memepatheias | TEST DRIVE: May

Entry tags:

*test drive

TEST DRIVE: May

— TEST DRIVE: MAY —

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 April 24th and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on May 1st. Apps will only be open for four days!
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!
Transfer to in-game. If accepted, you can assume threads made on the Test Drive happen in-game if the scenario can reasonably fit. For new characters, these threads do not count for activity check. However, these can be supplementary threads for players already in-game.

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 sword in a stone was discovered in a forest, far outside of the city but not far enough for it to not become a tourist attraction of sorts. Veteran hikers claim that it wasn't there before, and researches don't have any theories or explanations to offer. It's completely shrouded in mystery! What's more, the sword cannot be pulled out of its stone, which is also set firmly in the ground. News of this has started to generate some rumors that something special will happen to whoever manages to pull the sword out of the stone. Why not give it a try?
1. Just Like The Legends: There is a crowd gathered around the sword at all times, but most of them are content to just watch on with curiosity as others try to have a go at claiming the weapon. So far nobody seems to be having any luck! Why not partner up with somebody? Two is certainly better than one! Those who aren't strong enough could perhaps offer new ideas of trying to get the sword out, or maybe they can just cheer someone strong on. Heckling is also allowed, as there are no rules here! Anything goes, really, except the sword. No matter how strong or godly the individual is, they will always fail, and the more they keep trying they will notice their emotions being drained until they no longer care for the sword. That's weird!
2. The Moment of Truth: Several weeks have passed and through trial and error, and other mysterious means, researchers have discovered the criteria for claiming the sword! It isn't about strength at all, but it's not entirely easy either. The person who must draw the sword has to be a "woman with golden hair", but she can only do so in front of a witness, and that witness has to confess a secret in order to unlock the seal. The bigger the secret, the more chances of success it has of working! However, those who manage to pull the sword out will discover that... nothing remarkable happens. How disappointing! At least the crowd got to learn somebody's embarrassing secret? As for the sword, it can be kept... but it will disappear again the next day!
3. Was It Worth It? Whoops, turns out something does happen if the wrong person manages to draw the sword. It appears that one of the candidates dyed their hair blonde in order to fool the sword, and for a moment it seems to have worked. The sword is out - yay! But it also comes to life in the form of floating out of its unworthy bearers hand, then uses up all of the absorbed emotions from stronger warriors before to conjure up a wielder for itself. It won't rest until it has slain everyone in the forest, so make sure to defeat it!
• Prompt E: The Offworld Academic Symposium is putting on their first and most intellectually stimulating (ha) escape room! Entry is free to groups of two with a few quick rules: no playing while intoxicated, no setting anything on fire, no unleashing elephants to stampede through the facility, etc. Remember to have fun! And remember, anyone who chooses to participate in an academia-based escape room deserves whatever they get.
1. It’s Pretension, Babe: The first room is large and rectangular, but largely empty -- the only two exceptions to this are the door to enter from and, on the opposite side, a large wall of blocks. Each block is approximately five feet by five feet, painted plainly beige, and far too dense to move by one’s own hands--or even whatever magical abilities a person might bring with them. Unfortunately, these blocks must be moved in order to unveil the door that allows participants to continue on. Good thing each block is clearly labeled with the emotion that must fill the room in order for the blocks to melt: anything from the conventional emotions of joy, sadness, anger… to the more obscure and harder to define emotions -- such as opia, or deja vu, or exulansis. (Really, anything that might be listed here.) As for how these emotions are created, there are no rules except the ones that are self-imposed. Once at least five blocks are melted, the door will appear. Continue on, young adventurers!
2. Mathematically Yours: The second room is about… math. Yes, math. In an otherwise threadbare room, there is a row of classroom desks, each with its own math problem book and helpful collection of pencils. Feel free to tear through the problems at whatever pace possible--they start off with simple addition and subtraction and eventually lead to advanced calculus, trigonometry and logic. The answer to getting out of the room? Ditch the math, pile the desks on top of each other, and crawl out the window high up on the wall.
3. Murder, She Noted: The final room looks like a conventional fancy dinner party, with a well-dressed table filled with massive plates of expensive food, flawless bone china and hand-chiseled deco wine glasses, a roaring fire in the corner… There’s even a lion skin rug. Homey, right? Well, no. The room has a strong uncanny valley sensation and the reason will quickly become clear: the dinner guests sitting around the table are not living, breathing people, but remarkably lifelike wax models. And one of them is dead! The only clue? A little piece of paper in clutched tightly in their waxy hand with a written message: “The one with the sparrow is in blue, and death comes from their left. On their right, only wine.” No one can leave the room until they come to a unanimous decision on which wax dummy committed this heinous not!murder.
• Prompt F: The Thespians are now holding auditions for their newest jukebox romantic-comedy musical: Mulan Rouge! It is a story about a girl who runs away from home and becomes a soldier for her country in place of her father. Said girl also pretends to be a male as the army only allows men—what kind of backwater army is this?—but promotes change within the country because of her bravery and loyalty to the King. As they intend to get their main lead from Verens, the first set of auditions are held at the Merchant's Square. As such, there's a long line of spectators as well as auditioners. The panel is comprised of three people: a shirtless man with a manbun (he might be the choreographer), a lovely looking woman with a beautiful voice (it seems she's the songwriter), and a guy with a really long and thin moustache (scriptwriter). Everybody is invited to audition, even newcomers! In fact, some of the staff push just about anybody into the centre of the square. Time to recite your lines!
1. A Mom Worth Fighting For? One might be new to Verens and Empatheias as a whole, but that doesn't mean one is foreign to the concept of bravery and loyalty. With one's partner (possibly another person coerced into auditioning), the two of you must fight (fake or real) until one is incapable of getting up. The fight must be to defend one's homeworld or country or just whatever one believes in wholeheartedly. If no fight begins, then the guy with the manbun will resort to insulting the mothers of the people auditioning and will continue to do so until the fight occurs. What kind of audition is this?
2. To the Beat of the Rhythm: So you've made it to the second auditions! Congratulations! Apparently, the fighting scenes in the musical itself are interpreted through dance. There will be no punching or kicking unless one wants to do the can-can. Manbun guy asks everybody to put on a dancing costume (of any kind) and find a partner to dance to some cabaret music. It's all upbeat and the songs one would listen to at a nightclub, and Mister Manbun definitely will insult the mothers of those who don't do as they're told. So dance, puppets, dance!!! Those who put on a great show with their partner will move forward to the final auditions.
3. Swift as the Coursing River: Now, it's the final stretch! There are less people than there were when everybody was tasked to fight the other because it's the last of the series of auditions being held. Everyone is asked to come to the mountains by the river and catch fish with their bare hands. Try not to accidentally grab someone's foot and mistake it for a carp! What does this have to do with a stage musical? Absolutely nothing, but Mister Manbun says it's an integral part to get the role! And whether or not you actually signed up for this, you have to stay until the end. Otherwise, well… Mister Manbun has some words to say.
• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include lettuce and/or belts and zippers.
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

[A]

[Reim was stressed. What he was stressed about? Who knew, that didn't really matter. What mattered was that his stress was causing an unsightly emotional effect everywhere he went.]

[Papers burst out of people hands, trash cans flung themselves over, things lined up nice and neat in the market stands toppled and crashed to the ground. It was a terrible, horrible mess and the more it happened the more stressed he got which ...really just caused it to keep happening. It was a terrible cycle of negative emotion that he didn't really seem to know how to turn off.]

[That didn't stop him from trying to clean up his mess, though, however futile it seemed to be, so for anyone walking by would be treated to watching someone desperately try to stack a pile of newspapers, sigh, and then shriek when they exploded out of their stand again.]

[Someone please help him.]

[Task Board: GT0103 (Owen)]

[Reim was not an idle sort of person. He needed things to do, and now that he was here with no Pandora to keep him busy, no Duke Barma to torment him, he had to find something else to occupy his time. The task board seemed a good start. Admittedly, he could have picked a far more profitable job to start but...well.]

[Let's just say he felt particularly qualified for this task. He didn't really care that the guy apparently wanted to use his info to break up with a lover of all things, but the lure of having his meals reimbursed and an opportunity to sample dishes from all over this strange new land was impossible to pass up. Luckily he's not just in it for the food. He is compiling and incredibly detailed report of every dish he tries from every restaurant and applying his own 1-to-5 star rating of each place. This "Owen" fellow is going to get back literal books for his trouble.]

Hm. The consistency is good, but I find the frosting to fall just the slightest bit flat. The presentation, however, is very well done.

[He says this with the professionalism of a paid food critic, but that doesn't change the fact that Reim Lunettes ordered the cake before his actual meal and is eating it first because there is no one here to stop him.]

What do you think?

[Clearly he managed to rope in someone else to help him. Second opinions are important!!]

[A Mom Worth Fighting For]

Absolutely not!

[Reim will put up with a whole lot of bullshit, but he is absolutely opposed to fighting if he doesn't have to. And this? This was stupid. He didn't even want to audition? He was just kind of grabbed and forced in front of these people? The only reason he hasn't stormed off is because he is still very new to this world and he has some small amount of manners left within him. But here, he draws the line.]

[He's about ready to go off on Mr. Man Bun when he starts hurling insults about his mother. Sure, he hasn't seen her in years because he's a relentless workaholic but that didn't mean she warranted insulting!! The smell of burning sugar permeates the air around them and he puffs up like a ghibli character.]

Excuse me! In what civilized society is it acceptable to say such crass things! Maybe it isn't my mother that's at fault here!

[Reim proceeds to let Mr. Man Bun have it. For like, twenty minutes if no one stops him. Probably this wasn't the expected result of this little exercise.]

[Wildcard]

[Hit me with something else if you like!]

Edited 2018-04-25 07:56 (UTC)

[There is no one here to stop him because his partner in this particular not-crime is Kevin Regnard, the Once and Future Xerxes Break, who keeps cookies in his nightstand to snack on in the morning before he bothers to get up and go get breakfast. The ideal partner for this task, in fact, for a few reasons.

One is that Kevin knows damn near every restaurant in Verens and the bulk of the restaurants in most of the others. Another is that they were going to explore every single restaurant anyway, because that's what one does when somebody arrives from home -- one feeds them. And, perhaps the most important reason of all: Kevin thinks this Owen guy is a turd, so while he absolutely knows some decidedly unromantic restaurants that would suffice as the setting for a breakup, damn straight they are going to eat at all the good ones on his dime before they bother to toddle around to the icky ones. Making other people do the research to turn a breakup into a spectacle instead of merely letting the lady down easily, honestly. Owen totally deserves to buy some other men a lot of cake.]

Mm...it isn't the fault of the ingredients, I think.

[Kevin says this with his mouth full, as is his wont, waving his fork at the cake.]

This is something I have learned from Gilbert and from Hunk! In this place, there's a particular sort of stale flavor that comes of a baker having a bit of an off day. No matter how fine one's ingredients and skill, a poor mood can sour the whoooooooole thing. That's what I think. Whoever mixed this frosting this morning was not feeling their best. Definitely, definitely.

[Yes, this is all definitely for the greater good. Reim would have been dubious of running around like this on the guys dime if not for the sob story. Now it's just going to make this fancy, high-class cake all the more delicious.]

[Reim pauses, looking over at his partner-in-crime. He finishes his mouthful and swallows before responding unlike some people. His expression is one of pleasant bewilderment.]

...I see. I didn't really consider that.

[Edits, edits, he needs to make edits to his information. This really did open up a whole new angle of consideration to this job. Emotions could change so much about a dish if this were all true. Good lord.]

Emotion really does have a way of seeping into everything here, doesn't it?

Just so. Most of the time, I like that very much. It makes for wonderful tea and potent alcohol.

[Priorities.]

I don't know if this place was always like that. It may be a result of this world being in need of so much emotional energy to heal. It just eats up whatever it can, you know?

[That does bring him something of a smile, even if he follows it with a small shake of his head. If this place could make an alcohol strong enough to put down Xerxes Break, then color him impressed. Doubly so if it didn't involved medicinal alcohol with a literal lizard corpse floating around in it. Uergh.]

[He picks up his tea cup, sipping to dispel that memory. Tea tastes perfectly ordinary to him, but perhaps that's a mark against it? This is going to throw his rating system off.]

It's ...interesting, isn't it? How a world can become so broken.

[He says "interesting" but his expression is pretty grim. He hasn't wanted to say it out loud but. It reminds him of something from home.]

[Let's be real, if it did involve medicinal alcohol with a literal lizard corpse floating around in it, Kevin would probably try it anyway.]

Broken enough to summon outsiders in an attempt to save itself. [Which their own world did not do, as far as Kevin is aware, thankfully...though he still has certain thoughts about just how he ended up where he did, and why.] I wonder if any other world has ever done such a thing...if our memories are so prone to being lost between dimensions, it seems feasible to me.

[Its a good thing they're both so used to weird shit because Reim is giving this proper thought. Sure, this place had initially been a huge shock, a little more weirder than home and this a little harder to adjust to, but now that he's settled the idea isn't so farfetched to him anymore.]

[After all, he's having tea and cake with his best friend as he was fifteen years ago. It's hard to deny what's in front of you.]

Now that there's a precedent, I would be hard pressed to believe otherwise.

[What's to say there aren't hundreds of worlds out there and some that are very similar to this one? It's a little overwhelming to think about though, so he turns back to the actual reason they're here. His cake is gone so he picks up the proper lunch menu.]

...There is something called Wveryn on this menu. Do you know what that is?

[Mm yes it is always nice when people who are sensible also happen to agree with hi --]

-- augh. Wyverns are wonderful precious dragon darlings. I love them, I love them. [Cue Kevin slapping his hands to his cheeks and doing a horrible little slithery dance there in his chair. A few heart bubbles manifest in the air around him, poit poit poit poit poit, and it sure looks like Rainsworth Girl Mode in here.] Some are proper dignified flying beasts, you know, but there are some that are explicitly bred as meat animals and they are so round and fat and you know I've met cows and even baby cows, and baby lambs, and I'll eat those with no trouble at all but I just can't bring myself to eat a wyvern. Young Master Hunk over in the Lion House has one, you know, a little yellow thing he's named Gordon Ramsey, and she is so wonderful and full of love and always so happy to see me. However could I eat a thing so full of cuddles and squish? I'd feel guilty until the end of my days.

[...for a different reason than the reasons he already is going to feel guilty until the end of his days.]

Reim Lunettes | Pandora Hearts

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A

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A Mom Worth Fighting For

1/2

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1/ i am not even sure. im really sorry

2/??

Done

XD Perfect, I expected no less.

Mom

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