empatheias_ooc | TEST DRIVE: JANUARY

Entry tags:

!mod,
*test drive

TEST DRIVE: JANUARY

— TEST DRIVE: JANUARY —

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 Friday, December 25th and Applications (Canon | OC) open Friday, January 1st.
OC Reminder! Just a quick reminder that original characters are currently 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: A new card game is sweeping through the streets of Verens: "Magica Ex Arehtei." Players take on the role of an Otherworlder and form battle decks out of minions, monsters, dunamis, and even the Arehtei themselves. It’s insanely complicated in its details, but this hasn’t stopped a seller from handing you a starter deck and all but pushing you into a chair to face an opponent… who may have just been conscripted themselves.

• Prompt E: After a long period of quiet (something about ‘emotional and physical harm to Empatheias’ and ‘manufacturing plush weapons without a Class E(X) license’), toy manufacturers have flooded merchant stalls and storefronts with a new offering, the hyper-cute stuffed Thras. No negative emotions, they promise! Plush Thras is so full of bravery, he’ll inspire anyone who holds him to new heights of courage and valor!

Naturally, magiscience has gone too far, and picking up the doll instills you with vigor, energy, and fearlessness past the point of recklessness.

• Prompt F: Thundersnow! A phenomenon in which a snowstorm is accompanied by lightning and thunder, and not a terribly uncommon one in Empatheias. But today’s thundersnow is more like an apocablizzard -- lighting lashes through the sky and lances down to catch buildings and trees with its fury, all hidden behind whirling sheets of billowing snowflakes that have blanketed the city in a foot of snow with no sign of stopping.

The outside is cold, windy, miserable, and potentially dangerous. Are you trapped in a building you didn’t expect to be in? Or perhaps you’ve joined up with an emergency emotion squad, trying to impose calm or cheer on the raging storm?

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include lumps of coal or moose.

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

[There's an equal sigh from Lalli's end. You guys are all hopeless.]

Okay.

[That's agreeable, at least, because it definitely isn't an issue for him. Off he goes! Expecting to go more than halfway, honestly, because he's the faster of the two and, well, it was what he did.]

...What would you do if you saw a moose?

[Lalli will probably have to go more than halfway, because Emil is equally hesitant and just, you know, too whiny to move too far from where he's already stopped. He might wander about in the same area, just for something to do, but.

... moose talk again.]

Turn around and leave, I suppose.

Hm.

[Good, that's a more than acceptable answer. He falls into silence, but it's one that's comfortable and there's the sentiment that he wouldn't be okay if Emil was attacked by a moose.

That was something he liked about the telepathy, really. He never knew how to put those kinds of thoughts into words.

Lalli continues to share the occasional snippet of his adventure, images he must feel make proper landmarks, though there is one more ugly rat sent over. Finally, though, he returns to one of his earlier spots and catches sight of Emil.

Hello. You look dashingly not-dead today.]

[Oh, hm. A comfortable silence is much more like the usual not-conversation Emil is accustomed to, where Lalli is concerned - and somehow it's almost preferable to being able to use words. He's already gotten uppity about moose, how... embarrassing.

With that and the few more images (that still mean almost nothing to him), he more or less gives up on trying to leave his spot. The last thing he wants is to wander off and have them both going in circles, just missing each other, so. That's his excuse.

He's squinting at Lalli's landmark in this particular area when the weird rat whisperer finally arrives. Emil glances between him and the scenery once, twice-] Oh. I knew it was this one.

[PRIDE... and then, with a gesture toward himself,]

Look, I'm completely moose-free.

Mrh.

[Yes, yes, he's very proud, and nods to communicate as much -- which was really just as unusual as using actual words, for him. He was more used to moving to disagree, rather than being affirmative.

...After a few seconds, Emil will have to deal with that annoying hum and the warmth from his crystal again as Lalli attempts at another mental communication with the question,] What were you doing while I was gone?

