June/July Test Drive Meme

[sphererpmod]

June/July TDM

Welcome to Sphere's June/July Test Drive meme! This is a great place to get a feel for the game and how your characters might fit in here. Explore the setting, and get your samples and some starting CR all at the same time!

• Applications and Reserves are always open!
• Threads on the TDM are considered game canon if both parties agree to it!
• Threads on the TDM may be considered for Activity Check if need be!

Time to shine, sparkle and become renewed.

So the fighting has finished, the filtering system is turned back on and the water has retreated. Of course, all that water rushing in and having been there for so long means that there is a giant mess in most parts of the Sphere, where water alternated between coming up to one’s ankles, all the way to one’s knees. Even the smaller private domes were affected with lesser amounts of water, leaving dirt and sediment and kelp behind along with an assortment of other sea life.

Now we all remember what happened last time something grew inside the Sphere right? Thankfully, there’s been a fair amount of supplies that have been accrued, and it involves gloves, face masks and a good damn amount of bleach to go with those large scrub brushes. There’s also huge pails of soapy water that are used to clean up things from the bleach. Everything is wet and it smells a bit like an indoor swimming pool, but it’s definitely safer to be safe than sorry.

So pick up a brush and pitch in. Those who do may find a little extra something from the Council delivered to their homes in a basket. Those who don’t may find themselves a little bit on the Council’s unofficial shitlist. And given that Max runs the Black Market, it’s not a great place to find yourself. Maybe you were sort of shoved towards this and were doing it haphazardly. Maybe you give a damn. Either way, food and water will come to you, and everyone will be better once this place is cleaned up.

Or so people keep telling ya anyway.

about that bucket of water that you’re wearing.

Of course, if there’s one thing that history and eighties movies have taught us, it’s that where there’s giant buckets of soapy water around, and hoses, and big sponges, then there’s bound to be one thing that happens: a water fight. And a big one at that. Kids (or kids at heart) have been not so subtlety wandering around with buckets filled with cold water, or sponges dipped in them and a few of them have hoses. There’s no bleach in them thankfully (because it’s all fun and games until someone gets a chemical burn) but the water fight is a good way to let off some of the tension that the folks in the Sphere have been getting up too.

So are you a victim, or are you a perpetrator. Do you care either way? But it doesn’t matter because this fight is huge and when there’s this much water flying around, there really isn’t any space for anyone to be a bystander here. Sorry.

with a suitcase full of summertime

Do y’all know what we happened to miss while we were underwater?! The summer solstice. And once things are all cleaned and cleared up, your resident summertime goddess ain’t gonna let it pass without knowing it, and it’s something the inhabitants of the Sphere take to like ducks to water. Wine and dancing is flowing all around and there’s a few fiddlers and jazz musicians dancing around. Because when the queen of the underworld prods ya gently, you get up and do it.

As the night and people’s alcohol levels rise, people start to become more daring with the fire. After all, everything is all cleaned but probably still slightly damp from what had happened, so there’s no problem with people swinging poi around, or using hula hoops set alight. There are even some among us who happen to be going out and jumping over bonfires in order to create good luck for the new year to great cheers of the people around them.

and baby you should see me in a (flower) crown

Do you know what else is a thing during this? Flower crowns. There are tons of flower crowns and various people are sitting around and teaching people how to make their own. The materials, including fresh flowers of all varieties are scattered around the field in the agricultural dome, and people are sitting criss-cross applesauce in order to add ribbons to the stems. For those people who are loathe to wear them, it almost becomes a game for other people to plant them on those resilient folks heads. People use magic or guile or just plain old tossing them in order to make it so that they land on people’s heads. More than that, a group of people will audibly cheer each time one lands. (And of course jeer when they lose one.)

exploration: teeth and bones.

After what had happened, there really is no putting back the seals on the doors to the places that were opened up, even though the council has tried with some of them. There are some doors that are deemed too dangerous to let anyone go inside of (lava and ghosts are not good things to let loose inside the Sphere, no matter how fun it would be at the time) but the door in the infirmary (in the morgue) needs to be open for practical purposes. Which may not be great for people who work in the infirmary, but there it is.

Once people drop through a hatched hole in the floor of the morgue, there’s tunnels extended out for several hundred yards, into the dark. If you have a flashlight, it’s clear to see that here and there the walls are etched with Latin, carved into the stone of the tunnels themselves in what looks more than a little bit like scratches rather than anything that resembles tool marks. The words are repeated at first, over and over: ”cave veniunt!" And "ossa et dentibus illius ruminandum!" Along with the repeated: “cave.”

The skeletons inside are supposed to have been all taken care of, but you can’t help the uneasy feeling that moves down your neck in the darkness, or the way that you can swear you can hear more than a little bit of a hiss of bone. There are things discarded here on the floor of the hallway, gathering more value with the deeper that you go, but is it worth being down here in the dark with the dead for that?

mechanic: memory share.

