Test Drive: April

[empevents]

— TEST DRIVE: APRIL —

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:

• Thread carry overs. All threads can be carried over in some way upon officially entering the game. Although the prompts are centered around the Flower Festival, threads can be tweaked to be more generic to fit the current timeline if a character comes in after the festival has passed.
  
  
• Application reminders. Reserves and Applications (Canon | OC) are always open!
  
  
• 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!

PROMPTS

• 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. (Note: this should be used under the assumption that the character has been in the game for a little while)

• 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 Flower Festival is just around the corner, and chefs everywhere are preparing a variety of delicious dishes, desserts and snacks for the occasion! Unfortunately, a call has been made for Otherworlders to help the chefs and cooks find their ingredients, many of which have suddenly gone missing in the middle of the night. Help them, and receive some free food as a reward!

1. I didn't do it! Some ingredients may wind up in the oddest of places - bags of flour perched up on trees, sugar bowls sitting on apartment windowsills, and oh, you don't remember buying that sack of potatoes yesterday? Well, it's now in your kitchen. What do you mean you didn't do it? That's what they all say! Retrieve the ingredients and bring them to the cafes and restaurants of Verens - but beware of some overeager Enforcers (or Otherworlders) who are now eyeing you as a suspect!
   
2. Jumpin' java beans! While the food collection and retrieval operations are ongoing, a new phenomenon shakes up the city. That's right, the ingredients and the dishes finally being prepared are now jumping and running all over the place, climbing trees, sprinting up and down stairs, even barging into houses. Chase them down, but the best results are achieved if you channel your emotions of hate and anger; the food will avoid anyone who is overeager, has too much love in them, or is simply...hungry.
   
3. The cake is not a lie. Verens thanks you for gathering up the food for the Flower Festival, but there is a new problem. Several gung-ho pastry chefs have baked a huge cake - as big as a building - and placed it in the middle of the city as thanks to everyone who helped them round up the rogue food items. Your job is to help finish it, so take as much as you want! The cake magically becomes your favorite flavor the moment you take a bite, and fills you with feelings of trust. Careful, you might just trust that stranger next to you a bit too much and suddenly spill your tragic backstory to them...
   

• Prompt E: What's a festival without a little - or a lot of - music? The musicians for the Flower Festival are out practicing in full force, so don't be surprised if your shopping trip or your peaceful walk is interrupted by a set of upbeat songs. At least most of them are pretty good? The rest...uh, yeah. Never mind.

1. The soundtrack of your life. Some of those instruments, however, have minds of their own and are liable to follow people around as they go about their daily lives, pumping out some appropriate music for the occasion. You can try to shoo the instruments away, but there's no guarantee they'll stop giving your life a spiffy soundtrack.
   
2. The music of the night. It's nighttime, but some musicians are still hard at work practicing their tunes for the festival. If you ever wanted to pull an all-nighter, now is the time, because their music, no matter how loud or soft, can and will keep you awake! Suddenly you feel too energized to sleep, and the only way to combat the effects...is to go head-to-head with the musicians in a musical duel! Or just try and block out the music as best you can.
   
3. Mood music. Some music will elicit certain emotions from you when you hear it, depending on your mood. People who are feeling down will hear music that will lift their spirits, while the excitable ones will be calmed down by some gentle classical. And if there's someone you should probably fight but haven't gotten around to...prepare for some epic battle music!
   

• Prompt F: Not all the new flowers from Elios' lands with the alternating blue and red petals have been processed into perfumes, scents and purported "love potions". These flowers are now being sold in the streets and in flower shops for anyone who wants to decorate their home with some rather unorthodox blooms.

1. Love me, love me not, the sequel: Are you feeling lovestruck, or struggling with a difficult decision or two? Some city folks claim that the flowers can help you make choices. Simply pluck the alternating petals of the flowers, and if the last one is red, it means you should go for it! Whatever it is you wanted to do. After all, if the last petal you pluck is red, you get a small boost of confidence.
   
2. Petal power: With the sheer number of people plucking petals from these flowers, this means...yes, a lot of stray petals all over Verens. They're on the roads, they could blow through windows, even wind up in your food. Try not to get them in your mouth or up your nose, because the red petals may give you a short burst of assertiveness or affection, and the blue petals, a brief episode of withdrawal or shyness. At least these episodes last less than half an hour?
   
3. Flower fracas: All this longing for love, all this dithering over important decisions, and all the incessant petal plucking have one not-so-logical conclusion. Monsters made entirely out of these flowers have begun to terrorize the city, destroying anything in their path and leaving many more petals in their wake. If you can get close enough, yelling something you are absolutely, 100% sure of (like, ahem, your love for someone) into their faces should be enough to dissolve them into harmless flowers.
   

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include tickets and/or bookshelves.

Comments

[practicemakesimperfect]

F:A - Love me, love me not, the sequel!
Pink still skulked around out of habit to avoid people, tried to pretend she was above it all(at only 8 feet tall, she wasn't as above them as she normally was), and still act like the Diamond she was 'supposed' to be, because what if another gem found her, and what if they told Blue or Yellow?

What if Blue or Yellow found her? What if Blue or Yellow thought she ran away? What if Blue or Yellow destroyed this planet because they thought they had kidnapped her? What if, what if, what if--

"Agh!!" Her face scrunched up into tight distress, her shoulders hunched up and she pulled at the cottonball of hair on her head. She shook her head, all as if trying to throw the idea out of her head, and stomped her foot on top of it.

"Blue this, Yellow that!" Pink stomped again, and it made the flower cart rolling by rattle. It made windows rattle, and glass threaten to break. She was so, so tired of being scared of them and hiding away from this place! The sky was so bright and beautiful! There was music pouring in through the windows, a wonderful breeze--she wanted to be part of that!! It wouldn't hurt anything!!

The person pushing it stopped to stare at her for a moment. He'd waggled his brows as if judging this giant woman's tantrum, but none the less, she was an easy customer. It was an easy transaction, and Pink was now sitting awkwardly on the curb in front of her home, knees up to her chest, chin atop her knees, watching the way the colors blended when she twirled them in her hands. She got down to the last two petals on one of the flowers she bought, and stared at the one red, and one blue petal, sulking angrily at it.



F:2 - Petal power
Pink must've arrived at just the right time! There were so many flowers, so many kinds of creatures..but no gems. Which wasn't a bad thing at all for her. There was so much going on that, without any gems around to remind her of everything that bore down on her shoulders that for a while, she forgot about Blue and Yellow. She forgot she had to maintain a certain appearance, to set a certain example for her court. Here, she was just a face in the crowd--a nobody. Pink Diamond meant nothing here, and it was liberating.

She wasn't paying attention very well to what was going on around her, and seemed to be having a good time just dancing in the petals the wind kicked up. A small party of instruments were dancing at her feet, singing loud fanfare, and a few were even scooped up into her arms to be swirled around. Her most recent victim was a flute that she made wheeze, causing her to burst into bubbly laughter when it hopped out of her arms, and a petal flew right down her throat.

Pink kinda coughed awkwardly and gave her head a small, brief shake, blinking a few times after, but she didn't look like she needed help at all.

> Red petal: If you choose for a red petal to be eaten, Pink will pull your muse into the circle of instruments without any warning, and toss them into the air with no effort at all! Not to worry, though, she'll catch them! And if they looked like they had fun from that, she'll even show off and jump pretty high into the air with your muse in her arms. But not to worry, she'll spin circles in the air with them as they drift down as slowly as a feather falls, and so long as Pink is holding your muse, they'll fall just as slowly with her.

> Blue petal: If you choose for a blue petal to be eaten, the music will change, and Pink won't seem to mind it. It will be as if she looked at the instruments for what they are for the first time, and she'll smile with a soft sadness at them, kneeling over to pick up the poor flute she'd teased not moments ago and pat it gently.

"Well, aren't you cute? It's alright--" But then, her hand pulls away and she bites her lip, but she dismisses the thought, and stands back up. The instruments disperse, but Pink lingers, looking over the crowd that moved around her with that same distant, soft sadness. Few seemed to pay her any attention, or minded that she stood there, and those that looked up at her as they passed weren't really noticed.

C - image
[ She was anxious. Almost panicked--trying not to panic. Uncertain. Quietly and tentatively excited in small bursts--from anxiety to excitement and back again so many times. She didn't know this would project her face, she didn't know how much of herself it would expose, and she certainly didn't mean for it to.

Others would only see what she was seeing, which would be her sitting on the edge of her new bed with all the windows drawn closed around her. ]

Hey, I, uh--I can't make any outbound calls toooooo... [ She trailed off, trying to come up with a cover story on the fly. ] to home! Does anyone know what star system we're in? I should...probably go.