[Emil makes a face, first surprised and then unsure why they're still going to do this the annoying way when they're right in front of each other--but, mm, it's Lalli. That's all the explanation he needs to give himself, somehow. He'll still sigh about it, but go along with a shrug.]

Minding my own business and being harassed by strangers! Everyone here is so--persistent about their toys and feelings and whatever. I truly don't care!

[He's been Suffering.]

[And that kind of reaction is why you're his friend, Emil.

Lalli's lips twitch the slightest bit at the edges, and his eyes somehow focus even more now that there's a touch of amusement in them. He really shouldn't have expected anything else.]

Aha.

[Without much ado, he plops himself onto the ground, apparently comfortable enough with the immediate area even though there were so many things wrong and disquieting with this new world as a whole. Despite that, the fact that Emil shares this point of view (albeit in a louder manner) gets the faintest of reactions, the air around them warming.]

I don't like it, either.

[Emil gestures pointedly as if to say See?? It's terrible, but it turns out he's Not Done either,] And what else happens? After these people bombard me with their stupid questions and try to throw those dumb little toys in my face, even the sidewalk is out to get me!

[He makes a face, stricken; a brief image of a loose stone tripping up a perfectly innocent passerby blips through, totally devoid of any indication that Emil realizes his hissy fit about the strangers was the cause of this. And now that he's doing it again the breeze picks up slightly, at least until he deflates and looks politely embarrassed instead.]

People saw.

[Even without a language barrier and Lalli discovering an easier method of talking to others, he hasn't quite grown out of his habit of intently staring at people, and so now Emil is subjected to that, on top of everything else.]

I ignore them. They're weird.

[With their emotion...magic things. Which Lalli has what he apparently thinks is a helpful observation about to share at the ready.]

Stuff happens around you more. [Than him, is the implication.]

[Nnnnh, must he. Emil is more used to Lalli staring now than he was the first time (or several times), but he still lasts only so long before he looks away to, ahem, look at their surroundings. Definitely.]

Oh, wonderful, it's noticeable.

[But that's not Lalli's fault, so, after a pause-] They are weird. And pushy!

[If only Tuuri were here to forcibly correct his behavior, huh?]

Mrrh...

[Definitely pushy. Unbidden, a mental image of Sigrun appears. She was really the closest thing he had to compare their behavior to, a lot of the time. He doubted he would ever really understand why she did what she did, even if there would be no need for translation.

A questioning pulse goes over their connection. Emil got along with Sigrun, though, didn't he?]

[Tuuri could set this hot mess express back on the right tracks. Just look at them.

Emil blinks, surprised by the image. Rather, he's surprised by how quickly Lalli has taken to this telepathy thing, while he still feels bogged down by the logistics of thinking something to another person. It just doesn't feel natural.

But the image itself gets him to laugh aloud, quickly putting a hand over his mouth to stifle it. He does get on surprisingly well with Sigrun, despite her being a noisy Norwegian weirdo--]

There's only one of her!

[Maybe one day. And maybe one day he'd get around to explaining Weird Mage Shit that made the concept of sharing one's mind easier for him to accept.

In the meantime, Lalli blinks and returns to his staring, a little puzzled but... This was good, that Emil was laughing. Probably? He didn't really understand, because he'd been serious about the question, but it was still better than loud sulking.]

Good point, [he concedes, and he's a little grateful he was right. It was hard to tell, sometimes.] I think these people hit less, though.

[For him, at least. His poor noodle arms...]

[That was a serious answer! Mostly. If there were 80 Sigruns all in the same town square, he'd have a problem, but just one? She's fine.

It's at this point that Emil feels strange still standing while Lalli stares at him from the ground, so with only a little shuffling and trying too hard to act casual, he finally takes a seat next to him. That's better.

As for Sigrun's hair-trigger slapping...] I... think that's how she shows approval. Maybe.

[She's already saved his life enough times that he's willing to endure as many unnecessary slaps on the back she's inevitably going to give, which is not something he can express in words, even in thought words, so he tries to just... think the general concept in Lalli's direction.

And he shrugs.]

[Out loud, Lalli makes a thoughtful noise, looking over to Emil and then down to his hands. The approval thing he still doesn't get (though he can accept that as fact if that's what Emil thought it was -- he was the one with the friendly punches, after all) but the other thing... That one makes sense to him, probably more than it would have if Emil had tried to actually put it in words.

Absently, he reaches over and tucks some of the other's hair back into place from where it had been mussed up at the wind earlier.]

I wonder if it's better to make the pushy Empatheians not approve of us. They might ignore us faster.

[Emil takes the hair-fixing as a sign he's explained himself thoroughly enough, somehow, with this impossible mental talk thing - or at least enough for Lalli to understand, which is the point. He gives him a brief, small smile before his expression grows more serious, and then--

well, how does one make their mental voice sound more low and conspiratorial... give him a moment, then,]

Or we could ignore them first and not do anything weird.

[Because that's been working well so far.]

[...Yeah, no, that's earning Emil a flat stare.]

We've been doing that.

[Or at least he had been.]

[Excuse you rat boy.]

You were up a tree!

[Give him a second to follow along, because he's pretty sure staring at a cat-sized rat didn't interfere with his ignoring of the locals.

Ah. It was the other thing.]

That's not weird.

[Guess which thing Emil cares more about between vague annoyance and his Reputation. No points.]

No, it was very weird. I'm telling you this for your own good.

[that's dumb tho]

Psshh.

[It's a hiss, though not a sharp one, just a signal of his disagreement and the irritation that came with it. He's about to point out that it isn't exactly the first time Emil's seen him climb a tree and hang out there a while, but then he remembers that the other teen had seemed pretty distressed over that time, too. For some reason.]

They didn't see me in the tree.

[are you saying he's dumb]

You can't spend all of your time in trees.

[Matter-of-factly, like this is a perfectly reasonable and necessary conversation to have. He's not entirely unconvinced otherwise, honestly, considering...]

Fine, what was your idea?

[maybe]

I'm not. [There's a stubborn indignation there. He's very much on the ground right now, after all!

At Emil's question he sighs loudly and falls back, hands folding over his stomach.] I don't know how to make people not like me enough to stop bothering me. It just happens eventually. Mostly.

[The expedition crew was an exception, and it's possible that was due to Tuuri's intervention. Or maybe just the fact that they were forced to occupy the same space so often.]

They like emotions. You could try not doing...that.

[That's normal, right?]

[Ah, that's the most words Lalli has ever said at once since they've met. How exciting. And they're not even technically being "said"-- Regardless, Emil scoffs like he's going to protest some more about exactly how much time Lalli spends in trees, but the rest gives him pause.

He doesn't really get either of those points, for one reason or another. He's confused and kind of bothered enough for that breeze to pick up again, this time ruffling his hair enough that he reaches up to hold it down himself while sorting through his thoughts.

First of all,] Ooookay, that plan is very dumb, no offense. Everyone has emotions.

[Like, what is he supposed to do, take out his feelings batteries? Be reasonable, Lalli.

... And a longer pause follows that, as Emil can't quite figure out whether he's overstepping a boundary somewhere by fussing over Lalli's casual acceptance of people disliking him and leaving - or encouraging this to happen?? Why?

hmph!!]

... I like you. We're friends, are we not?

[He shrugs, which is a little awkward from his position on the ground, and raises a hand to gesture vaguely at the air and start to point out again that these things didn't happen that much around him when --

Ah. Um.

Lalli's back to staring, now, his own silence more like a train screeching to a halt, as paradoxical as that was. The nearest tree creaks and groans, though there's something...assuring about it, rather than the protesting it would normally sound like. Its branches extend themselves ever so slightly, like they're reaching out. Like reaching out wasn't so bad, maybe.]

...I think so. Yes.

[Still an uncertainty there. It was weird to admit, even if he basically already had to Onni.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject