empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: MAY

Entry tags:

!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: MAY

— TEST DRIVE: MAY —

Welcome to

empatheias' test drive meme. This test drive is to help interested players test their characters in the game's environment. We've included a few prompts that incorporate specific elements of the game, though you'll find all of them have a lot of leeway for players to get as creative as necessary. Before diving in, here are a few things we'd like to remind everyone about the game in general:

Date reminders. Reserves open Monday, April 24th and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on May 1st.
OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are allowed. Those interested can also use the test drive. OCs do not need to be reserved.
Emotions are key! Empatheias' premise focuses on how anyone's emotions can affect their environment, be it big or small. While not every emotion will cause a reaction, significant ones definitely will. How much effect a character will have will ultimately be up to you, the player. Also, while we're giving a lot of leeway for the test drive, keep in mind that there will be some limits in the actual game.
Everyone has an amulet. All characters have a unique amulet that is specialized for them. It will contain all of their emotion drops and it serves as the network device. Remember, communication is telepathic. Otherwise, it works basically the same.
Assume the character is already in the game. Because "OMG WHERE AM I IS THIS REAL LIFE" threads aren't going to be very helpful in this test drive! Plus those are going to happen in-game, anyway. So to make things easier, just assume that they've been around at least a week or so. Still learning the ropes, but not a complete "first day" experience.
First or third person allowed. Your threads can be in either first or third, but we'd advise being flexible about it. Remember, these threads can also be used in your application for samples! Reminder: We only require one sample and it can be done in either format. We have also made a change to our sample requirements, so look over the Applications page!

Now with that out of the way, here are some prompts you guys can work from!

PROMPTS

• Prompt A: How about giving the emotions a try?

• Prompt B: Refer to the Task Board and choose a task your character may be interested in taking up. For this prompt, you could have your character ask for help, already be in the middle of the job, or react to it in some way. Perhaps they were an unfortunate victim or want to create a job countering an existing one. You could even have a prompt making a job request. Creating jobs for the purpose of the test drive is absolutely doable.

• Prompt C: How about giving the amulets a go? Start a telepathic conversation and see how it works. Remember, the amulets are sending out the owner's thoughts so might want to be careful about how the stream of consciousness goes...

• Prompt D: Elios’ land was a great place to hold this year’s festival, but it’s always best to leave a place as you found it. This is especially important for the surface, as there’s a lot of work put into trying to heal the different domains that span the land down below Verens. Anyone who volunteers for cleaning duty is getting paid, and vouchers to several of the cafes up in Verens as a reward! For anyone not interested in cleaning but interested in a new closing ceremony of sorts, they can instead attend a fireside dance that will be held for the next few nights at the site of the festival once things are tidied up.

Cleanup Ordeals. Not too much mess was left around luckily as most people who helped organize the Festival understand the importance of cleaning up the mess you make, but it looks like the tent areas have a lot left to clean up and take down. Removing flowers and string lights, packing up fabric and blankets, and generally picking up trash here and there left by festival goers is the main job. It’s a big job, and the festival organizers encourage anyone with special skills or dunamis practice to use whatever they have at their disposal to speed things along.
Fireside Dance.It’s a small, simple gathering done once the sun has gone down and the sky is dark. The fire is stoked hot, surrounded by worn black stones painted with Elios’ symbol in red and orange tones of paint. The dance is a quick one, requiring two circles, an inner and outer one. Partners on the outer circle travel the inner circle and wind up dancing with each person in turn. Luckily it’s pretty quick to learn and everyone spirits run warm to match flushed cheeks. At the end, each participant is asked to throw a small twig into the fire and express a moment of love or hate, in the pursuit of balance.

• Prompt E: During the festival this month there was a curious prize at one of the game booths. Some of the Elios plushes from the bobbing for ducks booth seem to not have been plushies at all! After a few days of having one in your possession, The plush will engulf in non spreading flames and burn completely out, revealing one small egg, white or black. Depending on your mood the past few days, the egg will either hatch a leathery or feathery winged creature. Hopefully you’ve been in a good mood! Luckily, the creatures are only around long enough to perform their duty before winking out of existence again.

Bad Egg. Negative emotions have lead to a sour and dark winged creature who is up to mischief. They will not listen to their “owner” and instead are quite often out to make things difficult for them. 3 misfortunes or specific instances of bad luck will happen over three days to their possessor while they run amok. A claw shaped trinket is left behind as a reminder to try and enjoy life and not get caught up in bad moods.
Good Egg. Positive emotions will lead to a happy, bright and angelic feather winged creature. They’re mischievous as well, but often in gentler ways, and sometimes try to play cupid for their owner. These playful creatures will grant 3 small wishes over three days for their owner, such as desires for better weather, tastier food or small trinkets. No wishing for a million sylvs here! Once it poofs out of existence in a puff of glitter it leaves behind a small pearl as a reminder to value the things they have and experiences they get that make live worth living.

• Prompt F: A small ring of Circus performers from Thesthai have traveled up to Verens and set up a tent out near lake Niras. It’s a small Circus performance, a prelude to something that might be bigger in the future. All performances are done by the Circus members themselves, from acrobatics and magic tricks, to displays of fearless daredevilry with the help of Verens steam-punk inspired vehicles. Overall it seems to be garnering a lot of attention, causing a several day repeat showing of the activities. Performancy plays a central role in some setups, and they seem to be the most popular...

Animal Experience.Enjoy the animal menagerie, all sorts of creatures are here. They’re all well taken care of, and seem to enjoy the food and pettings they’re getting from the attendees. Happy animals make for happy animal loving customers afterall! There IS one catch.. mischevious circus performers will cast performancy on those who aren't paying enough attention to their surroundings, and circus goers in the menagerie area may find something new if they look in a mirror. Animal ears and tails and a host of other features! Don’t worry. It’s temporary and all in good fun.
Carnival Games. Carnival type games have been set up outside the main tent, including a lot of familiar games that may have been seen during the Zephyras Flower Festival. Ring Toss, water laser races, darts, and the good old fashioned strong arm competition are all part of the setup. The prizes here range from simple small toys to bigger 4 foot tall plushies. Careful though, some of these setups might actually be rigged. The house has to have an advantage, in the end. Where would they make their money?

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include geese and/or potatoes.

For your threads, put the Character Name and the Canon in the subject line to help readily identify them. You're also welcome to use more than one prompt for respondents to choose from. If you have any questions or want to brush up on the game information, refer to the Game Information entry. Otherwise, tag around and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1 - prompt C - telepathy

Have gas, need more gas, what do I need to do?

2 - hook, line and sinker? pre-task board job

[ While it's true that Jean regularly performs (self-professed) miracles with his omni-directional mobility gear, he has, admittedly, never tried to use it to jump onto a neighbouring floating island. Probably because floating islands don't exist back in his world, but that's neither here nor there.

He's not nervous, exactly -- he's confident in his skills with his ODM gear, but still, it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to falling off floating islands. And there's things to consider, like whether the trees around here are strong enough to withstand hooks ploughing in and out of them, and whether the stone around here is amenable to much the same.

He practices, then.

You might catch him anchored to the side of a building, testing the give of his gear's grappling hooks on the building material (with no regard for who the building belongs to!), or maybe you catch him out of the corner of your eyes swinging through trees before coming to a stop on the ground for a rest. Wherever he is, he looks fairly self-assured with himself -- maybe even a touch smug! That is, unless you've just seen him falling flat on his backside after hooking into a not-so-forgiving substance and having it give way on him. ]

3 - task board job: lowen's adventures (GT0409)

[ When Jean decides to take on the task board job, he does it because he's confident that he can harvest the best seeds and seedlings available on the oncoming floating island. He's also confident that he'll be able to get first pick of whatever rare stones exist on the island. All this confidence comes down to the fact that he plans to grappling-hook his way over to the lower, floating island, (in his mind) beating the competition that might not be able to so easily traverse the gap.

He surveys the other floating island from his perch on the edge of Empatheias, hands resting on his hand grips as he waits for a good chance to go. It's still a bit far out, and so the fierce grin on his face could easily be chalked up to Jean just looking like an absolute madman. ]

4 - prompt E-2

[ Jean had tried the game booth out of sheer curiosity more than any real desire to win, and so when he'd won one of the plushes, he'd been (very secretly) jazzed. Winning wasn't really something you did back home within the confines of the walls, and festivals had always felt like a farce -- something shallow put on to draw attention away from the fact that humanity was on the brink of extinction.

This was different, though.

He'd had fun, even though he had spent the day navigating the festival mostly on his own. Everyone had seemed truly happy, and that was just downright infectious.

