empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: MARCH

Entry tags:

!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: MARCH

— TEST DRIVE: MARCH —

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 Tuesday, February 23nd and Applications (Canon | OC) open Tuesday, March 1st.
OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are currently 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: Fireworks are a common source of entertainment for the island, and each year the equipment and technology used get more advaanced—and more dangerous. This year they're trying to contain the explosive emotional power from the easily angered by using a new device based off the Tree of Memories petals. Except the "device" includes the explosive powder for the fireworks. You can only imagine how disasterous that could be. YOUR OPTIONS:

Someone is deliberately provoking you to try and make you mad.
Someone else has blown their top and the device (and nearby fireworks) are exploding.
General firework and explosives mayhem.

Note: Calm emotions will help diffuse the situation, but you might want some water or something else to help douse both the literal and metaphorical flames.

• Prompt E: The spring season of Zephyras is on its way, so there's a lot less snow these days. To make the most of it, a lot of the local children have built as many snowmen and snow creatures as they can. Some adults have also taken to it, some actually treating it like some kind of competition. The resulting creations range from the standard to the incredible. Behemoth, monstrous creatures with gaping jaws and horns, majestic unicorns with ice sculpted wings and horns, lifelike human sculptures in various poses. Normally all of these would be considered works of it, but when you're in a world where emotions can sometimes give things a mind of their own...well. Creativity isn't the only way to "breathe life" into them.

Emotions can affect these snow sculptures in various way. Those that trend on the happier side will cause the snow creations to move and frolic around in place, perhaps even try to "play" with those around them. Those that trend on the negative, however, will give the opposite, especially anything that could make them more angry and violent.
A few people have caught onto this and have actually created a snowmen army! Using "stock" made snowmen, at least ten from each side slide and wobble around, chucking snowballs and rocks at one another for pure snow destruction. Hopefully you don't get caught in the middle of it.

• Prompt F: Have you ever ridden on a hover board? Or a flying motorcycle? Well if you haven't, you get to be one of many to try out a new design set to come out by the summer months of Eurus. Of course, they are still in development, so expect some hiccups and stalls. Even more, to help with fuel and power efficiency issues, the engineers have created a system that would help absorb and channel the user's emotions into the machine. Now, it's supposed to only take the energy from emotions and not actually be affected by what kind is given. In theory, even a sad person could power their new flying vehicle! However, that's a kink that still needs to be hammered out, so the test vehicles are still prone to emotional effects just like everything else. Angry emotions will have fire bursting from the exhaust, giving it a super huge boost in speed and power, but lack of control. Joy and excitement are also good boosters, but prepare to have a trail of stardust that could blow back in your face. Some other side effects are: rust, engine stall, decreased acceleration, suddenly flying upside down. Oh yeah, these don't have seat belts. But you get a helmet and a parachute! Good luck.

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include empty barrel and/or chickens.

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

[B]
It hadn't taken long before Yona had picked up a job from the task board. If she was going to be here then she wanted to be of some use, to help the people here as much as she could. She didn't have the confidence to take up any of the hunting tasks just yet so she'd settled on collecting samples for the environmentalists.

She'd procured several separate bags in order to keep the samples separate and had made her way to the west side of the forest. In honesty the place was beautiful. It reminded her of the forest they'd gone through to find Kija's village. Without realizing it she managed to put one of the orange mushrooms into the bag with the red and a cloud of bright smoke exploded out of it, causing her to drop all of her bags during the coughing fit that ensued. Mushrooms rolled out and mixed together causing several different colored clouds to explode into the ait.

[C]
[The pamphlet said to just think like you were talking to someone and everyone would hear it. It seemed odd, but if it would help her find her friends then it was worth trying.]

Hello? The paper said if I thought about something It'd be sent to everyone. I'm looking for five boys and a girl about my age.

[Briefly a picture of her traveling group appears followed by a young lady with black hair.]

I'm not worried about them or anything; [They can all take care of themselves.] but if you've seen them can you tell me if they'er here.

[D]
It'd been about a week since Yona had arrived in Vernes. Settling in had been odd with just herself. Every since she was small she'd never really been all alone and since they'd started out there had always been at least three of them. Now it was just her and she still couldn't get used to the quiet. It gave her more time to think about things at home. To think about the dull ache she still felt in her heart when she thought about Soo-Won and about how her heart beat faster and she couldn't think straight when she thought about Hak.

There was a part of her that selfishly wanted the others here with her. That felt alone and helpless without them. But she knew she wasn't really helpless. She could help Vernes in her own way even if she didn't have their strength to help her. Maybe she could use this time to grow and become stronger. Maybe when Vernes sent her home she could be more help then she was before.

As she made her way through the street and back to her house she heard arguing coming from around the corner and paused instinctively, pressing against the wall. It took a few moments for her to remind herself that this was Vernes, this wasn't home; she didn't need to hide as much as she might have if she were alone there. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath when suddenly something exploded out of the alleyway causing a bright firework to shoot across the sky.

"Oh ... is that what they were doing?"

She pulled back her hood a little to get a better view of the fireworks.

Whether it was planned or not, guess who followed her anyway and just stood there watching as she coughed from the mushroom smoke.

