empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

Entry tags:

!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

— TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER —

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, October 25 and Applications (Canon | OC) open Tuesday, November 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: The Boreas Harvest Festival is fast approaching, and the farmers are trying hard to work through the bleak weather conditions to get their crops in before they go bad from all the apathy. All hands on deck—but there may be too many unwanted hands roaming around.

Scarecrows. The scarecrows that have been set up as a festive reminder of the time of year have unfortunately come under the influence of some errant strong emotions from the farm hands that work in the fields. Unfortunately that includes trying to ward off anyone who enters the fields with pitchforks and is one of them carrying a torch? Maybe if they can be convinced that you are trustworthy they will calm down.
Invading rabbits. There are ton of rabbits ravaging the carrot patches. They're easily frightened, but some are more tenacious than others. Beware of the white rabbit with red eyes.
Save the crops! Several batches are already starting to spoil! The only thing that can save them is dumping as much positive emotions into them. Joy of good food, hope for a bountiful meal, love of eating—whatever will work. Just be careful. Too much and those things might grow and explode…

• Prompt E: Aiada, the Arehtei of appreciation and jealousy, has sent a personal request for those who are interested. There is a small island just beneath Empatheias that she has been cultivating over the many centuries. She wishes to contribute to the Harvest Festival with some seeds and spores. However, the recent atmosphere has also reached down there, and now it's all a mess! Giant mushrooms replaced the trees and there's slime and mold everywhere. The cure? Aside from getting a lot of heavy duty cleaners and pushing it off, appreciation will go a long way to help.

Goop brigade. Grab that bucket and shovel and clear the goop out! Just be careful not to have too much get on you—jealousy might take over.
Appreciation balls. To help hasten the effort, Aiada has given several tubs filled with light, green orbs. Once channeled with enough appreciation, they can be used as mini-grenades to help explode and wash the area with more positive energy. Those caught in the blast won't be harmed. If anything, they'll just be very thankful.
Watch the ledges. Careful, it's a fairly small island and the goop and slime has made things slick. If you fall… That's not a good way to go, let's just say that.

• Prompt F: Various parties are interested in the emotion shards scattered all over Thera. But this time around, the focus is on the medical laboratory as the equipment and potential research there is also of interest. For three days those who volunteer are sent back to try and gather as much as possible—but of course this won't be easy.

Skeletal Scientists. The remains of the scientists who once worked in these rooms are still lurking, ready to protect their work. Fortunately they're relatively weak nerds, so not too difficult to dispatch. Just be careful.
Flying equipment. The various medical equipment has also taken life, scalpels and needles flying everywhere and stethoscopes ready to strangle.
Questionable liquid. Most of the easy shards have already been taken, leaving the more difficult to retrieve ones left. In particular they're found in strange, dark pink liquid. It's mostly harmless—except that upon contact intense waves of grief and suffering will course through. The longer the exposure, the worse it is. So hopefully a bucket full of it doesn't fall on you…

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include feathers and/or confetti.

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

So just because I see an old ally in danger and choose to aid him against someone who I had assumed was an enemy, you choose to mark me as an enemy?

[Until she'd literally ripped his mask off, Reaper was a stranger to her. As far as she knew, Gabriel Reyes had died in that explosion. Meeting him in Egypt... it changed things, raised far too many questions.]

I don't know what happened to you or Jack, why you became... like the way you are. [Both physically and morally.] I for one want to know why.

What happened while I was gone? What happened to you, Gabriel? [He says they abandoned him... she has no knowledge of why they would do that. They were a team, weren't they?]

Everyone chose his side, I don't see why you'd be any different. More so now.

[It was only natural, despite how she'd once been just as much his friend as Jack's. She wasn't free of suspicion, finding her alive after so long. He couldn't be sure of anything-

Talons tightened on the back of the chair, the wood creaking from his grip.]

They killed me, he is why I'm like this. He stopped listening to me, turned his back on me. They all ignored it when something was wrong and I paid the price! [Thin ribbons of flame curled in the air, flashing in and out of existence as anger was barely contained.] I was left behind and forgotten.

They still don't see.

[What.]

[What.]

[This was the first she'd heard of this, and the way her eye widens in surprise before narrowing in scrutiny doesn't hide that fact. Jack, stop listening to Gabriel and turn on him? That didn't sound like Jack at all. And while not everyone got along with the Blackwatch crew, there was no reason to think everyone would simply abandon Gabriel while she was there.]

That does not sound like the team I remember. Especially Jack. Why would he ignore you? You were one of his most trusted allies.

It wasn't instant. [It was a slow process, things grew strained.

Everything did. Overwatch held no connection with Blackwatch, no one dared even whisper the name outside of times when a report had to be given. A mission coming down from the higher ups, whenever Blackwatch had to do something to keep Overwatch looking pretty—]

Things change. He wanted to believe in something that was no longer what any of us built, no longer stood for it. [Easing his grip before the wood splintered under his hands.] He left me to suffer, to become this thing.

Nothing mattered other than Overwatch, his position, and his own people.

You truly believe that? [She could go on for hours about the Gabriel she remembered. This... Something didn't add up. Why would he think such things?]

Overwatch had its problems. And after I was gone, I could only watch as whatever problems were there grew out of hand. But I know that if things were as they were while I was still there, then Jack would not have simply decided to leave you to whatever fate you succumbed to.

[Hell, the only reason Jack had left her behind was because she had cut off connection with him before she was struck down by that injury she had endured. There had been no way for them to contact her, or any way to assume she had survived.]

[There were details she hadn't known after she was gone, but the more Reaper revealed to her, the more he spoke... it was becoming more clear that there was something bigger going on, and that as far as Reaper's memory, some of those details were questionable at best. He was a victim in this just as much, his twisted sense of justice spawning from something bigger than either of them.]

[Still, she had to press on her questioning, her clarifying and reminding of how things were before that fateful day. He had old wounds that he refused to heal, and that seemed to be clouding his reasoning.]

Yes. [Head tilted, hard to tell where his gaze might have fallen despite still facing Ana.] You saw what's left of me.

What he did to me.

[He was still tense as they spoke, Reaper almost pinned there to continue on when he could just as easily slip away. Things were different here, a part of him forcing himself to stay and continue to speak. Even as he hissed and snarled some things when answering, his anger burning just as strong as it always had.

Only pausing when something was pointed out, hands rested on the table, fingers curled and quiet for those moments. Voice softer, even if briefly, pushing past it. With how he pulled himself apart and back together some things were bound to slip, weren't they? That too was Jack's fault, and on a much larger part Angela's fault; it was her that did this to him, left him with this curse, while Jack had been what delivered him to those hands.

Reaper spoke with Ana long enough that he'd actually ordered something to drink as well, mask pushed up just enough that he could drink-]

Things change, and Death walks amongst the living. I do what I need to.

I saw something horrible that was inflicted on you, but Jack is not the one to blame for this. He is as much a victim in this as you are.

[Considering how violently he had attacked and how quickly he left in Egypt, she's actually surprised how long he's stayed to talk, even ordering himself a drink. The more he talks, the more she reminds him of details he seemed to forget and the more she watches how he reacts to those details, the more she starts to get a better picture of things; the man who she had known before is still in there, somewhere, just buried under hurt and pain.]

[She does her best to not look away as he tilts that mask up, catching the barest glimpse of patched, decaying skin beneath. It was unsettling, yes, but she had to remember that he hadn't asked for this. None of them had asked for the tragedies that they went through when Overwatch fell.]

[Eventually their conversation lulls a bit, and she looks into the remaining dregs of her empty teacup.]

Things do change. I've seen that much. But maybe it's time you did some changing as well.

Edited 2016-10-23 23:09 (UTC)

[Of course there was a bite, a snarl of he refused to see what was right in front of him! Much of his sudden turns of anger were like that, very sudden as if he'd heard otherwise too much for his taste and had swallowed it down one too many times. A man told he was wrong when he knew he was right and it had been proven he was far too late.

Things had gone out of control, even as he'd tried to do his best to keep it under control on his end. Suddenly not having the support system he'd always had- neither of them had it and of course they fell apart. Their friendship fell apart as they did.

Overwatch was doomed from the start as soon as it was taken from their hands and others were provided with the strings.]

It wouldn't matter if I did.

[To her credit, Ana doesn't recoil too much when his anger flares up. She responds with equal fervor, voice raising only to emphasize her point because he ended up being played as a fool, just as you were! Because though she had disappeared before things went pear-shaped, she could see the signs of things changing, becoming too political for her liking. But they were doing their best to keep their integrity last she'd seen.]

[Apparently, their best wasn't good enough once she was struck down. So many things had went wrong...]

How do you know that? Things are different here; there's no politics, no public image to uphold. There are Overwatch agents here, but they are just as displaced as you and me.

We are alone here, Gabriel. Do you really want to face being in a world like this without any help?

They want to further spread Overwatch, banding under a name instead of just a cause.

[The name and symbol had never been what was important, clinging to it as they still were- the fact even Jack was clinging to it again despite protests. It didn't sit well with him, heavy as the amulet around his neck was whenever he thought of it.

Politics or not, they were still acting as if there was a public image-]

I have been already.

Then perhaps they need people there to remind them that Overwatch is more than just a name. Remind them of the cause that brought it into existence in the first place.

If a family is without elders to help guide them, then they are lost.

[Because that's what they were, back in the day. A family, united by bond if not blood. And even in her old age, it still pained her to see any of her family suffering. Gabriel included.]

And how have you been coping with that?

They have Morrison. [Good as that would do, far as he still had his head up his ass.] You as well.

[Which would be better.

They left him, took Jack's side and likely believed everything that dragged the name of a dead man through the mud. Reaper wanted nothing to do with them here.]

I have people I can reach out to.

[Sort of.]

They would benefit from having all three of us there. We were the ones who knew best what Overwatch stood for, and we can remind the others of that.

[She gives a hum of consideration. At least Reaper has people he can rely on. He had a gift for finding allies in the most unlikely of places.]

I won't force you to work with Overwatch here. Doing so with you being unwilling will do more harm than good. But if it came down to it, I would rather be able to consider you an ally than an enemy, without needing a truce to do so.

I know the man who's still behind the mask, and I want to know I can still trust him. Just as I hope he still trusts me.

They'd rather have Reinhardt than me, or anyone else from the original team I'm sure. [Didn't matter if he was the original leader of Overwatch, what mattered was what he did now back home.

Trust was difficult to earn once lost, on both sides.]

Only time will tell. [He wasn't ready, nor was he sure-] Ask McCree for his opinion.

That may be true for now. But, like you said, things change. And whatever you decide, I still would prefer to fight with you rather than against you.

[She could argue him until she's blue in the face, but she leaves it at that. She knows she won't budge, not right now; he always was a little stubborn, had to have time to weigh his options before making a decision. She'd laid her cards on the table for him; offering that support, that olive branch, if he wanted it.]

[The Reaper was free to refuse, of course, and she wouldn't be afraid to fight him as she had in Egypt, but she hoped to appeal to the man beneath the mask.]

McCree is here as well? [That causes her to perk up in surprise. She didn't know he was here... Although, that would be an interesting conversation. McCree had respected Gabriel while she was officially with Overwatch. She wondered what their relationship might be now, although she feared she had an idea of what it might be, based on his suggestion in the first place.]

Edited 2016-10-24 07:08 (UTC)

Here, for now, I have no reason to fight against you. Or them.

[It was as much as he could give at the moment, and it was more than he'd give the others for now. They only had the truce- He had things to think over after this, but they were only for Ana alone.

He tipped his head.]

Somewhere, yes.

[It was all she could ask for right now. She would be sure to speak with Reaper again in the future, but at least they have this understanding.]

[She hums, leaning back in her chair a bit.] I take it you've spoken with him already, then?

[Only a month and some weeks and he's... settled into something, at least.]

I have, yes. Not that he wanted to be in the same area as me at first, but things happen.

And how did that go? [Because considering how his last meeting with people he knew ended up in bullets and fists flying, she's genuinely curious]

We talked. [Things didn't get violent, surprising to even him. There wasn't as much... anger there.

Staring down at the teacup in taloned hands.]

So. Well?

[Ana will give Reaper a light chuckle.]

Better than our last encounter, it sounds like. [A bit of a tease, but also stating an observation there.]

I'll have to find him later, then.

[Reaper snorted, tapping a metal talon lightly against his cup.]

Not as much of an ingrate as I thought he was. [All he'd offer on that.]

Jesse was a handful at first, but he learned to behave. He did have a good man as a teacher, after all.

[Had her teacup been full, this would have been the part where she would take a thoughtful sip.]

Pity that man was left to die. [There was less bite to it, he was... tired of arguing. More so with Ana now than anyone else after that long talk of earlier.

Gabriel Reyes was dead, forgotten. Nothing left in his opinion.]

McCree still tries to do good, in his own way.

[Ana isn't about to argue the point, he knows her position on the matter; he might have been left to die, but she think he's still in there. But there was no point going in circles over this, so while her lips twitch down she doesn't comment.]

He always has. Now that he isn't a wanted criminal, perhaps he'll have an easier time settling here. [She'd heard news stories of his little escapades. Didn't believe most of them, since they were quick to pin blame on him.]

(no subject)

gr1m - 2016-11-02 06:11 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only