Too see the full updates on how memory shares work, please visit here

1. Memory shares are experienced over the networked, and beamed directly into the other person's brains as if they are experiencing it themselves.
2. Shares do not need to be written a certain way, but here is a mod example: Too see the full updates on how memory shares work, please visit Max Tinder memory share.
3. These memories are things that they are watching through the experience of the person who's memory has already happened. It's like seeing a recording that feels very real. However, there isn't anything that they can personally do within it. These are things that have already happened to the character and are fixed points.
4. These posts are responded to like a message on the network, and not in the memory itself.

wildcard

This is a good place to test out something like the network or an idea of your own! Remember upon waking in The Sphere, each character is fitted with a small golden circle behind their right ear. This is how they are connected to the network through a neural link. Touch and hold the button to create a broadcast of one of three types:

1. Audio. Your character thinks audible words onto the network.
2. Writing: Your character thinks text into the network.
3. Video. Your character projects a broadcast of a video of themselves onto the network.

Replies are determined by the player. The network needs to be accessed by choice, so character broadcasts are not automatically beamed directly into people’s heads. The Sphere isn’t that rude.

Private messages are allowed by pressing and holding and pressing and holding again as you picture the person in your mind. This can be an image or a name, err more on the side of things being more accessible than less.

photo inspiration

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Comments

And baby you should see me

[itsnothingpersonal]

[He is well aware how much his brother and his brother's friends would have, once upon a time, made fun of him for crafting such things, but Loki had a creative streak, and a deft hand, which lent itself well to the weaving of crowns. It was something he'd done often with his mother when he was a boy, in the fields of wildflowers that Asgard had been so rife with before...

...well, it was best not to think about it too much. He places his newest finished crown atop the head of a native girl who's been industriously watching him weave and smiles before looking over to Jason, raising an eyebrow and she curtsies and runs off.]

You need a gentle hand to craft a fine crown, you know. They're delicate.

[It's spoken deadpan, suggesting his first impression of Jason is that the young man is anything but.]

[snowjoke]

[Jason was lightly dozing in the grass as people ran around yelling, soon the sun was blocked as a slim figure looms over him.]

I was trying to be delicate.

[He frowns a bit sitting up, the flower crown on his head falling into crumpled petals around him.]

What are you some sort of flower crown making expert? [His voice has a small mocking tone to it as he looks up at him.]

[itsnothingpersonal]

I can see that.

[And Loki reaches to the fallen flowers, collecting them with a small smile.]

I'm a man of many talents, most of which require a deft hand. These, though, I've been weaving since I was a young boy. They really don't require that much dexterity.

[snowjoke]

[He watches him gather up the flowers quietly. He didn't really look like someone that would be wasting his time with something childish like this.

He picks up a fresh flower and twirls it between thin fingers.]

then I guess you are an expert huh... and it's obvious that I've never done this kinda shit before.

[He's kinda surprised that this guy's going out his way to talk to him rather than enjoy the festivities]

What other talents do you have? or is some vague crime junk?

[itsnothingpersonal]

[Little did Jason know Loki was doing something so menial because he was also Projecting, exploring the festivities and looking to garner a deeper understanding of the other natives by essentially spying on them with magic, invisible and unheard. It took a great degree of focus to concentrate on the world around his physical body and that of his mind's projection, so weaving flower crowns as the most he could muster.

He smiles at the question and chuckles slightly and his fingers continue to work.]

Now that would be telling. You didn't do too badly for a beginner.

[snowjoke]

[Jason had no understanding what Loki was doing, or what he was capable of. He just figured he was here to show him up.

Despite that he watches Loki work weaving the flowers skillfully.]

Guess it would be, huh. I watched someone else make one but it got to complicated.

[He starts gathering a few flowers mostly just wanting to fiddle with them.]

so like, who are you exactly?
[The question a bit blunt and unnecessary. Could have politely asked but doesn't seem like today was the day. ]

[itsnothingpersonal]

One doesn't simply pick up a new skill and become a master.

[You see? He could be understanding. Now, he had mastered shapeshifting by the age of 8, but not everyone was a genius, either. He does look up from his craftsmanship when the boy asks who he is, raising his chin slightly.]

I am Loki of Asgard. Perhaps you've heard of me?

[snowjoke]

Well, I don't wanna put in the time to becoming some sort of master at it.

[Maybe he does he doesn't really have anything better to do. and it doesn't stop him from watching Loki weave the flowers together without much hassle to it.

He states his name and Jason stops working to look at him with confusion.]

Never... And that's your name, it's kinda a stupid sounding name.

[Blunt and rude of him to say so.]

Where's Asgard? is that part of your name to or somethin?

[itsnothingpersonal]

No one is insisting you should.

[A bemused smile touches his lips as he continues to weave, and he even chuckles slightly.]

