memepatheias | TEST DRIVE: April

— 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:

Date reminders. Reserves open March 25th and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on April 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. These threads do not count toward AC.

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: The Verens Emergency Response Teams are running drills to make sure that the Verens populace, natives and Otherworlders alike, are prepared for any and all emergencies. This means large scale obstruction of public areas, traffic delays, businesses closing their doors temporarily in the name of professional cooperation... and, best of all, Otherworlder participation!

Alpha Lava: If you asked Team Alpha, they would say they drew the short straw. They are in charge of the volcanic eruption preparedness drill! This includes cordoning off sections of the merchant’s square and residential district to conduct the following tasks: evacuation drills, where random houses are the "willing participant" of loudspeaker announcements telling them they have thirty seconds to escape their homes before they die; dunamis training exercises, to determine who would be most able to hold back or freeze incoming pools of lava; and, most helpful, the role of victim mannequin. Posing still as a statue for several minutes at a time to simulate being encrusted by molten lava is a thankless job, but someone has to do it.
Epsilon Epidemic: Team Epsilon's emergency preparedness drill is outbreak of a deadly disease! For this simulation, they will be rounding up helpful Otherworlder volunteers and distributing signs for them to wear around their necks. Following that, instructions are varied. Perhaps some people end up in quarantine, informed that Team Epsilon will shoot to kill anyone who escaped. Perhaps some people are under strict instruction to act out their sign to the best of their ability, and will be penalised if they don't! (What's the penalty? It's quarantine, or no gift bag, or both.) Perhaps they are simply dead and have to lie in the street all day. Yes, that's very boring. No, they don't have a choice. At the end of the simulation, all participants are given a gift bag filled with handmade cookies (courtesy of Team Epsilon's very own multi-talented Agent N) and gift certificate for a spa day for two. Most importantly: have fun!
Gamma Grandstanding: Team Gamma ended up with the newest preparation drill. Its official title is "People With Indeterminate Motives" (PWIM for short) to keep from throwing a wrench in the Briarlan trade deal and offending sensibilities, but make no mistake: it is about knowing exactly what to do if pirates invade Verens and conduct a hostile takeover. Some Otherworlders will be placed specifically in local business - restaurants, independently owned shops, even the zoo - and trained how to protect them from PWIM. Some businesses will be targeted; others will be ignored entirely (hope you brought a deck of cards!). Other Otherworlders will be asked to play the pirates - sorry, PWIM - themselves, complete with lame costumes (eyepatches, fancy hats, fake parrots to sit on a shoulder, itchy peglegs) for the sake of immersion. Arr! Aye, avast!

• Prompt E: Despite the rain and everybody coming down with colds during the month, everyone in Verens is still doing their best to get ready for next month's Flower Festival. And Otherworlders are definitely expected to help with prep work. After all, it's everyone's festival, so everyone should help make it the best it can be! So here's a few ways to help!

Sign Me Up: The Festival needs signs! Lots of signs. And lots of signs need lots of painters! Or one incredibly overworked painter, but in this case, they've decided to go the teamwork route, pairing up Otherworlders and having them make signs advertising various games at the festival! Sounds easy, right? But with emotion based paints in play, be careful. Too much negativity between partners and the wording will change, the paint could run, go too far in the other directions and the signs will be practically glowing, but possibly lead to claims of false advertising!
Special Delivery Flower Festivals need lots of flowers, and people to transport those flowers! And thanks to handy tech exchange with Briarlan, this year there's some fancy containment units for transporting them. They're really just crates with some fancy looking meters attached, meant to open up when they reach the festival grounds. Unfortunately, these new inventions probably could've used some additional testing and are prone to opening randomly sending flowers all over the place! Try and collect as many as possible and bring them back to the grounds, the festival organizers would appreciate it.
Flower Round Up! Or maybe painting signs and boxing flowers aren't your thing, so how about...corralling them? With all the good vibes in the air, it seems some of the flower arrangements have literally pulled up roots and are running around the festival. And you can't have a flower festival without flowers, so do your best to try and get them back where they belong before they run off to start some sort of flower civilization in the woods*.

*They probably will not form a flower civilization in the woods, but you never know.

• Prompt F: With Verens trading with more and more cities out there, some shopkeepers have gotten an idea to try and increase sales by encouraging both citizens and Otherworlders to shop local by promoting a tour of various business in the merchant district! Though the crystal has been a little negative, they're still hoping the tour goes off without a hitch! After all, it's too late to postpone it.

On the Clock: The first stop is Click, Clack, Clock, a clock shop that offers delivery to anywhere on the island! Unfortunately, due to the poor weather, all of the delivery staff are out with colds, so they're looking for volunteers! And yes, you're on this walking tour, but don't be surprised if you're handed a bicycle and a clock and sent on your way to deliver a clock. Hopefully they remembered to tell you where to go before shoving you out the door.
Shine On: Assuming you haven't been conscripted into the clock store's delivery force, the next stop is at Verens' very own Restoration Works, an establishment for restoring old antiques and making them look good as new. They've set up an interactive demo for everybody, so partner up and practice using your emotions to bring some shine back to some dull scraps of metal! Sorry guys, they're not going to let you work on anything really valuable during the tour, but if you show some promise, maybe they’ll hire you on in the future!
Polg-Oh No: Finally, the tour will end with a nice relaxing meal at the Sweethearts Cafe. Or it was intended to be relaxing, anyway (who would've thought the antique store would be the calmest part of the tour?), but it seems no place is safe from the Polgo plague. Better keep an eye on your plates, otherwise the second you’re distracted, the small kitten-sized blue bugs might scurry up the table and try and run off with your food!

Even if you’re paying attention, they might give it a shot anyways. So be on your guard and ready to give chase if it happens!

• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include blueberries and/or buckets.

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

[ Videl squeezed her eyes closed as what seemed like an impossibly large quantity of flowers exploded from the crate into Gohan's face and up into the air. ]

[ She carefully opened one eye to survey the damage. Gohan looked like he had been replaced with a rainbow topiary; leaves and flowers of all shapes and colors clung to every inch of him from the chest up. The flora that had flown past him was drifting lazily down to Earth again, blooms buffeted down the sidewalk by a gentle breeze. ]

Oh, shoot. [ Videl huffed, letting the crate fall from her hands. ] Those were supposed to be for the festival.

[Things not on Gohan's bucket list: becoming part of the decorations for the festival. But with how thoroughly he'd been covered with the flowers, he could certainly be set on display right about now, the only part of his upper body visible is his wide eyes.

At least, until he lets out a powerful sneeze that sends many of the flowers clinging to him flying in every direction, including at Videl.]

Ugh... Thanks for the concern, Videl. [Not.]

[ Just as Videl is about to stand, Gohan's sneeze sends the flowers flying right back at her. She jerks up her hands to cover her face, but not fast enough to keep the flora from blasting back to her at an intensity she could almost swear was as strong as the exploding crate. ]

Sorry, Gohan. [ She apologizes as she lowers her hands and stands. A veritable shower of blossoms falls from her clothes as she moves. ] I don't know why that thing went haywire all of the sudden.

[When he realizes he just sneezed all the flowers back at her, he suddenly feels guilty for his crankiness just seconds earlier. He's glad he didn't accidentally send her flying with that sneeze at least.]

It's fine. [He'll even help and reach out to pluck a few of those stray flowers out of her hair.] Are you okay? This thing must've been defective. [He pokes at the meters still attached to the now broken crate.]

[ Videl grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and shook it to dislodge the flowers. A few flowers ended up falling down the inside of her shirt instead. She groaned. ]

I'm fine. [ She replies, shaking her shirt more forcefully. A particularly long-stemmed flower works its way a little further down her back before getting stuck on the edge of her sports bra. Great. ]

I don't know what set that thing off all of the sudden. [ Videl jerks her head in the direction of the meter Gohan is examining. ] It didn't do anything the whole time I was carrying it, but like the second I saw you, it just started going crazy!

[Man, so weird, this meter. He wishes he understood the emotion-fueled tech this places uses. Where's Bulma when you need her, she'd get this stuff figured out like yesterday!

Gohan looks back up at Videl, just in time to catch her trying to shake the flowers out of her shirt, noticing the rather long one slip down her back.]

Lemme get that one for you, Videl. [What a gentleman, right? He stands up, walking over to behind her to better assess things. Okay, so it looks like it slipped down her back and is caught on her sports bra, right? Well, he can't stick his hand down her shirt collar, he doesn't want to ruin her shirt by stretching it out.]

R-really, it went haywire when you saw me? Talk about a weird coincidence, huh? [Even Gohan's not that dense, he gets the implications that it reacted to Videl's shift in emotions in seeing him. But come on, they've already had their touching reunion here, surely seeing him after that isn't that big of a deal, right? They see each other all the time now here.

...Or maybe he is that dense, considering he thinks it's a good idea right now to stick his hand up the back of Videl's shirt in order to get that flower for her. At least he isn't looking!]

[ Videl initially doesn't pay Gohan any mind when he offers to get the last tricky flower and steps behind her. Her attention is fixed on the metered crate, puzzling over what could have made it act up. The possibility that the tech is emotion-based doesn't come to mind at all; even though she learned all about it when she first arrived, Videl is still incredibly skeptical of it. ]

I guess so... [ She agrees dubiously, absently lifting a hand to tap her chin. ]

[ When she suddenly feels something brush up against the skin on her back and lets out a deafening shriek in surprise. ] KYAAA!

[ Videl leaps away from Gohan and whips around to find the assailant, while at the same time, a dozen pink chrysanthemums instantly sprout up and pop out from the back of her shirt collar. ]

[ She freezes, hands raised in two fists, staring at Gohan as she feels the twelve fluffy blooms brushing against the back of her neck. ]

I... I... [ What just happened?? ]

[Gohan stares at Videl with a wide-eyed, confused look on his face. What's with the crazy reaction, Videl? He was this close to getting that flower out for you!]

Huh? What's up, Videl? Why'd you freak out?

[He's not even paying any mind to the flowers that just sprung from her collar. He's so used to that kind of stuff happening now it doesn't register for him most of the time.]

[ An embarrassed blush creeps up Videl's cheeks as she lowers her fists. ]

I-I thought I felt-- [ But she stops herself from blurting out 'something on my back' when she suddenly realizes that she knew what that 'something' was all along. Gohan had said he was going to grab that last tricky flower for her and she hadn't even thought about how he was going to do that. Videl silently chastised herself for being so jumpy. It was just Gohan's hand. ]

[ Just Gohan's hand brushing against her lower back. Videl's blush deepens. A few new flower buds stick their heads up from beneath her shirt. ]

You just-- I didn't think--

[ The buds open their faces to reveal little white primroses. ]

You just startled me, that's all! I was concentrating!

Edited 2018-03-23 02:35 (UTC)

...Huh?

[He... startled her? Geez, Videl, he even warned you and everything! Always so jumpy about things...

It looked like the flowers multiplying now. Was Videl somehow multiplying the ones stuck in her shirt? Or was she perhaps making flowers? Either way, it was a little concerning now that there were so many. ...But at the same time, he couldn't deny that it was actually kind of cute. Videl looked really nice surrounded in flowers like that...

A small blush forms on his face as he goes to point them out to her.]

Hey, you, uhh... Have a little something right there. [Or maybe a lot of something.]

TEST DRIVE: April

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