spherememing | May/June Test Drive Meme

May/June Test Drive Meme

All you need is love.

So the Sphere heard that some of you guys are lonely. It doesn’t want you to be lonely so it has decided that even though it’s not really February the people within its confines and connected to them deserve to have a sort of Valentine’s Day anyway. Celebrating love (all sorts of love, definitely not merely the romantic sort) is on display. Think pink and red and white and loads of hearts and rainbows.

all you need is some kind of love.

In the middle of the merchant dome, some of the stalls pushed aside a large pink and white stripped tent is set up. Inside is a series of small tables, each set up with numbers and two seats each. When people go in and register to receive the number, they are given three initial options. Option one is romantic dating with further subcategories based on gender preferences (if any) and orientation. The second option is for friendship. The Sphere wants you to make friends! A third option only open to the adults within the Sphere is for hooking up and no strings attached sex. That is also sectioned by orientation and preferences.

Each option you pick allows people to talk for five minutes before people move onto the next person. At each station is the option for ice breaker cards. Think would you rather or describe your perfect date (date date or a friendship date. Whichever you’re working on.) Should players wish it, there are various unnamed NPCs around for people to chat up, hook up with or whatever. Go a little bit nuts with it.

it's all for a good cause

John put a post up that calls for the option to sign up for (or to be signed up by someone else) for a date that’s auctioned off. She somehow managed to convince Max to host said auction (but don’t ask how. You don’t want to know what she had on him) so he is your MC for the night.

The gala takes place in the same tent as the speed dating, but it’s been made over to look rather gala like. There’s fairy lights and silk on the tables and an open bar with circulating free champagne. And everything else of course. As always with the sphere there’s food in abundance, things that typically one might think of in a romantic context: strawberries and oysters and chocolate and finger foods. It’s that sort of party. None of it has any effect though. Too many people imbibing for that.

There’s a small band playing for people who are interested in dancing, and various NPCs are currently using it. It’s a good party, lively and inviting.

i get by with a little help from my friends.

So, you know how the people within the Sphere tend to force festivals on you? Well, a big part of those is always food and gifts. These particular foods and gifts tend to come in the form of small valentine’s cakes or candy, or flowers for those not inclined for food. The flowers are yellow however, because this isn’t about love. This is about friendship. There’s signs for free hugs, and random people have been hired to go about telling folks that so and so is their friend. Even if they’re not. But they’ll still follow you down the street and spout things like poetry and cheers in the honor of epic friendships. Even if they’re not really all that epic--the friendships or the poetry.

let's go to the movies, let's go see the stars

Some people may remember a few months ago when Alex badgered Max into letting them have an open area movie screening. This time she didn’t need to do it! In the middle of the rec dome, a large screen has been set up, and there’s space for people to have blankets or chairs from home set up in front of the screen. Various vendors have set up carts or stalls here and there, selling the sort of foods that one would expect at the movies (popcorn, homemade candies, soda, juice, wine and beer, nachos and that sort of thing) along with some that one may not expect: (full curry dinners, burgers, basically a bit like a food truck festival. If you can imagine it it’s there.)

Before the movie, there’s cartoons running, some familiar, and some not, and this is an event that people have seemed to have taken to well. Children run around here taken with the idea for the movie, and it’s a fun, summery festive sort of atmosphere with a community vibe, despite the wine and beer for sale.

we're heckling! it's good to be heckling again!

The movie is a buddy movie double feature, and both of them are rated R, but there’s no one checking IDs so go nuts. The movies that are being shown are Hot Fuzz and The Heat because that’s just what buddy comedies happen to be. But movies aren’t to everyone’s taste and there are some people who have taken this to go full on commentary about them. Do you join in or shush them? It’s entirely up to you!

photo inspiration

main navigation

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's true, the unwise to tend toward making friends with colleagues. [The unwise and the thoroughly unreserved. Have a sense of propriety, man. Nevermind that just about every normal person develops some degree of friendship with people they see every day, sometimes more often than they have seen their families.]

We've known one another since we were children. I dare say it would be impossible for us to be 'strictly professional'.

[Dodging questions like a boss...or like a prosecuting attorney. It's like he does this for a living.]

I can’t deny that it might have been wiser if we hadn’t...

[Because losing him? That had hurt... A lot. He hadn’t even really been able to properly mourn the loss at the time, what with trying to save George, and Murdoch being framed.]

And I certainly didn’t make a habit of it before that, but I would argue that being friends on some level did benefit the partnership. It made for I would say uh— more smooth teamwork.

[Oh, they’d grown up together? That gets a raised brow, and a rather blunt sounding response.]

So you were friends as well, then.

It’s often the case, but few seem to follow suit.

[Edgeworth couldn’t argue that point. He and Phoenix, odd pair as they were, certainly worked better together due to their familiarity.]

We were estranged for some time. I don’t know if you could call us friends. Colleagues and rivals, yes.

In my experience... A rivalry can certainly be friendly, if challenging.

[A different person comes to mind aside from Jackson on that note, though that isn’t really what was grabbing his attention. Whoever this person was, they seemed to have a very interesting relationship with Edgeworth...]

Regardless of the rivalry or your temporary estrangement, clearly the Sphere noted that they were important enough for you to trust.

I suppose, but I hardly see how that's relevant.

[If he were being honest, Wright was far more than a rival. He was a friend, even if he was loathed to admit it at times. Even if the man could be annoying, insufferable, and brought Larry around half the time.]

Indeed. I still fail to see the point in this Sphere impersonating anyone, given we all know it does so.

I wish I could say something other than perhaps lowering our guard if we instinctively relax to hear a familiar voice. Even if we know that it can’t be that person, uh— it does throw you off balance.

[At least it had for him, to hear a dead friend’s voice was very jarring... Interrupted panic with confusion instead of trust, perhaps, but it had still gotten his attention.]

And much of what the sphere does seems like a test, I’m afraid.

Which begs the question: why? What purpose does it serve to lower our defenses after we've already been bodily kidnapped and forced to endure unauthorized surgical implantation?

[There's a pause while Edgeworth shakes his head.]

If this is, in fact, an experiment, it's a poorly planned one. It seems more likely this Sphere, to pull from science fiction in light of recent events, has been given too much autonomy by whoever put it in charge here in the first place.

[He clears his throat, a sound indicative of someone who's about to start a lengthy exposition.]

We are either selected at random or chosen for specific purpose; we are held for an unknown length of time without out knowledge while they implant this communicator, document our vital statistics, and archive our residential preferences if what I've found in the fingerprint-locked chest is any indication, and scan our memories with what seems to be the intent of using them later; and yet, afterward, we are placed in a residence and awoken only to be greeted by someone referenced in those documented memories. Ergo, while this may have originated as a social experiment, it is my belief it has since dwindled into something wholly different. The Sphere, in a sense, has gone rogue.

[Ah yes, Murdoch did that. Long-winded explanations... Llewellyn could too, of course. It was only that he tended to reserve those for specific moments in time in which he had the space to move if he really got on a roll.

Listening was always hit and miss, but at the very least Edgeworth kept him engaged throughout the exposition. No expanded science garble was always a plus, at any rate.]

Mm... With the things that happen here, I would at least agree that’s a large possibility. I have, on occasion, wondered if it is even in full control. Uh— especially considering there was proof on at least one occasion that the sphere itself is corruptible. It can be manipulated by outside sources if its defences are breached. This has only happened once that we know of, but that in itself suggests that it wouldn’t be strange for there to have been an incident that caused The Sphere to go ‘rogue’ as you put it and never quite put back in proper order.

And if it was not, as you say, put back in proper order, then it would suggest one of two scenarios: its creators are gone and it is operating on its own or they are guilty of gross negligence and we should find them either way.

Precisely, if there’s anything left of the creators to be found... It could provide some answers. At least it could if either of those things is the case. Further investigation is necessary.

[He raised a brow though, just one of his many scattered thoughts coming to the front of his mind.]

You know, you sound like someone who’s investigated before.

[Rather than a prosecutor who spent most of their time in a courtroom. He did respect lawyer’s, of course. He’s reasonably well acquainted with one, though she recently decided to take on defence instead.]

In order to prosecute cases accurately and fairly, one needs a thorough knowledge of the investigative process. I also personally oversee the collection of evidence in all my assigned cases, so yes, I have investigated before, and I agree. Much more is necessary here.

Really...? Normally I only see lawyers in court when I’m called upon for a case where necessary.

[He hummed a little,]

Then again— I have been made aware that the future of crime investigation differs greatly from my time.

Your time? Can you be more specific?

[A pause.]

It also varies from country to country. Are you American?

I can, yes...?

[He knew before he continued just how strange this might sound, it was something he’d been rather surprised to find upon arrival.]

You see, people tend to come here from different eras as well as worlds. It was the year 1905 when I was last in my world, and I’m from Canada?

May/June Test Drive Meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject