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 Wednesday, February 22 and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on March 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 rainbow colored paint darts are back and "improved." The colors match those of the Arehtei, so purple is anger and calm, orange love and hate, pink joy and grief, etc. There are two different versions of these guns:

Emotion Seeking. The darts will actually seek out those who match the negative emotion of its type. So if there is a pink dart, it will seek out someone who is currently feeling grief. When hit, the intention is to make them feel the more positive emotion and thus hopefully improve their mood. Keyword: intention. Sometimes it can just make it worse…
Random Target. The darts are completely random and will hit whoever the gun is aimed at. Again, the intent is to help spread positive feelings, even make a happy person feel even happier! But like the other type, it can make it worse instead.

So either grab a gun or be an unwitting target. Note: it's possible to be hit with more than one dart, so have fun with that.

• Prompt E: There is a new type flower that has started to bloom around the island. No one knows its origins, but its scent is so wonderful and colors so vibrant that they are already spreading all over town. However, researchers have discovered something alarming: the flowers are actually absorbing the emotions of those around them and are related to the plant that had produced the apathy toxin from a few years ago. While locals can help collect those already in town, help is needed in destroying and containing the plants out on the island.

Kill it with fire. Best way is with fire, so grab a torch and help produce some controlled fires. Of course, if it goes out of control, you'll want to put it out fast. There is one side effect to this method. The ash and smoke released from the flowers contain all the emotions they have absorbed, so there may be some unwanted effects happening around the environment. Maybe even influencing your emotions.
Deadly aroma. The sweet scent actually carries a type of toxin that relaxes the mind and muscles, making the victim feel so calm that all they want to do is just sit there and continue to be with the flower. Sounds innocuous until you realize that it's just a way for the flower to drain out the emotions to a complete apathetic state. When it's just one or two, it's not as harmful, but when you're in a field of them… Just be careful and wear the mask. Otherwise, you may find yourself lying in the flowers forever. If you see someone in this state, get them out quickly!

• Prompt F: Interior designers have been hard at work designing new things to make homes, buildings, and even the area outside of those two look vibrant and ecstatic, and their newest creation is flooring that responds to your feelings! The color and design will change to match how you’re really feeling at the time… or most of the time it will. They’re being shown outside in wide-spaces, to get as many people to test them and enjoy them as possible, and the color and design is based on what the person standing on them associates with that feeling.

Mismatching. While most of them will, in fact, work as advertised, there’s a good portion of them that will actually show a random color and design—for example, if you’re happy to see someone, maybe it’d normally be yellow with a lot of hearts! ...But in this case, maybe it’ll be red with a lot of storm clouds, as if you’re angry and upset to see them.
Holesome fun. Younger locals have made a game out of these floors as well : one person holds up a card with a certain color and design (you decide), and the person on the tile has to match it exactly, using whatever emotions they can to try and manage it. For example, blue with flowers. Of course, it’s a little harder if you happen to be standing on one of the mismatched ones… Adding to the pressure is a time limit: if you can’t manage it in five minutes, the tile the person’s standing on will actually break and they’ll fall through the ground, thanks to certain nanobots’ rising popularity. Don't worry, you'll be helped out. Or stuck there to be laughed at.

• 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

[Prompt C]

[After no small consideration, and but two attempts to marshal her thoughts into order:] So is it that we live with fewer secrets here, or do we just find better ways to keep them? [Everyone has secrets; she'd not insult through insinuation otherwise. Rather she thinks of Nyx looking silently at a photograph, and then a van driving toward her vantage, slowly. Secrets.] If it's a matter of forgetting the important details, I'd want a head start on the training.

[Prompt D]

[One solid tap from the dart gun of a stranger is enough to convince Crowe to go about similarly armed. Not that she makes a habit of firing these things at just anyone. Circumstances as they are, though, the hiss-click of darts fired leaves her jumpy and irritated, and then even more bothered that it's gotten to her and it shows. As she can't see the spread of deep blue paint across the back of one shoulder, the distrust and suspicion seems to grow on its own, chasing her with the smell of ash in the air and faint, blooming scorch marks along the walls she passes.

