memepatheias | Test Drive: December

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*test drive

Test Drive: December

— TEST DRIVE: DECEMBER —

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 25 November and Applications (Canon | OC) open a week later on December 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.
Enable Me/App This Pls. Talk about your app plans or look for a cast HERE!

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 same committee of natives that decided to tackle Halloween have decided to take on the winter holidays of Otherworlders as well! After interviewing several Otherworlders to acquire some grasp on the traditions associated with these holidays, the committee determines that many of the typical winter festivities just aren’t up to snuff with what they like to see in Verens. So after running away with some ideas and getting the locals involved, there are all sorts of new and unusual winter activities popping up around the city! Which one will you give a try?
1. Tree Toppers: At various locations throughout Verens, there are massive, fully decorated evergreen trees standing tall for the public to enjoy. However, there are more to these trees than meets the eye, and should you approach, you will see a placard among the boughs: climb to the top of the tree, and snatch the crown at the top to become Winter Royalty! Sure enough, the trees are topped with crowns made of real gold, but reaching the top may not be as easy as you think. The trees are several stories tall, and they are not particularly stable. Perhaps you need a partner to spot you, or maybe you’re racing to the top! Either way, it’s going to take some effort to reach the crown.
2. We Won’t Go Until We Get Some: Groups of natives have taken up caroling and arrive at your door to serenade and ask for some figgy pudding. The thing is, they are relentless. They will not leave until they have received some figgy pudding, so if you don’t have any on hand (and why would you), it’s time to take a trip to the grocery store and whip up some of the requested dish. Hopefully you know how to make it...or find someone who knows how, quick! Those carolers are getting awfully hungry, and it’s getting late...
3. Elf on a Shelf: Through the course of their “research”, the committee learned of toy-making elves, though they seem to have conflated their understanding of them with another creature from folklore. They have taken imps from the forest, dressed them up in cute red and green costumes, and set them loose in the city, claiming that whoever captures the most “elves” with be rewarded with a giant rocking horse. Some of the “elves” will hide and thus need to be sniffed out, but others still are far more mischievous and are likely to get into your cabinets and drawers. Oh, dear...perhaps you’ll be earning that rocking horse, whether you wanted it or not.
• Prompt E: The recent death of an Arehtei has prompted some people to believe that there may be some Arehtei who have yet to come back, or have yet to be discovered. As such, a team not at all enforced by the local government are going around encouraging others to join their cause: find new Arehtei.
1. Make 'em Talk: As most Arehtei are like giant animals, the group has captured all kinds of creatures from all over the world and are trying to see if certain emotional reactions will make these creatures talk. Arehtei talk, after all, so it would only be natural for the undiscovered Arehtei to be capable of speech. Perhaps you come by the petting zoo or perhaps you were asked by a member of the team to help out. Your task now is to make the creature before you speak.
2. The Monthly Rituals: The various emotions represented by the current living Arehtei are all well and good, but what about emotions such as Hot and Cold, Rich and Poor, Alive and Dead, Woke and Lit? There are apparently so many other emotions that don't fall under the spectrum of what the current Arehtei represent, and the group is now hosting a ritual at the park in hopes of summoning new Arehtei. People attending the rituals are partnered up again and they have to make their partner feel these new emotions. For your efforts, you are given a cup of either peppermint mocha or raspberry iced tea!
3. Emotional Effects: Maybe even summoning the long forgotten Simpathis, Arehtei of Apathy, might help. Despite the destructive effects of the lack of emotion, people are encouraged to turn off their emotions for a minute or two in hopes of the emotion drops in people's crystals to help the Arehtei in some way. After all, feeling certain emotions make the emotional state of the world tilt in a particular manner. Should there be a lot of apathy, then the Arehtei of apathy might (re)surface and bring some balance! Just watch out for people suddenly making the ground shake. The glass you're holding might suddenly break, or perhaps the street you're walking in might suddenly lose all its colour.
• Prompt F: Life in Empatheias is generally a peaceful one, but it's also important to be perpetually prepared for any kind of emergency. The Verens General Hospital has issued a half-day mandatory First Aid course for all of its citizen. The staff are aware that these kinds of classes tend to be boring for most people, which is why this one will come with some exciting twists! The first thing everyone will notice is that all the training takes place outdoors. To be precise, it's a forest that looks more like a boot camp. Remember, attendance is mandatory!
1. Stayin’ Alive: The first course is a classic CPR course - you and a partner are given an instruction book on how to resuscitate a person, then apply those skills on a dummy. That's what seems to be the case for most pairs, but some others won't be so lucky! It turns out that some staff members will shoot poison darts from afar. If you're hit, it's your partner's job to either suck out the poison, or run back to the supply cabin for the antidote. This is the REAL test! Isn't it thrilling?
2. I Will Survive: The second course is another much-needed skill when it comes to saving lives; namely the fireman's carry. Once again, you're paired up with a partner, but this time only one has to do most of the work, while the other has to do their best to play their part. What does this course involve? It's an army-style obstacle course, where one has to carry another person through various obstacles. How exciting!
3. How To Save a Life: The final course involves performing emergency surgery. Don't worry! The surgery is performed on a test dummy, of course. With the most basic training instructions (which is completely inadequate for this task), you and your partner are tasked with surgically removing the dummy's kidney and replacing it with a fresh one from your medical box. Work slowly and carefully together... and don't panic. Seriously, don't. The staff have also released some monster snakes nearby, just to add to the excitement. Stay calm, and the creatures won't sense your presence. Alternatively, one partner can fight them while the other one works on the patient. First Aid has never been so blood-tingling before!
• Prompt G: Make your own! It could include music and/or jump ropes.
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!

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D-2
[ Christmas is supposed to be some romantic holiday where everyone is happy and with their special someone, but since Samatoki may end up spending Christmas here, he can't exactly be happy. Not that he has a special someone in Yokohama or anything--! He would at least like to greet his sister a Merry Christmas before he goes off living his #thuglife. The lack of things to be happy about in this place have made him exceptionally cranky, so please forgive him when he's out on the streets with a bunch of carolers crying and he's holding one of them by the collar. ]

If you don't go away, I'm gonna have to kill you all!

[ Over songs and figgy pudding? Yes. Samatoki has quite the temper and his violent side always surfaces so long as there's a reason to. He doesn't actually mean it, though. But hopefully someone stops him before he gets even angrier. As it is, his lack of patience and his annoyance has already manifested through the sound of blaring gunshots and sirens. There aren't any, but the sounds are definitely loud. ]

E-1
[ Somehow, Mr. Hardcore, Yokohama's Bad Boy, is here with the group of people trying to coax animals into speaking. He's seated somewhere with a white rabbit, and he's somehow found props to put on said rabbit. Now, the cute animal is wearing a pair of glasses, a black suit with suspenders, and a pair of red gloves. He seems pretty amused with what he's done to the rabbit, and instead of making it talk, he waves the rabbit's front legs about, as if following an unheard rhythm.

Then... the inevitable happens. Samatoki raps. ]

The corrupt cop, call me 45 Rabbit
I'll puff smoke in your face, and I'm not gonna quit
Who cares about the Arehtei when my dick is so big
Ha ha-- just messin', it's not

[ ... THIS RAP IS ONLY FUNNY TO HIM.......... god why. ]

F-1
What the fuck!

[ Samatoki's used to getting hit, being a yakuza and all. Violence is not something he enjoys, but he's toughened up physically and mentally due to all the fights he's gotten into in the past. The poison stings, and it's why he screams, but he's still standing. In fact, he's abandoned the dummy and his partner and is now looking for the culprit.

Then he gets hit with another dart, then another, and it's followed by a string of curses from the white haired man. ]

Fucking cut it out! Who the hell's doing this, I'll kill you! [ Except now there's so much poison in his system that he's spitting out blood. Thanks, doc!

(Partner, please assist.) ]

[Lorna lives nearby, and the sounds of the gunshots and sirens definitely get her attention. She'd shown up to use her powers to take away any guns present, but as it turns out, it was nothing more than a sound.

So instead, she'll try for diplomacy.]

Um...please don't kill anyone. What's the problem, here?

[She hasn't had the pleasure of having the carollers refuse to leave her home just yet. She's heard them singing in the area, but they don't sound bad. Definitely not bad enough to threaten them over.]

Did they sing a song you didn't like?

A song-- 'tch!

[ He gives the caroler he's holding up a mean look before throwing him aside. How insulting! ]

You think I'd get pissed off over something like that? [ Yes. ] It's 'cause these idiots won't stop following me!

Oh, I can see how that would get annoying pretty quickly.

[Maybe not to the point that she'd threaten them, least of all with death, but she wouldn't want random people following her around singing when she was just trying to go about her business.]

Did any of them explain why they wouldn't leave you alone?

[ One of them is still crying. In fact, she yells out that they just wanted figgy pudding, which earns a snarl from Samatoki, accompanied by a stamp of his foot. ]

Do I look like someone who has that shit on hand, huh?!

[Lorna raises her eyebrows, side-eying the locals. Well, she can understand some of Samatoki's ire now, even if she thinks he's taking it too far.

Who just shows up at someone's house and refuses to leave until they get food? If they're hungry, surely there must be some sort of charity that can help them get what they need.]

Is this some sort of local custom?

[She turns to the locals, trying to be a little more polite and kind about this than Samatoki.]

Figgy pudding is a very specific thing to be demanding, you know. I don't think it's fair to expect that Otherworlders would know about this in advance. Could all of you please leave? I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, but this clearly isn't much fun for this man here.

[ Samatoki doesn't need anybody's help! He could easily kill these carolers with his bare hands. That's a quick solution to his problems. This girl trying to be nice and diplomatic's kind of getting on his nerves, but if he thought about it some more, there really is no good reason for his anger. He's just an angry puppy in general.

It's why he doesn't lash out on her either. Instead, she just stamps his foot again. ]

You heard her! That shit ain't fair and it's also fucking stupid! [ Aren't carolers supposed to spread joy and shit, and not give people headaches?? ] Don't show your faces to me again!

[ The carolers end up backing away slowly, mostly terrified that Samatoki looks like some kind of doberman ready to attack. One of them apologises to Lorna (not to the white haired male), but when they leave, they find another unsuspecting victim to bother... It looks like they haven't learned their lesson. ]

[Well, at least she managed to convince them to go away without any further violence. This all seems like a bizarre custom to her, but she supposes in a world that thrives on emotion, perhaps things need to be a little more extreme.

She shakes her head when she sees them approaching someone else.]

I hope that person is a local.

[ With his mood still dour, he pulls out a box of cigarettes, lights one up, then shoves the box back in his pocket. ]

What difference does it matter? They're still pissing someone off.

Because if that person is a local, this is an expected annoyance that's part of their culture rather than just showing up at a total stranger's door and demanding figgy pudding.

[She doesn't even know what figgy pudding tastes like, much less how to prepare it.]

Whereas for people who are new here, we don't know where to get what they want, and don't have the money to afford to feed anyone who shows up and insists.

[ From behind him, two hands clap together once. He's definitely not getting applause. ]

At least the rabbit has style.

[ Even if his lyrics don't. Poor guy's little d. ]

[ Samatoki looks back, a sour expression already on his face. He doesn't mind being interrupted, even though he was going to continue with another verse in a couple of seconds. It sounds like she's dissing him, though. SHE'S DISSING HIM, ISN'T SHE. ]

How the hell's this style? Looks like a tryhard.

[Junko's spent years in this world and seen a number of strange things. So few things really give her pause, most of the time she's just playing along and pretending that she's been presented with something strange and incomprehensible.

This is not one of those times. She's at a despairingly unusual loss for words seeing this rap and rabbit combo. But she'll try to make some sort of words out instead of just staring at it.]

...what was that?

[She has so many questions. Though it's about a 50-50 split between what and why.]

[ He stops and lowers the rabbit's feet back on the ground when he hears someone speak to him. Or maybe she's just thinking out loud? He doesn't know, but he hears it and he has to address it. ]

Huh? What's what?

[Where does she even start? Oh wait, she's got a good starting point here.]

Everything? The outfit for that rabbit, the rap, all of it.

[She'll think about it some more.]

Especially the rap.

[ THAT'S NOT A GOOD STARTING POINT AT ALL??? ]

Huh? The hell's wrong with the rap? [ There's a lot of wrong with the outfit, but it's mostly because he thinks it looks dumb. Anyway, the rap is important, okay. ] What, think you can do better?

[Then despair over her terrible starting point.]

I don't know, I'm not really a rapper.

[There was an attempt in one of the mangas. It involved Monokuma throwing out verses such as “like Mount Oyama I bring the drama” and talking about smoke and drank. It was bad, so she probably shouldn't do that ever.]

But it's just a lot to drop on someone all at once. The rabbit's also a cop? And smokes? But it's not a cop outfit, so maybe he's undercover?

[She isn't even remotely serious about any of this, but there are just so many questions the whole thing raises.]

Why does the cop have to wear a uniform? The guy's a sergeant. He doesn't need one.

[ ... wait. He hasn't addressed one of the points yet, has he?

His voice lowers when he asks: ] What's wrong with smoking?

I don't really have an issue with it, but then shouldn't he have a tiny cigar or something? To get the point across better.

[She can do constructive criticism sometimes too.]

[ He's spitting out blood?! Fucking GROSS. ]

Um. You alright there, buddy? I'd give you a hand, but I'm, uh... trying to save Larry here.

[ He's pressing down at the dummy's chest, trying to mimic somebody resuscitating a real person, although he's doing it very half-heartedly and clearly trying to get out of helping the bleeding rapper. ]

Can we get some help here?! Hello?!

[ He's definitely spitting out more blood now as he yells! Except he might be looking at something else, because his vision's all blurry and he can't tell where his partner is anymore. ]

You're the help I need, dumbass! Ditch that dummy and help me out!

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Test Drive: December

Samatoki Aohitsugi 🎤 Hypnosis Mic

D2

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F1

i hate this...