"Still clumsy as ever," Hak said, keeping his distance from the cloud shroom and waving his hand just a little to disperse the smoke that did reach him.

Well, that was how he started, but then he remembered something about the job.

"...Wait, didn't they say to make sure the mushrooms weren't put together?" What was the reason for it again...

This was further proof of how much of a jerk Hak was. If Yona hadn't been so busy trying to cough four different colors of smoke out of her lungs she might have even pointed that out before trying to see what she could salvage from the bags that had fallen open around her feet. Instead she turned in the smoke to shoot Hak with the darkest glare of pure rage as the ground around her began to rot and blacken.

'Who asked you, jerk?' The quiet and seething question escaped her mind almost as if she said it. Even so, she didn't realize she was projecting her thoughts and when she opened her mouth to speak she only managed to get another lungful of the smoke that was still trying to settle. Without warning Yona collapsed to the ground in tears, hands covering her face and the damage to the ground starting to turn to mud.

Edited 2016-02-18 19:34 (UTC)

Well whatever had been on the board, it was blown away when Yona's thoughts suddenly intruded into his mind. Now, he had heard her call him a jerk plenty of times, with varying degrees of annoyance and frustration. It never bothered him. This time however, he could tell there was a lot more anger behind it and it was actually a bit disconcerting.

...Which only grew tenfold when she suddenly broke down crying.

"Wha—oi—Princess—"

She had heard the insult a million times, surely she couldn't have gotten that upset by i—

Ah. Wait. The mushrooms and smoke. Now he remembered what the message said, or at least generally. It had something to do with the mushrooms and how they could create volatile emotional disturbances. Well that made it easier, if still annoying.

Very annoying and troublesome given the mess Yona was making. He had to get her out of the smoke cloud, but he had to also avoid getting caught in it himself.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a jerk," he said as he raised his sleeve to press against his nose and mouth and made his way toward her. Maybe he should just grab her and carry her out over his shoulder.

...Although, despite knowing the cause, he still didn't like seeing her crying like that. It reminded him too much of certain past events. But if he remained calm, would that actually help counter against any of this? Only one way to find out.

Edited (my turn for html fail) 2016-02-18 19:48 (UTC)

There was a part of her that realized there was something wrong. It's not like Hak's words were particularly harsh or that she should feel like everything was hopeless, but both were still the case and she felt like her legs were just too heavy to move anywhere. She needed to get away from the smoke, but she just couldn't. She couldn't do anything. She was useless. How could she think she could help anyone when she was so useless to even help herself. The more her thoughts turned to anger at herself and sadness that she couldn't be more useful the more her body started to sink into the mug.

Hak's words broke through her haze of self loathing and only caused her ire to halfheartedly focus on him. "You're awful." She spat through her tears. It didn't come out as venomous as her thoughts had previously. Instead the words came out in choking sobs.

"The most awful," he continued to respond in that idle way as he reached the edge of the strange mud pit Yona had created.

"And it's gonna get worse when I haul you out of there. Or are you going to try and scratch me like some wild cat?"

"I can do it myself." She hissed with a seething glare that didn't hold much real anger due to the tears rimming her eyes and ready to fall. She started trying to scrape up some of the remaining mushrooms to throw at him.

"Then why are you still in there?" It was like he was egging her on—or rather, he was to try and get her out on her own. Particularly since while the smoke had settled, he wasn't too keen on getting any closer and risk kicking it up again.

Although if she did try and throw them, he'd actually probably catch them with his other hand so he could get a better look at these weird things.

"Because I want to be here." Right? This is where she belonged because she couldn't help people. Because she was useless alone. She started throwing the mushrooms at him, which, actually caused her to stand up. Good job Hak!

Good, now he just needed to slowly back away to make her have to actually move forward because she threw like a pampered princess. At least a few steps, anyway.

"Why? You like the mushrooms and mud that much?" Ah. "Guess that really does make you like a pig."

Hey! Her aim is improving.

"Jeeeeeerk!" She sreamed, but it sounded more like how she normally used it. Yelling rather then seething with rage. His plan however was working really well; except for the fact that she was starting to throw three at a time. If she couldn't aim then she'd throw more then one at a time and hope they hit him right in the head.

Why did she have to be so stubborn. He was able to catch several, but the thing was he didn't want to drop them lest they make another smoke bomb.

...Right, maybe encouraging her to throw them might not have been the best idea, especially when a few actually did come near his face and he had to duck. This resulted in the mushrooms landing behind them, and they were both orange and red.

"Seriously, if you don't come out on your own, I'm going to just go over there and haul you out like a sack of potatoes."

His words were mostly normal, but he did sound a bit more irritated than usual. Couldn't she just get her royal ass over here already?

Why did he have to be so good at dodging. She threw another few handfuls at him, solidifying the fact that she would have to start the whole task all over again only now with a giant mud puddle in the middle of everything.

"Don't you even dare!"

She'd have challenged him to try but it wasn't like she thought he wouldn't. With their past history she was completely sure he would do it; and probably knock her into a tree or something for good measure for annoying him. Seriously, why did he have to be such an annoying person. It was like he tried to deliberately annoy her. Oh wait, he did! The reminder only managed to infuriate her more and she wound up to throw another volley of mushrooms at him.

Edited 2016-02-19 23:11 (UTC)