empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: JUNE

Entry tags:

!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: JUNE

— TEST DRIVE: JUNE —

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, May 25th and Applications open Monday, June 1st.
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.
IMPORTANT! We have 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? The following emotions will have more effect than usual: hope, despair, fear, and bravery.

• 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.

• 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 latest entry in the hot 'Forgefires' series is about to come out, and lines in front of bookstores are blocking the streets! How will you get to your destination when your path is full of frenzied cosplayers who don't dare move lest they lose their spot in line? You might want to be careful, too—some fans are getting into heated arguments about their favorite characters so things might start literally flying if left unchecked!

• Prompt E: Things have been getting a little gloomy lately, so a group of youths have designed the first ever Verens Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament. Somehow you've won through the lower ranks, and are now a finalist. The state of the city is riding on you (or so they claim), so face your opponent and somehow manage to make this farce exciting enough to lift the moods of the spectators (mostly kids). Just be careful. If you do poorly, you might find a tomato or two thrown at you.

• Prompt F: Welcome to FEAR FACTOR! An exciting new brand of entertainment where contestants participate in various challenges that touch home to the most innate fears humans share. Lying in a pit of creepy crawlies; climb up high, precarious structures; go one-on-one with wild animals—can you handle it? Are you brave enough to go for the 1 million sylv prize? Or will fear cripple you and leave you with nothing!? Only one way to find out! Oh, and one more thing—your emotions will definitely effect everything, so if you're climbing up that rusty, half broken steel tower and it starts shaking, that's probably because you're scared out of your wits. Don't let it crumble!

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include giant cheese wheels and/or bucket of nails.

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

Pepper's unfortunate entrance in the world had caused her to do her best to modernize the fashion of the actual world. Today's casual wear was striped pants, heels and a dress shirt. She was still mourning the crisp lines of her dress suits and the convenience of casual jeans, but she was making due with what she had.

She gestured around them to the brownstones and milk crates. "This isn't me so I assumed it was you." Especially as they were the only two otherworlders in the area. None of the locals would know this sort of scenery.

She naturally assumed this was just the way of the place. She hadn't thought about it being her city generated by her own thoughts. That was how the place worked but as yet she hadn't realized it wasn't based in her own time. Call it the bias of personal involvement but the idea took her by surprise.

"No, no of course not. I'm sorry I hadn't given it a thought." Or she had and that was why things were as they were.

She couldn't help smiling at the comment. She must be new in order to not realize what had happened. "You must have been thinking of something." After all, if she hadn't then it wouldn't have happened. She pushes her bags into one arm and offers her hand. "Pepper Potts."

"As so often I assume I was thinking of home." She turned now and indeed could recognize the subtle flavor of the city she'd adopted as her own. "Brooklyn." She nodded and smiled softly, it was a good place to call home.

"I'm sorry if I've caused you any inconvenience. I hadn't realized how much of an effect I was having. Caught up in memories I suppose." She took the other's hand and offered a firm grip and shake. "Peggy Carter, pleased to make your acquaintance."

"It happens a lot around - " Pepper cuts off in the middle of her sentence. She knows that name. "here." It could be a coincidence. It could just happen to be a person with the same name, but then there's the time variants that occur here. It could actually be the same person, or a variant of her. "You said you're from Brooklyn, New York?" Her curiosity was peeked. She needed to know if this was a younger version of Tony's aunt.

"Of late, yes." She hadn't always been, but it had been her most recent home and the one she felt comfortable calling her own. It felt like a place she could do some good as well as share something of the past. She turned and arched a brow at her surroundings. "Though not just here, I had an apartment on a street like this once. I live outside the main borough now." Howard's home was as graciously situated as it was appointed.

The coincidences were adding up a bit too perfectly. Brooklyn, New York, her name. It was possible that they were from at least similar worlds, and if they were from the same world, well, Pepper got the feeling Tony would want to see her. "This is going to sound like an odd question, but do you know a Tony Stark?"

That was an awkward question. Peggy blinked rapidly and withdrew her hand. The last time she was questioned about Stark things had gotten intense quickly. "I call him Howard, but I do understand Anthony is part of his given name, yes."

Her stance changed, as did her awareness, if this was another agent they were sloppy but potentially dangerous. If she was a dalliance of Howard's looking to track him down, well equally unpredictable there.

She noticed the change in Peggy's demeanor as soon as it happened. She thought she was talking about Tony's father. That was ... awkward; and if Peggy thought she was talking about Howard then it was a sure bet that she didn't know Tony. Which meant that she was probably from before Tony was born; however it also confirmed that she was from the same world as Pepper. As far as Pepper knew Peggy had been a strong force in Tony's life from practically the time he was born. If she didn't know him then he probably hadn't been born yet.

The change in Peggy brought on a lot of questions. Pepper had only really looked up the facts about Howard Stark when she'd started at Stark Industries. The parts that mattered. Now she had to wonder if Howard wasn't a lot like Tony used to be. "At the risk of sounding crazy, what year is it where you're from?"

It was not sounding as crazy as Pepper might have thought, Peggy was coming to realize things were not always what they seemed. Though why that might be of interest, well now there was a question. "May I ask why?" It seemed the next logical question and she was not willing to do all the giving in this meeting.

Pepper frowns, there's really no way of soft coating the situation, but she'll do her best to try. "People don't always come from the same world or the same time. The Tony I'm talking about is Howard Stark's son." She knew it was going to be a major shock for Peggy, but better the initial shock now then when she met him randomly on the street.

Well, that was....news.

"I see." And so she did, and it wasn't long before she puzzled it out herself. "You were trying to understand when I am from by if I knew Howard's son, I presume to make things easier for me." She smiled gently before going on.

"Not to be rude Miss Potts but I've never gotten anything in my life by any gentle easy route. I've worked,and fought and suffered, so please do not feel you need to make things gentle for me to accept them." It wasn't that she was trying to be hostile, she just couldn't abide the idea of such weakness being assumed in her.

"And if you knew Howard Stark the way I know Howard then hearing he has a child would hardly be a surprising revelation."

Pepper pursed her lips, frowning. Peggy was putting a lot more thought into this then needed, but she supposed anyone would in the end. It was strange, contrasting the Peggy Carter she'd heard about from the one standing in front of her, but she could understand why in regards to the potential time period this Peggy Carter was coming from.

"I can't say I know much about Howard Stark other then his work." She's not ashamed of it. There was just never a reason for her to deal with Howard Stark's personal life. Her world had revolved around Stark Industries and Tony, not his father. "And what I know of you is through Tony; so my questions were as much for myself as they were for you."

"So you know Tony then?" Yes, that made sense, and thankfully it was far more comfortable than possibly speaking to the mother of Howard's child.What sort of meeting would that have been? Dear lord, she hoped Howard had married the woman.

"If he is anything at all like his father then he is driven to a fault. He is the most blindly brilliant of his age and no one appreciate that more than he does." A prerogative she has now that might not be shared by her more matured future self.

"Well, that being the case, is there anything I can answer for you, Miss Potts? I hope what you've heard of me isn't that I am a useless female. If so I'll find Howard and wring his neck."

The description was terribly accurate. So much so that it was almost funny. "That sounds like you're putting it nicely." Pepper on the other hand pulled no punches when it came to Tony. Were she to describe him she would have used terms such as frustrating, self destructive and annoying to go with brilliant, caring and underhandedly kind.

"I can't say I've ever heard the term useless and your name in the same sentence before. In fact you're one of the few people Tony ever took an active interest in presents for." By active she meant he told her to make sure it was something tasteful and nice.

"I'm British, it's how we speak. The nicer we are generally the worse we feel." Ask her one day about teaching grown men the alphabet.

"Presents?" Why would... Howard had jokingly said if he couldn't marry her that she would always be like his sister. Perhaps that very idea carried over into his children. At some point in her future she played the old maiden aunt to this Tony. It was enough to make her laugh really, but that might be any number of years off yet so who knew what Howard might see or do in the meantime.

"I'm glad to hear it though, and glad to know I've remained close with the Stark family. For all the faults Howard is a truly wonderful man. He has been there for me a a time when I desperately needed support and strength until I found my own. I feel certain Tony inherited the same traits." She smiled with a bit of nostalgia at Pepper.

"Stark men, don't let them fool you, when you need them, really and truly need them, they will move heaven and Earth to be there for you."

At the description of 'Stark men' Pepper can't help glancing down and smiling affectionately. A warmth comes off her that has nothing to do with the fact that she's still a ticking bomb.

"After over ten years of knowing Tony I've learned that well. For all his faults, Tony Stark is the best man I know." Which was saying a lot with all the bullshit he put ans continued to put her through. Threatening a terrorist and giving his home address, hiding things from her for supposedly her own good - there was a lot to wade through to remember those words were true.

"The trick is to remember that the more obnoxious he is the more worried he is about something; or the more it matters to him." Sometimes she forgot that because Tony had a tendency to be more annoying then nails on a chalkboard, but it never ceased to be true in the end. Obnoxious was Tony's cry for help ... although sometimes it was just Tony being generally obnoxious.

"Another trick, much like children if they go quiet, worry." It was not in a Stark to be happy being still and quiet, they simply weren't wired that way. But the way in which she spoke about Tony begin to pain a picture.

"Does he know?" Given that she hadn't spoken the entirety of the question she could hardly expect Pepper to answer. "Does Tony know how you feel about him?"

"I know the look, when a woman takes a fancy to a man she has a certain glint in her eye. I see yours plain as day." And she was happy for it. Love was too precious a thing to be wasted.

"Very much so." It isn't as if she's trying to hide her and Tony's relationship. Either here or at home. Here people just hadn't asked, and she hadn't felt the need to scream it from the rooftops for any reason. Peggy had actually been the first to directly ask about it at all. "Tony and I have been together for almost a year now; longer for him."

"Congratulations, it's a rare thing to capture the heart of a Stark. The eye is another matter." Howard had passing flings the way others discarded used tissue.

"You seem strong and smart, qualities that will serve you well around such intelligent men."

The comment caused an amused smirk to cross her lips. Catching Tony's eye had never been a problem for anyone of the female persuasion, it was getting to actually know the person he was and not the shell he was portraying that most people never got to do. In some ways it was still true now.

"I have my moments." Pepper knew she was a strong woman and she'd been through a lot. Not the sort of thing that Peggy'd probably been through, but enough. She'd also always been a modest woman though. Not the sort to tout her own praise. Tony already did that enough for both of them, and it never ceased to be incredibly embarrassing. "But you never did answer my question; what year are you from?"

Edited (Accidental tense shift) 2015-06-09 02:25 (UTC)

He was so like his father, but that wandering eye didn't make him less of a good man when the situation called for it. What defined the true value of the Stark men was generally anything but what they showed. She firmly believed that Howard had no idea just how good a man he was, contrary to his arrogant bragging.

"Of that I have no doubt." There were many different sorts of strength, someone like Colleen who worked till she dropped and still went in dead on her feet to the factory despite the men who were looking to take her job. Angie who had defended her and stood up to governmental agencies beyond her reckoning just to help a friend. Mr Jarvis who risked his life, not to mention the wrath of his dear wife, to ensure that the people he cared for were safe. Or a skinny, sickly man who wanted more than anything to give his life for his country. Strength was to be found in unlikely places. "I beg your pardon, when I last checked it was nineteen forty-five."

The answer caused Pepper to press her lips together tightly. That was a far cry before Tony was born, but it was also roughly the year that Stark Industries and, in particular Howard Stark had been under the suspicion of the US Government. Anyone who knew as much as Pepper did would know that particular time by heart.

Still, it was a good point of reference to be sure that Peggy was the Peggy from her and Tony's world rather then another world. She could feel her head starting to hurt at the attempt to deal with temporal theory. Really, Tony would have been better equipped to deal with this then her, Stark Industries dealt if factual theory, not pure theoretical theory. That was what she was good at. "What exactly were the notable events that year?"

"Noteable?" Well then, is the woman wanted to ask her the events of the day there were plenty to go round.

"Let's see, Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term as president of the United States, he died months later in a collapse of his home. The Axis powers were defeated and the war called to an end. Soldiers returned home and life began to return to normal." She watched the woman carefully looking for the slightest hint that this was not what she wanted to hear.

"Oh, yes and there was that time I saved New York and cleared Howard's name of treason."

The general facts were notable, but not as notable as what she was looking for. There was a passive detachment in her active engagement to them. Mostly a slight nod as she listened but never said anything one way or another.

It was the last part that caught her. It was unlikely that such an occurrence would have happened in two separate worlds (at least she hoped that was the case). Instead of noting her thoughts she chose to comment on the action itself.

"A feat I'm sure he forgot to thank you for." Still, the comment was said with more of an affectionate touch and spoken from a place of endearment. As annoying as it was that Tony rarely if ever thanked her for things she didn't really mind it.

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