Approaching a corner, Crowe hefts the dart gun in one hand (all right, it hasn't much heft, but there are words you use for this sort of thing) and stops, listening. Someone is there, she's certain. Probably someone come to shoot her. It ought to seem like harmless fun, the first hit certainly didn't hurt much, yet the longer she waits and strains her ears the more grounded her conviction that an ambush awaits her and it will be grisly.

Which means she's going to turn that corner, aim, and shoot whoever-it-is first. It's no knife and definitely no working spell, but it will have to do.]

[Prompt E - a]

There sure is a lot of firepower around here. [Says Crowe to no one special, snorting and shaking her head at her audience of vibrant flowers. The torch in her hand doesn't hold a candle to what she could do just days ago, but idleness hardly becomes a Glaive, and the others are around helping somewhere. She thinks it a shame to put so much beauty to fiery rest, all on the word of someone else that it's too dangerous to keep.

But a job's a job. As she walks the perimeter of a meadow, one foot brushing petals and pollen and the other leaving no track in a firebreak, her boots grow dusky with dirt and ash. That, at least, is familiar enough. The mask over her nose and mouth hide both curiosity and frustration; she pulls down her makeshift hood against the heat of small blazes. Crowe works the torch and path with practiced motions, periodically grabbing the water buckets left nearby to stop anything from spreading too quickly. Wouldn't want the whole place to go up at once, spread into town, turn the home into a hearth. Around her are what she can only call mages, who need no buckets or no torches or both, sometimes.

The wrenching in her gut over that, the echo of memory and pain with it, are less than they have been. Hard to believe it dimmed after such a tiny span of days.]

At least this scent beats a city's burning. [Ash it may be, but it carries no smoked meat and no screams. She thinks nothing of the mask's improper fit, nor of her own knocking it askew to wipe her face. Soon enough she's grinning as she works, and then laughing, not taking any care at all with whether the flames that spring up where her torch brushes the leaves stay contained or run rampant. If anything, her strange joined bubble of elation and ire only feeds the local blaze, adding breeze to stir its fervor up a bit.]

[Wildcard]

[Do your worst?]

[[Please forgive some delays in response in these first few days, as I am out of town and borrowing computer space to poke around here a bit!]]

[ Gladio's not certain whether or not that he should count himself fortunate that he's gotten so good at dodging projectiles aimed in his general direction. While it's a useful skill to have, he wouldn't mind it happening a little less often.

At least his defensive instincts kick into high gear quickly. A simple trip out for supplies this morning had not been planned with an ambush in mind but when a figure rounds a corner and aims a weapon at him, he reacts immediately. His shield is raised, sword called in to his main hand and he launches himself forward in automatic counter-attack.

Only to pull himself short when he realizes he recognizes the person shooting at him and... well, that's not right. ]

Crowe? What the hell?

[You want to have a go, Crownsguard?

Seems he must, as he's drawn the sword and raised the shield and that is a charge forward. So she was right, an ambush awaited her around the next corner. It just wasn't the sort of ambush she expected.

No matter. Crowe drops the dart gun, ignoring every memory of lectures over not letting go of your weapons in such situations. She won't be able to defend herself properly with fussy paint-covered projectiles. Instead she draws her knife and braces herself to meet the oncoming charge...with a proper dodge. She isn't fool enough to think she can take a sword of that size and momentum head-on, so she ducks and rolls away despite the final swing never coming.

When she's on her feet again, knife raised, she scowls at him. At least she managed to stay between him and the dropped gun. There's a chance he'd try to use it on her otherwise.]

Same question.

[ Why is this a question, Crowe? Have you met him? The answer to that is always a resounding 'YES', if usually not in this context.

When he realizes it's her, he vanishes his weapon immediately, even as part of him watches the grace and force of her own dodge in approval. Not missing the fact that she's drawn a dagger - in addition to the fact that she'd tried to shoot him - he keeps his shield in place for the moment. His free hand he holds up in a placating gesture, an apologetic wince twisting across his features. ]

You surprised me, sorry. Wasn't expecting anyone to come around the corner with a weapon aimed at my face.

[ That rarely boded well, after all. Maybe once he would have been able to laugh off the attack as play and not reacted as he had, but after weeks on the road, not knowing who they could trust, that had changed. ]

....Why did you come around the corner with a weapon aimed at my face, by the way?

[Because most of the people she has faced or trained with directly are about his height, give or take, and it was actually aimed closer to his neck or collarbone. He probably doesn't care. Crowe's scowl grows a brief sneer before hardening into stony appraisal, while the weeds near her feet begin to turn sooty and smell of burning. The wall nearest also picks up some deeper scorch marks at its base.

He looks sorry enough. Surprised enough.]

I didn't expect you to be around this corner. [No word yet on whether this is better or worse than her expectations.] I've already been shot once.

[Twice. Crowe flinches.]

It's not happening again if I can head it off.

[For all they are harmless little darts and some garish paint...that's not the point. That isn't the point at all and she grinds one heel into new ashes.]

[ At the mention of being shot, Gladio instantly goes alert, angling himself in such a way that he puts himself in front of her even as his gaze immediately starts searching their surroundings. ]

You were shot?

[ That's a different matter altogether and enough of a reason to switch fully into defensive mode, keeping himself between her and whatever threat might be lurking nearby. ]

Did you catch any glimpse of who it was?

[Hah! Crowe looks like she wants to make just that noise, for a moment, a bitter and unwholesome single laugh. Did she see him? On approach, or with the gun pointed at her, or in the moments before he fired, or the ones after where everything was someone screaming and his traitorous sneer?

...Then she realizes he's talking about right now, and acting like there's a sniper around.]

Yeah, a face I didn't recognize. [Crowe'd spit if she felt like explaining why. Instead she crouches, picks up her dart gun, pokes at its trigger.] With one of these. Different color paint, though. Don't ask me why.

[Reluctant as she is to turn her back to anyone, she angles herself enough to show the splatter of blue paint on the back of her jacket, right across one shoulder. She's sure it'll stain and be a pain in the ass for the rest of forever.]

[It takes Noctis a moment to place the voice - he matches the name to it eventually, but he is still acquainting himself with Crowe. But with time will come familiarity, of course.]

Both. Kind of. [He's very helpful.]

Thanks, that's the most helpful thing I've heard all day. [Which is both untrue and riddled with sarcasm, not to mention something she didn't intend Noctis to hear. At all. Ever. ...This will take work, huh?]

Uh...sorry (I guess)? [She is not sorry for having thought unhelpful things but might need to be sorry for thinking them at the small and unfamiliar king. Probably.] The more I think about it the stupider the question sounds anyway, so what should I expect?

[...That was also an accident. Were they speaking in person she might wear a momentarily mortified stare above the nose.]

I should just shut up and save myself the embarrassment. [While that was intentional...she isn't sure how to tell whether Noctis or anyone else can still hear her or not.]

[What she gets in return is a sense of laughter - his amusement, like many of his feelings, is more effusive in thought than his laughing generally is aloud. Sarcasm doesn't bother him and if she had not followed it so quickly with the rest, he would have responded in kind.]

Don't apologize. It's fine. Besides, I've heard stupider.

[Definitely also asked stupider questions before but not across the network yet at least]

[In this case being laughed at is probably the best of many choices. Crowe responds with unintentional hesitant amusement.]

So how might you not let stupider loose for the world to hear?

[Over the course of the day she has heard...enough stray things to let herself presume 'everyone' can also hear her. But is it everyone close by? Everyone living in town? Everyone awake?

The confusion is also a bit audible, as it were.]

[There's a kind of mental impression of a shrug]

Uh... practice? Try not to think at the amulets or very loudly?

[Honestly, he isn't... all that sure. When he'd asked someone, he'd pretty much been told ~~by an FFXIV OC no less~~ to git gud.]

[She wants to roll her eyes, physical and mental, at the idea of thinking at something, but he's right. She thinks a handful of gone-unsaid things at people often enough, so why not jewelry?

Crowe shrugs back, to no one, with her real shoulders.]

Even whispering in your thoughts is pretty loud. [But he makes it sound like thoughts that pass by too quickly to be solid, or only make themselves known properly later on, aren't going to fling themselves into the minds of every passerby. Good.] Too bad I can't make it work like magic does. Did.

[Oh. All the regret, all at once, and too strongly to rein in before it leeches around.]

Crowe Altius | FFXV: Kingsglaive

D is for Dodging?

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C for caw caw & assuming not first meeting

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C for YELP?

This thread brought to you by the letter OH NO

I would apologize but. CROWE!

I need to hug this king

AW. All the blankets for Reggie, he tried.

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