TEST DRIVE: JUNE

[simpathis]

— 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!

Comments

[peggy_carter]

She should be able to find a job, every place has employment. In so doing perhaps find a way back to where she belonged, there was too much unfinished there. With Howard's help she'd found her feet again, felt reinvigorated and ready to face the world as herself. A stronger, wiser version but still a Peggy Carter that had been missing for far too long. She would no longer be content to simply take orders for lunch or make runs for coffee, she could do more than file paperwork, and she would.

So, with that mindset it meant she needed to find out what this place was, why it was and how to get out. But there were never free answers, and even if there were those were always suspect.She could find a job, use it to find more information while she supported herself. It wasn't as though she was a woman without skill or resources.

The neighborhood reflected her mood with streets that were easily from Brooklyn in the mid 1940's. The sturdy brick and concrete structures stood sentinel over the paved streets. The occasional window box held small blooming flowers and the aroma of fresh baked bread drifted from somewhere up the street. With such an idyllic setting it was easy to understand how people could nearly miss each other. She had her mission and he had his.

But he did see her.

She thought she heard a memory, something that had repeated in her mind since the crash. One word. Her name in a voice that made her breath hitch and her heart sink.

You don't 'get over' someone like Steve Rogers. You are changed by him, and you live on with that change. He became part of her and she knew that would never allow her to freely love anyone else. There could well be care and companionship, but love, a deep and unrestrained love? No, not again. To know it once and lose it meant that it had the power to catch her off guard in small moments like this and feel the double edged sword of memory.

She stopped, it was foolish but she did it anyway. Peggy turned, her fingers rising up to the compass on a chain around her neck. Dark lashes raised and warm brown eyes swept back along the side street she'd past.

It couldn't be.

She clutched at the amulet and forced herself to breathe, so sure she had forgotten how that she was getting light headed.

"Steve?" It was barely a whisper, a breath of sound. Anything more might shatter the illusion and rob her of even this moment of seeing a vision of him.

[noparachute]

Was it strange that the first chance to see his Brooklyn again was at this unusual planet? The structure was enough to send him back to old memories, back to where he could call Brooklyn home, which was partly why he almost didn't believe that Peggy was really standing right there. Part of him still wasn't sure and Steve already had too many dreams of returning back home with Peggy there to greet him.

It was always so painful to wake up from those dreams.

But he wasn't dreaming though. Maybe the gods of this place decided to pull something on him, it was possible. However, he wasn't about to let that stop him. Not now. Peggy was too important to just ignore.

This wasn't the Peggy that he knew from his own current time, who was aged but still sharp and strong. Even if she couldn't remember that he was alive a good portion of the time, Steve was still glad to see her then. Glad that she had a fulfilling life... She done so much, not that he didn't expect anything less from her. During the war, she was a very important person, someone that supported him through the rough times. Hell, she was that person even before he got the serum.

He wouldn't be here without her, without Bucky. Without Howard and all the other soldiers. Erskine.

But he finally snapped out his thoughts when Peggy said his name. Steve swallowed past the lump in his throat and spoke in an equally quiet voice.

"Missed our dance, didn't I?"

[peggy_carter]

He was not the only one who had dreams, her's had been filled with the things she never got to do and say. There were half answered conversations that had her waking, reaching out into the night for something that wasn't there.

Dreams like that could be punishment, but she was sure she was awake now. And that was Steve Rogers.

Somehow, she wasn't sure, but somehow he was there.

Peggy closed the distance between them, as shocked to see him now as she had been when he stepped out of the chamber after Project Rebirth. A man who could not be who or where he was. And with his sense of humor apparently intact.

"I can't let you go anywhere unattended, can I?"

[noparachute]

"Sure can't. Without you, I end up in an entirely different world that runs on our emotions." He lightly joked, but it was still hard to believe that Peggy was standing right in front of him now. He was afraid that she was still going to disappear on him if he even blinked.

The past few years in the 'present' time was very difficult for him. Nothing was really familiar and he had a hard time adjusting to everything. Sure, technology was fine and the internet was really useful, but it wasn't those things that made him feel out of place. Trying to do the right thing never felt the same when he was working for SHIELD. Well, maybe it made sense, since HYDRA was infiltrated deep inside that organization.

At least his goal was clearer now since he needed to help Bucky and take down the rest of HYDRA, but thinking about calling any place home was still not in the cards for him.

[peggy_carter]

She stared at him as he spoke jokingly back to her. It was really him, flesh and blood before her. Once before she'd not believed her eyes when he was in front of her. A thin, frail man with the heart of a lion had changed dramatically. When he stepped out of Stark's machine she couldn't believe her eyes then and had to reach a fleeting hand to him to reassure herself that he was indeed solid and real. It was have been easy to think he'd been killed or suffered in the project, but he had been real, she'd felt his skin under her fingers.

She raised her hand hesitantly and reached forward, fingertips lightly ghosted over his cheek and jaw. She could have expected him to vanish in a puff of smoke. But he was again real, Steve continued to prove himself beyond any expectation.

"You are real." She laughed, it was awkward and a stifled little thing, but she was at a loss for words. "Steve." She moved, her arms folding around him, her ear pressed to his chest finding comfort in the strength of his heartbeat.

[noparachute]

For a moment, Steve only watched Peggy as she lightly placed her fingers against him, wanting her to do what she wanted to make herself more comfortable. She probably had a similar feeling as him and her words confirmed his suspicions. She was just as stunned to see him, alive and not frozen in the Arctic.

"Peggy..." He wrapped his arms around her, finding equal comfort in just having her in his arms again. The last time they shared a moment like this was the day he disappeared, gone out of her life for over 70 years. Steve left so much behind and even though he didn't regret doing what he did, he still wished he was there for her. For Bucky. For everyone, really.

There was so much he wanted to say to her. Even though he met Peggy in his world, this was just different. She looked almost the exact same as he last saw her. Maybe a haircut and a change of clothes, but those were minor things really. Neither of them looked like they aged a whole lot.

So many questions they probably had for each other, but for right now, Steve just wanted this moment to last a little longer.

[peggy_carter]

He was real, he was real and solid and in her arms. It was nearly enough to make her weak in the knees but his strength bolstered her and she remained steady. It was just beginning to sink in that this might not be the sort of attention or reaction he wanted from her anymore.

Rude or imposing as that might be she had a hard time trying to feel bad about it. She felt more alive in his arms that she had in the year he'd been lost. Saving Manhattan had made her feel purpose again, bringing Steve home had made her feel worthy of being his protector, but being with him now made her feel alive.

"I thought I'd lost you." She held tight, a dozen conversations on letting him go, on why the search needed to be called off, on how some losses, no matter how painful, were noble in war. She heard the arguments, she had even let herself be swayed by them from time to time, but she had never been satisfied by them.

Peggy eased back, her arms slowly moving down to let her hands hold his elbows. Still not yet ready to relinquish the contact but willing to allow a more respectful distance if he wished it. "I'm not usually the sort of woman who throws herself at a man without at least seeing if he would want me to." Dark eyes turned up to him, her own way of asking if he had a reason, maybe a pretty female reason, she should not be so close to him.