I am thoroughly humbled by your opinion. I'll get right on changing that. [He glances in Jason's direction and that smirk turns mischievous for a moment.] I could take yours.

[He chuckles at though there was some sort of joke there before going back to his work.] Asgard is nowhere, currently, though it, until very recently was a planet apart from and a part of Earth. I'd go into further detail, but, well, I don't want to.

[snowjoke]

[Jason's hands move with little to no skill and growing frustration.]

A good idea honestly. Sound like some sort of dog name. [He snickers a bit and shrugs.] If you want to take it, you can run around screaming I am Jason of Virginia.

[He tosses his hands up and some flowers fly out as he lets out a pleasant laugh.

He listens as Loki speaks and he just stares at him quietly.]

So... Like just poof gone or like shit everyone's fucking dead gone?

[itsnothingpersonal]

Like "my sister and a demon made the planet explode" gone.

[He dissipates his projection, taking back his focus and setting aside his work to regard this Jason of Virginia more fully, and then a shimmer fluxes over his skin as his features contort, his hair shortens and lightens, his eyes change color, and then, for all intents and purposes, Jason is looking at an identical twin, clothing and all, who smiles at him, and then say in his voice:]

How long should I be Jason of Virginia, do you think? Would you like to be his faithful hound, Loki? I could make it so.

[snowjoke]

[Jason watches in absolute amazement as Loki morphed into him. How could someone do that? well... it wasn't out of the question but wow it was cool, he scoots closer to him and looks him up and down. It was so incredibly cool. ]

Well that sucks... but holy shit this is really cool!

[Boy's got his priorities.]

I mean I don't see why you'd want to be me for long, but yeah sure why not?

[itsnothingpersonal]

[Still wearing Jason's face, and using Jason's voice, he smiles and chuckles.]

There are several among them, chiefly: how better to get up to no good than to blame it on someone else, and you being a canine and all, and unable to speak in your own defense...

[snowjoke]

Um... excuse me?

[He was obviously not a dog, he motions to himself with a frown.He doesn't quite understand what Loki meant, He's fine with getting in trouble but the second parts spun him for a loop.]

I know you aren't blind so obviously, you can see I'm not some dog? So what are you talking about?

[itsnothingpersonal]

Sorcery.

[He grinned at Jason with Jason's smile, though there was a mischievousness glittering in his reflection's eyes that wasn't there before.]

I shall turn you into a dog, and none shall be the wiser until I deign otherwise.

[snowjoke]

[Mmmm, He was starting to get a weird feeling from this guy.]

ya know... I think I'll pass on that dog offer ya know? You can run around as me and shit but I think you better fucking not, I don't wanna be some stupid dog.

[It doesn't really look like a choice, and maybe it'll remind him not to go running his mouth so easily.]

[itsnothingpersonal]

I'd 'better not'? [The arrogance shining in this Jason's eyes was foreign, out of place, and there was a near malice to it, an idling rage at this boy's audacity.] Or what? What threat can you pose that might intimidate me do you think?

[snowjoke]

[He keeps talking and he really shouldn't. He looks at Loki then away again trying to figure out some sort of proper threat.]

I'll... um. [He doesn't like seeing such an intense look on his own face it was unnerving.]

I'll punch ya, in... the face.

[itsnothingpersonal]

[Jason's double meets his eyes for a moment, intensely, before breaking into a broad grin and laughing. Oh, this one was fun.]

How delightful! Tell me, Jason, what sort of dog do you think the name 'Loki' suits?

[snowjoke]

[This was not fun for Jason anymore, he's running out of any sort of plan he had.]

Mmmmm... probably something big and tough, you know something that could just... say tear your face off probably.

[He looks at the ground then back up trying to act smoothly about it. If he can't avoid it then he can at least give himself some sort of advantage.]

Just an idea though, seem's fitting.

[itsnothingpersonal]

Mmm. [He looked thoughtful for just a moment before smiling.] A shepherd, then.

[He nods, standing. and brushing himself off.]

You'll have until midnight. [And he raises a hand, a ripple of energy bursting from his palm and bathing Jason's body in a cold, pale light for a moment. It didn't do anything, the spell was already woven, but it was for the effect, you understand.]

May I suggest looking me up at the local library? At least you might learn something. [He smirks.] While you still have thumbs.

[And with a final nod, he turns and leaves.]

[snowjoke]

I mean we could not do this?

[His idea pushed aside as the light covers his body, it was weird, not really feeling any different.

He looks himself over with confusion.]

Midnight? are you sure you're not just fucking with me? It didn't feel like you did anything...

[He trails off quietly looking over himself again just to be sure.]

Fuck off I don't need to know more about you than your a jackass.

[Loki turns to leave and what Jason decides to utilize his hands is to give him two middle fingers. He's not entirely sure what he's gotten himself into but he's made a pretty big mistake.]