When the plush reveals an egg that hatches and reveals a strange creature inside, then, Jean laughs rather than startles. The thing is harmless (he thinks), and though he doesn't really know what it does, he doesn't mind having it flying around, even if it does get mildly irritating when it pulls on his hair every now and then.

Maybe the mischievous creature will push Jean into you in an effort to match-make, or maybe you'll witness it suddenly puffing out of existence, a pearl dropping into Jean's hand in its place. ]

5 - wildcard

[ The world is your oyster! Feel free to drop me any sort of prompt! If there's anything you'd like to discuss in particular, feel free to PM, too! ]

(( For those unfamiliar with how omni-directional mobility gear works in Attack on Titan, here is a video with a few clips of the ODM in action! Put simply, though, it's a gas-powered device with a grappling hook that can propel its user towards the grappling hook's location, allowing them to maneuver and travel within the air. ))

Well, damn, son, don't go broadcasting your stomach problems to everyone. No one needs to hear about that.

( Rimshot. )

Ha. Ha. Ha. This asshole thinks he's so funny--

[ nonononono, reel it in, Jean. Reel it in. ]

. . .

[ ... Reel it in, but also stick to your guns. ]

Go on, tell me another, wise-guy.

Edited (laughs, icon keyname changes. . .) 2017-04-26 02:34 (UTC)

Nah, this asshole is out of quips.

Maybe you should stop and think a little more clearly. It's not the end of the world if you don't got gas for whatever you've got.

Maybe you just need somebody to shove some quips up your asshole.

[ what are you saying ]

'sides, maybe it's not the end of the world for you, but some of us need gas to stay alive, pal. Maybe not here, but I'm not taking any chances.

That's something interesting to be paranoid about.

Well, good luck finding gas. I'm not to sure how big this place is on fossil fuels.

[a burst of strong feelings comes back towards him suddenly, hard to untangle though quickly contained - surprise, worry, anger, anxiety, relief. Hange has had similar thoughts to the one Jean just expressed; it impels her to ask.]

Scout? Is that a scout?

Edited 2017-04-25 23:40 (UTC)

[ Jean is instinctively adverse to whatever this replier has to say, the sudden wave of strong feelings serving to make him uneasy... but then the clearer contents of the message grab his attention, and a surge of shock and alarm goes through him, manifesting as sparks around him. He doesn't have time to pay attention to the physical, though, his reply rushed: ]

You know what a scout is?! Hey, who are you? This isn't -- this isn't some kind of dumb mistake, is it?

Edited 2017-04-26 02:33 (UTC)

I am a scout! This is Zoe Hange! Who are you?

[Battering bursts of anger - neither of them should be here! - relief - a scout is here and alive if not safe - and guilt. We should both be at home, at work.]

Who is this? Scout, where are you?

[As far as she's concerned, any scout besides Erwin is one she has the right to order around.]

Wait, I know you [ -- is the dumb, instinctive thought that is unfortunately transmitted when Jean hears the name. It then really clicks who 'Zoe Hange' is when the ordering starts, and that's when Jean's training kicks in, his coherency suddenly improving dramatically. ]

Squad Leader! This is Jean Kirstein, Scout Regiment, previously of the 104th Cadet Corps! I'm -- [ and here Jean falters, the image of a floating island the strongest thing that comes through, mixed with distinct regret and dread. He likes it here, shouldn't like it here, and he doesn't know how to control those feelings yet. ]

... I'm in a city. Verens. [ There's reluctance there, almost. ]

[Satisfaction flows back towards him. She's getting her own emotions in hand quickly now, quicker in fact with a young recruit in need of guidance.]

Good. It's the same for me. Let's meet in person at the clock tower in town center. Are you in need of retrieval?

No. I know the one. [ The clock tower makes for an easy landmark, even if he's only been here a little over a week. He just has to focus on being practical rather than worrying about what encountering Hange might mean. ]

I'm heading there now, Squad Leader. I'm only a few blocks out.

Present and waiting.

[And there she is, when he arrives, obvious in the traveling cloak and 3DMG, standing smack in front of the tower looking around at passersby.

When she spots him she waves and heads over.]

jean kirstein | attack on titan

1

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1 also hello my other favorite series

heyyy!!! fma is also a big weakness of mine :') go us!

Haha, what a coincidence tho they're both amazing. I used to play some girl called Mikasa here....

W H A T now THAT'S amazing!!! how long ago was this!?

Not very long ago but long enough for me to miss it, but maybe some day later again.

no subject