very real world class that isn’t that popular. He is known for testing people on obscure dates and never being clear as to the expectations. No student who has taken his class has ever found themselves facing down something they learned in his class. Kiln once caught him on a lie about their ancient culture.

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

Academic Advisors … quoth Joe:

“Yeah, I don’t trust SURGE, not after that thing at the museum and what Alex dug up. And Ms Crowe … I mean, really? What are we gonna learn, how to lob pottery at the bad guys? And Powertronic – I wouldn’t give Roddy the satisfaction. Me, I’d vote for Princess Arizella. She’s a kick-ass fighter, and, uh, …” (Trails off muttering something about poetry.)

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

@Dave

I’d vote for Princess Arizella

Setting aside the possibility that Joe is just being thirsty, I like this option as a player. I mostly went for Sergeant SURGE for the comedy.

[Margie (Margie K)]

Arizella works for me. Both her and Crowe can help us learn finesse over brute force

[Margie (Margie K)]

I like Denizens. Can have fun completing the phrase Denizens of… Differently each time

[fragolakat (James)]

I’ll disagree. I don’t care for Denizens. All I can think of is damp caves and bad things.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

Might be late to the party, but I figure I can throw out some team name suggestions.

Along the same vein of the Denizens, perhaps the Delvers since we are going to spend a lot of time investigating a mystery.

For a mouthful but also sort of fun, the Research Club for a bit of a school theme. Also the Study Hall Five, which could just be SH5 in most cases. Study Hall Six would be better alliteration, but we don’t have six members unless someone picks up a wacky animal companion… hint, hint.

[Margie (Margie K)]

Basement club like breakfast club, but more us

[fragolakat (James)]

How about Band of Seekers.
Ties into the whole looking for temples thing while not bringing to mind Moria dwarves delving too deep. We can also shorten it to just being The Seekers. And to top it all off and appeal to the teenage rebel, it abbreviates to “BS”.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

I’ll suggest either our intrepid art teacher or Arizella for our faculty advisor, with the understanding that SURGE should continue to hassle us when we’re back at school

[fragolakat (James)]

I’m totally down for that. You already know my vote. But I agree it’ll be fun to have SURGE remain at school and maybe give us stern pointers on what we could’ve done better.

Does that mean we could be the Gaia Grapplers? Or maybe the Arizella Arresters?

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

With Arizella, we could be the A Team!

Though others, referring to our basement hang-out, might have a different name for us …

[fragolakat (James)]

Soooooo… Do we have some sort of decision made? A consensus? Something to tell the class?

[insomn14 (Mike)]

[fragolakat (James)]

Surge: You had an extra week to complete the project.
Alex: Yes. And like all good group projects we procrastinated till the last minute.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Actually we are in pretty good shape. There’s like 5-6 serious team name suggestions, and I feel like we are in a good place about advisors. SURGE can hassle us for other reasons at school, so it’s now a father-son duel to see who our advisor is (Art vs. Literature).

Roll 1d6:

1. The Primals
2. The Attitudes
3. The Delvers
4. The Research Club/Study Hall Five
5. Basement Club
6. Band of Seekers

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

I could live with any of those, though I have my preferences among them – and some of them might work better than others on our international travel, if that’s done above-board, or even in Halcyon City.

“Who are you?”
"We’re … THE BASEMENT CLUB!"
“Uh …”