Empatheias Events (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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memepatheias2019-12-18 05:55 pm
empevents) wrote in memepatheias2019-12-18 05:55 pm
Entry tags:
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:- Pre-Intro Log. For the Test Drive, we are using parts of it as a "pre- intro log," which means not only can players go ahead and use the prompts as if the character is arriving into the game for the first time, but this setting will be adapted and continue in the official Intro Log. For TDM purposes the prompts are a little more generic and vague than what will be on the actual Intro Log, but they're relatable enough that can be easily transferred to the official log with a few minor tweaks. For those who do end up applying and entering into Emp, these threads are considered "forward dated" to the Intro Log.
- Date reminders. Reserves open December 25th and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on January 1st. Apps will only be open for four days! Because we're on a bi-monthly schedule, the next app cycle after this is MARCH.
- Emotions are key! Empatheias's 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. 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 to collect their emotions and serves as the network device. Remember, communication is telepathic, but it works basically the same as most other network devices.
- First or third person allowed. Your threads can be in either first or third, but we'd advise being flexible about it. If you have a preference, be sure to specify. 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.
- For your threads, put the Character Name and the Canon in the subject line to help readily identify them. You're 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!
• Prompt A: How about giving the emotions a try? Is your character feeling particularly wound up upon finding themselves in a new place? Or perhaps they're finally getting to live out the fantasy dream and are overjoyed! Or they just stubbed their toe and are in a lot of pain. Whatever it may be, this prompt is your catchall "let's try these emotion effects out" for any miscellaneous situation you may think up.
• 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: It's winter in Verens, and the festivities are alive with some new gimmicks. As always, emotions come into play, so be careful where they take you! Try not to destroy the city.
- Beware the Snowmen: Do you wanna build a snowman? All snowmen are affected by the emotions around them, and it doesn't take too much to make them come alive. They have imbibed different emotions around them, so you'll find lovey-dovey snowmen who have no respect for personal space, snowmen jumping up and down with joy, sad melting snowmen, and irate snowmen trying to lob their coal and carrots at you. A few snowmen have managed to get hold of murderous tendencies and will now try to kill you when you pass by. Good luck? It's kill or be killed.
- Bittersweet Chocolate: For those looking for a way to warm up, many cafes have begun to offer hot chocolate which is said to be the best in all of Verens. It tastes delicious, with the right amount of sweetness...except to those who hide their true attitude or personality behind a facade. To people who aren't true to themselves, the hot chocolate will taste terrible depending on how much they conceal, not feel. It'll also burn their tongues pretty quickly no matter how long the chocolate has been sitting around.
• Prompt E: Candles of Remembrance for Selenium, a holiday for mourning and grief, are always going through different changes for each year and the prototypes are distributed to see if it works. Normally, when lit, the candles create an image of a person sorely missed, whether they are dead or still alive. But something went wrong with the candle-making process this time. Various scents and aromas were infused into the candles to help improve moods, but the complete opposite is happening.
- Well, This Stinks: No images are produced from the smoke and flames, but instead, they exude horrible and disgusting smells from memory. They can range from recent events like burned cookies from last week, or the stench of a bloody battlefield from years past. The scent of the candle depends on the character lighting it, so everyone will be able to smell whatever they smell from it. It's very strong, so it's possible someone could actually feel nauseous either immediately or from prolonged exposure. But that's not all. The aroma will elicit varying feelings of regret, disgust, hatred, rage, and overdramatic despair.
- Counter Whiff: On the other end, a different kind of aromatic candle is producing far more pleasing scents, but it's way too strong. It's like getting a bottle of strong, "mature" perfume shoved up one's nose. The scents from these candles have even stranger effects, such as actually knocking someone unconscious; soothing them to sleep right on the spot; or even have strange hallucinations believing that the person in front of them is the one from their memories. The candles also make those affected strangely happy with extreme exuberance, and the emotion effects from their displays of joy are just as extravagant.
- Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Both candles have a troublesome side effect: their scents attract a variety of wildlife from the woods. Deer, skunks, chipmunks, foxes, all sorts of birds, you name it, they've begun to invade the city and zero in on those lighted candles, lingering around them or worse, actually taking the lit candles, which can (and will) potentially start fires. The fires can be put out normally, but strangely enough, after they go out, it is as if the affected structures and items were never burned in the first place. Now they just reek of candle scent. Attempts can be made to remove the scent, but it'll take either a lot of scrubbing or somehow creating emotions that produce a more pleasant scent.
• Prompt F: Boreas, or winter, is in the air and this month the city suffered from a number of wintery effects, partially due to the Arehtei Peromei. Some like the blizzard and mistletoe could be considered typical holiday fare. The werewolf flu sweeping the city, not so much, but that still hasn't stopped the citizens of Verens from celebrating the holiday season. [Note: Scenarios pulled from our current event, and the full details can be read here. Due to the timing, these threads cannot be carried over into the game.]
- Hibernation: A despair filled blizzard has taken the town by storm, bringing a strong urge to hibernate with it. Characters with strong negative emotions will be hit the hardest, but most everyone will feel the urge to take a nap right then and there at some point. There are ways to ward off the emotionally induced drowsiness though as roving bands of carolers seek to keep people's eyes open and spirits light. In addition a number of hope infused lanterns have been strung throughout the city to guide travelers to safety and keep them from dozing off in a nearby snowbank.
- Mistletoe:t's not just the snow either, the town is also plagued by a particularly invasive species of mistletoe brought to the island by Peromei. To citizens' dismay, it isn't ordinary mistletoe or even ordinary magic mistletoe. No, instead this awful plant that lurks in corners and on ceilings is influenced by a combination of Peromei's and Elios's influences to make it aggressive and mobile. It now prefers to slither around and attach itself to moving targets. Once attached to someone, it induces a terrible longing for the sort of love and affection one secretly hopes for the most -- anything from a simple hug to a mom to fuss over you to a new friend you can always have lunch with -- and it won't let go until its victim has found someone who can fulfill that longing.
- Wereflu: In addition to the mistletoe and blizzard, there's also the aforementioned werewolf flu sweeping the city. Thanks to a foolish researcher, the infected are suffering partial or in some cases full transformations into wolflike creatures. The main cure for it is positive attention as like the mistletoe, the afflicted will be driven to seek it out and the more they get, the sooner they'll be back to normal. If left unchecked, it can lead to more feral aggressive behavior, so Otherworlders and natives alike have been warned to be cautious when attempting to help those affected.
• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include paper snowflakes and/or cinnamon.
no subject
Ugh, do you have to use that word? Seriously? It's so gross.
[It's an overblown reaction, but still keep your hopes to yourself sis, they're gross. Plus, she already probably knows what they are, so it's boring to hear something she already figured out a while ago!]
But I don't have anything I need you to do right now. It'd just be asking for trouble to have you do something when you can't go five minutes, no five seconds without being an emotional disaster on top of being a regular disaster.
[Though despite it being a gross word, if Junko does hope, she'd hope that Mukuro noticed the emphasis on the word now. But Junko will also despair over her not getting it, so she'll be clear about it.]
Don't worry though, even if you're flat, stupid, smelly, ugly, disappointing, dull, and a total pervert, I'll still find a use for you. After all, we're family, right?
no subject
[In some ways, it shouldn't have surprised her that the word 'hope' was enough to upset her sister...but, well, they were Despair after all. There was no room for hope, at least not for them.
She did pick up on that hint, though. Mukuro knew she needed to be ready for whenever Junko needed her.]
Alright, I'll stay on standby, then. And I'll try not to be an emotional disaster...
[She paused a moment at the last comment, before smiling a little, the despair temporarily lessening.]
Yeah, we are... you know, when I'm dressed like this we do kinda look like twins, don't we?
no subject
You're seriously asking that? Didn't I just say something about being gross? Pretty sure I did...
[But that's not a no. She won't say it, but she's in despair over it because to say otherwise would be such an obvious lie.]
no subject
[That sure was a reaction. She really wasn't sure what exactly was causing her sister to despair like that - after all, there was no way Junko would ever consider herself gross.
Still... perhaps if she wasn't such an ugly disappointment, maybe they would look more like twins.]
no subject
[She's not going to dwell on it for too long anyways, it's super boring if she does. And since her feelings have shifted to something else, the color's restored! Hooray?]
But yeah, do your best to get settled in here, you might be around for a while.
no subject
I will...it's really been years since you arrived here, right? So it might be the same for me...
[Not that she had anything to go back to at home, being dead and all.]
no subject
[She's in despair over admitting that.]
Isn't that great? Even with my talent, I can't figure out how long people'll stick around for. It's super super super despair inducing to get to know all these people only to one day find out that they're just...gone.
no subject
[Just poking a little at her clothes. No sign of her injuries at all... it was like she'd just made up the entire thing.]
This...isn't something like purgatory, is it?
[Wait that would mean Junko was dead too... that couldn't be right. Well, regardless of Junko's answer, she's going to be trying to figure out the nature of this new place for a while.]
no subject
[Not yet anyways. She will be pretty soon after going home. Seconds after going home in fact. But not yet.]
no subject
I don't know, but if that's not it, how am I here if I am dead?
[Just fiddling with her wig as she speaks. There was a 50/50 chance Junko would just dismiss her and tell her to get on with things and stop thinking so hard, but it was worth an ask. Still... at least her sister was still alive. Which, she thought, was a pretty weird thought when she was standing right there.
She paused. She'd said it out loud a few times already in this conversation, but it still made her blood run cold and her muscles tense up - like a little shot of ice ran through her each and every time.
She died. Junko killed her.
Mukuro glanced to the wilted flowers near them, and just started to clean them up to keep her mind occupied.]
no subject
[She's not kidding about that one either.]
But hey, if you don't like being alive and want to go back to rotting in a freezer somewhere, I'm sure that could totally be arranged!
[She says this cheerfully like it's not a big deal to her. But she'd probably make it into a big deal even if Mukuro would just come back.
Not that she's thinking about that.
Okay, she is. But that doesn't mean she'd actually do it.
Unless she decided she would? Lots of indecision here to be honest, which is so despairingly wonderful to her that the flowers her sister's handling just can't seem to decide if they're blooming or continuing to wilt.]
no subject
More importantly though, Junko looked far too happy at the prospect of her rotting in a freezer...oh. That's where she would have ended up in the end.]
The bio lab... right. Did they ever find it?
[Not that she expected an answer. Junko'd never get careless enough to let them discover her corpse
or so she thought.]...I'll be more careful, this time. I won't let my guard down again.
no subject
By my time, they've found about all there is to find.
[As to what that means, well that one she won't answer.]
And super glad to hear you won't let your guard down again, makes it all the more despairingly fun for me to try.
no subject
But one thing at a time. For now, she needed to focus on this new world where she could, before dwelling on what happened at home.
At least her sister was happy, for a time. Mukuro gave another stiff nod at her comment about trying to kill her - this time, she told herself, she would be ready.]
... I'm going to need to find somewhere to stay.
[That wasn't so much directed at Junko - but she was steadily realising that if she wanted to find shelter, she couldn't wait around for too long.
Not that she expected her twin to really help in this venture. In fact, it seemed far more likely that her sister` would just kick her out the cafe to go look, but she'd see what happened.]
no subject
[Yup, she's not helping with that one.]
There's plenty of places though, I'm sure even a lost cause like you can find somewhere.
no subject
[Junko was right. She needed another approach.]
...Yeah, you're right.
no subject
[Which Mukuro's not doing, but she'll throw that one out there anyways.]
Tell you what, if you find somewhere, we can talk again. If not, we're not on speaking terms until you do.
[Or until she gets bored with giving her sister the silent treatment.]
no subject
There was a small, despairful frown at Junko's next suggestion. It wasn't like she expected any help at all from her sister, but she always hated being given the silent treatment. And, well, she knew that arguing the suggestion was pointless once she'd made up her mind.]
...Yes, Junko.
[She'd wait a moment to see if she had any further instructions - but if not, she'd head out to try and find accommodation.]