empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

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!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!

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He's hunched over double, hiding his face so Reyes can't see the red in his eyes, the trickle of water down his cheeks. His gloved hand slides back into his hair as he waits, patient, waiting for the arm to be put back together.

"Maybe not in so many words." He replies, quiet, ignoring how the ghosts are starting to fade as he lets it all out. Like wisps of fog disappearing in the light of the dawn, or shadows extinguishing with a lightbulb's incandescent.
"Might have just asked when you were retirin'. Tried to see if you'd come with me. I keep replayin' that conversation in my head but after all these years the words have changed, you know?"

A pause, and then he looks up.
"But there's one thing I know I wanted, and that was you to come with me. To leave Blackwatch before we had to cross another line we couldn't."

"Never expected to live long enough to retire." Leaning back once he was done with the arm, knocking the cloths he'd used off the table and into the nearby trash. Wasn't going to bother washing them, they'd just been one thing he'd kept around, could get more easily enough. Scraps from something else, really. "Guess I was right."

Gabriel Reyes was dead and there was only the Reaper left behind. All that was left, the ghost of a man left to suffer and die.

He stood up slowly, pointedly ignoring what was left of those shadows as the room was otherwise normal once again. The effects of his own flare of mood all but gone, even the cracks in the floor resealing themselves. "You'd have ended up dead if you had stayed, or worse." Finally deciding that.

Those shadows look more like ones tossed by candlelight, like figures through a fogged glass or the remnants of whiteboard drawings, where one could just barely see what was there before. That was good, he supposed, to be letting out all this grief that he hadn't spoken of for years.

"... Yeah. Might've." He runs his hand over his face, trying to scrub at the tears on his cheeks. He might have ended up dead. Might have ended up worse. Might have ended up like Amelie, might have ended up like... Like Reyes.

"... But maybe I could've saved you from what happened in Switzerland." There it is. All that guilt come to a head. A secret finally admitted. And with a groan like the very earth was shifting on his access, the shadows disappear. They dart out to the four corners of the room, underneath the door and through the window, vanishing as quickly as they came.

"I only survived 'cause I was a coward. I was a young punk you took in and I survived and you didn't because I ran." The confession knocks the wind out of him, and his shoulders begin to shake again.

"It should've been you, Reyes."

His head tilted, forgetting that he had taken his mask off for a moment before catching sight of it on the table again- Right, right. Reaper had taken it off to better work on that arm of McCree's with how delicate it could be to work around those wires-

"It should have been me, for a lot of things." Gabriel Reyes shouldn't have died, not for that. He wasn't done yet and so Reaper was going to finish what was started without mercy. He would clean up, end the sad story that was Overwatch no matter who he had to hunt down and kill, what jobs he'd have to take to get to where he needed to be. To fund this personal mission. Nothing could stop him- nothing back home, here he had to put it on the backburner.

Reaper left the room for just a moment, and soon there was a clean glass of water sat down just in front of McCree. "Here, drink this." Running had been cowardly, wasn't going to argue that, but...

Kid had always been smart, reckless as Jesse was. Hadn't been stupid to run, Gabriel had stayed because he had to try, but everything had blown up in the end.

It should have been him for a lot of things. If the enemy operatives had their way, it would have been him for the grenade that took out Jesse's arm. It should have been him to leave Overwatch, not Jesse. It should have been him that survived, instead of this coward who ran and ran and ran and didn't stop running until he was pulled up short by the news that the man who he considered a father was dead.

And he kept running.

Until he landed here, worn out and exhausted, unable to run anymore. He hadn't caught the sun, but he had faced his shadows, the demons that clung to his back and whispered in his ear what a damn disgrace he was. What a failure, what a fool. What a poor excuse for an operative, what a poor excuse for a son-

"... Thanks..." He carefully takes the water with his newly repaired hand, tries to ignore the way he's still shaking. Whether it's with exhaustion, nerves, or more, he cannot say. Only that he's tired, he's so tired of running. And he's missed the old man in front of him.

"... Reyes, I'm..." A pause, a sigh, and he finally looks him in the eye. They're probably red-rimmed and bloodshot from crying, but that hardly matters now, does it? "... I can't change the past, but... Movin' forward..."

Edited 2016-10-30 02:07 (UTC)

"Forward towards what?"

His posture had tensed a little, not from the eye contact, by from those words alone. The past couldn't be changed, and the only way forwards for Reaper was that one last self-appointed mission that was impossible here. Yet here he was, playing nice and...

Reaper could have very easily left McCree down in Thera, left him to whatever shadows those were and let someone else happen upon him. There were plenty of hero and simply helpful types around here he'd not be down there for long. "You've better chance of that than-" The corner of his mouth twitched at a meow from another room, the padding of paws and, well.

That was an extremely fluffy and white cat interrupting any thought Reaper had been about to express as it climbed onto the couch and stared at the cowboy sitting there. Right. He'd brought the cat with him here.

He can hear the objection in his voice before he even finishes the sentence. Sounds familiar to his ears, just like the tone he'd always get before a good chewing out or a stern lecture on discipline. He braces himself for the argument, to try and formulate his words, to change his mind- But they're interrupted by, of all things, a cat.

A large, fluffy, white cat, with a little ribbon around her neck. She climbs up onto the couch, close enough to McCree that he could pet her, and he can't help the grin that spreads across his face.
"Well hey there, little missy..." Gently reaching out with his right hand, he pets once, then twice when the cat doesn't make any movements to pull away or hiss.

"You know, you did always seem like a cat person." He can't help the chuckle, looking back up at Reyes, and for a moment it feels like old times. Despite the tears on his face and the ruined, decaying skin of Reyes's, it all feels so nostalgic he can't help himself.

"... Movin' forward. I don't. Want to abandon you again."

At least the cat had stayed out of the room with emotions flaring just moments ago. Probably figured it was safe- to rub up against McCree's hand and start purring. How did he end up taking in a cat again? "Can't leave what was clearly a pet wandering the street." That was how, he'd even checked in with where he'd seen the cat before and, well.

Previous owners weren't around any longer, guess people could vanish as easily as they appeared.

"Gabriel Reyes died, McCree." A small gesture towards his face, moving to pick his mask back up. "This is my curse, and you can't abandon the dead." No time to get sentimental.

He looks back at the cat and tries to focus on her when Reyes puts that mask back on. Scratches behind her ears, underneath her chin, listens to the soft purr as she draws closer and starts to settle on his lap. It's an offer he knows that Reyes- that Reaper won't take. And when at one time he would have thought nothing of it, now it almost wounds him. Reyes died, he said, even though McCree could see so much of him still behind that mask. In his actions, in his voice. In the small things, like cleaning out his arm or caring for this cat.

Could still see his old boss underneath all that darkness, and he doesn't want to leave him behind again. He doesn't want to run again.

"... He's still alive under that mask and you and I both know it." He looks up at him again, stares death straight in the face. This is something he doesn't want to back down from.
"I ain't leaving him behind again." It might take time. And Reyes probably won't agree to it instantly- he's stubborn, the damn fool. But McCree makes a promise to himself. As long as he's here, McCree will be doing his best to not leave the man behind. Jack be damned. Overwatch be damned.

He's got to repent for all the mistakes he's made. And he's going to start now.

The cat, at least, is so very happy to just soak up all of that attention. If Reaper brought this person home it must mean something good, right?

"There is nothing alive under this mask, that you saw for yourself." Stubborn, even if McCree may not be as much of an ingrate as he believed. Most things still held true, and he could ignore any feelings that didn't belong with what he was now. "You're talking with whatever's left over from that gunk," so what if most believed this to be a place of second chances? "Sleep it off, I'm not going to make you leave."

The cat's in his lap, settled down, her paws kneading against his knee as he tries to think. The ghosts have been banished for now, but McCree... McCree doesn't want to leave him like this. And it looks like he isn't exactly getting an option. That "sleep it off" sounds like an order to his ears, and he can't help the sad little twitch of a smile that comes to his mouth before he replies.

"Yessir, will do."

Maybe Reyes didn't see anything alive under that mask. Maybe all he saw was his own rot and decay, the constant cycle of life, death, and life building up over and over again. But he's still Reyes under that mask. That... That, he knows.

"... I ain't gonna tell the others about this place, you know."

Of course the cat would take to the ingrate-... Teeth grit behind the mask, taking a moment to sort the new information and, well. No. Ingrate wasn't quite right, not if he could trust any of this, what had been said, was genuine. Remorse, guilt. Reaper would have to think it over for a while.

"You can use the couch, don't have much of a bed in this place." Mostly because he never stayed in the place long, it was more of a temporary safehouse he'd set up within a month. He'd claimed an apartment elsewhere, of course, but this building had been closer.

Shoulders tensed noticeably- "Wouldn't be here by the time they could come calling anyway."

"Slept on worse." He tries to smile, but it falls flat. After he left Blackwatch, he didn't stay in one place for too long. He took whatever random back alley doorstep or abandoned building he could flop down in. Empty boxcars, the tops of trains, whatever he could when he'd stopped running or working for the night. Sometimes, he had enough money scraped together to actually buy a bed for the night, but most nights...

"Don't bother leavin' it behind. I ain't going to tell them. Morrison doesn't need to know." He leans back again, still idly petting the cat in his lap. Winston, too. Ana. None of them needed to know about this place. Or what had happened tonight. Much like what happened many nights in Blackwatch.

"I wasn't ever part of Overwatch anyway. The 'commander' can't give me orders."

"Don't sleep. Much." If he could avoid it. Whatever he was now, this thing, allowed him to go for so very long without rest, so he didn't bother. Reaper performed just as well as if he'd had a full nights rest either way—

He snorted, "This isn't where I've been living." Temporary, only stocked with enough items he could need for laying low for a little while. That was all. "None of them need to know where I am, where I go. Couldn't keep track of me before, smaller as this place is I won't make it easy for them." Reaper was working towards having multiple safehouses, but... Could he trust McCree? Even after what came to light.

"They won't be happy with you. Think you can handle that just for a want to hold onto something you see in me?"

"Yeah, you an' me both..." McCree can't help the way his hand slides back through his hair as he tries to relax. Not easy to sleep when half the bounty hunters in America are specifically targeting you. He frowns, though, at the mention of the rest of the team not being happy with him. True, he supposes it'd hurt Winston to know that he was keeping secrets.

But Morrison? Ana? Both had come back from the dead, and if they could keep their secrets, so could McCree.

"... Yeah, I can handle it. You taught me to be tough, remember?" He idly scratches behind the cat's ears. If there were more here, it might be difficult. And even now, he dreads Winston finding out.

But Blackwatch didn't leave men behind. And he was done running.

His head tilted- "Different reasons. Certain things didn't follow here." His reputation, McCree's bounty. "Some call this a place of second chances." Spoken with a shrug as Reaper finally settled down in a nearby chair, leaning back for nothing else to do. Some tension still there in hi posture, more out of awkwardness and... Well.

Reaper wasn't used to familiar company outside of certain jobs when he was partnered up with someone else. Not that it occurred often whenever Talon came calling with a job offer. He wasn't one of theirs, but it didn't matter did it.

"I taught you a lot of things."

McCree would be lying if he didn't say he was expecting bounty posters with his face plastered on it to show up any day now, blown in on whatever breeze that landed him here. He tilts his head up, leaning back as the cat slowly starts to get off his lap. Place of second chances, huh? Then maybe there was some hope for him and Reyes yet, to patch things up, to...

To prove he'd learned from him. That he wasn't a coward anymore. That he wouldn't run anymore.

"... Yeah, you did." He remembers some of their first lessons together at 17, how tough Reyes had been on him. How all it did was make him want to work harder. "Remember you taught me how to fight better with the bionic. An' how to use my head instead of lettin' my anger lead." He can't help the grin. It feels like another lifetime entirely. Maybe it was.

It was another "Reaper" most whispered about in this place, and what he'd heard about it himself.. well. Almost sounded like him in a few ways, all the more reason to keep low and keep from getting restless. Here? Reaper had no reputation, he was just someone who dressed strangely and always wore a mask. Took up jobs and-

... Reaper was helping people, wasn't he? Some little thought that had hung in his mind for weeks.

He was careful as he scooped the white cat up and set her in his own lap, the ball of fluff purring just as loudly as he scratched beneath her chin. "Knew first hand where anger during something could lead," like it had most of his unlife now. What else did he have? "Might need to hold tight to a few of those lessons here."

He knows nothing of the other Reaper, not even whispers on the wind. Blind to this strange, new world and all the effects it has on him. Perhaps that's why he's still sitting here, exhausted from all the ghosts he had run from, feeling more like a boy back at the Blackwatch base than he ever did in years.

It almost seems odd, seeing that owl-like mask on his face as his hands move to pet the cat. As he listens to those words of warning. For a moment, it feels like he should be seeing Reyes again- not the half dead, necrotic face behind his mask, but the face of the man that he buried. The face that... He knows is still there, even despite the decay and the shadows.

"... 'd be honored to work with you again, sir."

"We'll see about that." Working with McCree again after so long, some twisted little feeling remaining buried. The only sort of work Reaper would be interested in here was mostly those that sent people off to fight. Beast Hunter's Guild or something like that- easier to just move the animals elsewhere than kill it like wanted.

Animals here were just as strange as just about everything else.

There was still something that didn't fully trust the cowboy, years of living like he had -the thoughts- would make it difficult. Maybe that was for the better, left less room for betrayal if he was already expecting it.

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TEST DRIVE: NOVEMBER

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