synodiporia_ooc | Test Drive #11.

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.

Our upcoming app round runs September 1st-7th. Our next Jaunt, The Lightning Age, a postcolonial steampunk romp with a hunt for a fugitive disordering a peaceful flying city, will run September 12th-October 19th, and an alternate player-driven setting, or Walkabout, will be available (but the specific setting has yet to be voted upon).

Prompt #33 is set in the sometimes Mad-Max like post-apocalyptic academia of the Ivory Tower jaunt, where an isolated school works to restore civilization decades after a brutal war destroyed it. But off-campus, things can get a little rougher…

Prompt #34 is set in the world of Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo high school world where Social Technology, or S. Tech, allows the physical conjuration of emotions - sparkles, roses, soundtracks, emotes and rainclouds. Heartbreak Academy teaches elite students how to better master their S. Tech - and as you could imagine, this makes practical exams… very interesting...

Prompt #33: Pop Quiz.

There are chlorine bombs in the library, and snipers outside.

To be more specific, the library is an open-air market set up in a suburban French high-rise parking garage, one of the few buildings on this side of the city to survive intact, and a good place for gatherings that might need a quick getaway. Academics from across Europe use it as a trading post - bringing old books, or bringing computer printouts collected in three-ring binders, driving up in dune buggies or armored trucks, landing on the ceiling in helicopters, conducting a rapid swap of the valuables, and leaving.

But this time, the warlords knew they were coming. On each floor, among the parked cars, there’s a truck or van with deflated tires and an empty gas tank, in which an oil-drum and a detonator have been mounted. It’s overkill, but worse is the fact that in half-demolished buildings to either side are snipers. To the west, they only have crossbows, but the raider on the northeast has some sort of pre-War antimateriel rifle, and he’s already scragged a buggy in the exit ramp and shot a chopper pilot on the roof.

So now, it’s up to the academics. Those who study environmental sciences are trying to find ways to neutralize the chemicals. Engineers are working to disarm the detonators or fix the vehicles enough to safely transport the bombs. The history and humanities students are given the job of finding some way to stop the snipers, and stop raiders from getting in to steal any of their texts or other resources.

And some, of course, are caught in the fine traditions of academic debate, and may need Travelers to steer them to more decisive action… but of course, there might be Travelers among the raiders, too.

Prompt #34 Partner Exercise

The exam is simple. Each of you’s been given a spare, teacher-monitored Moe-Meter and left alone in the exam hall. Using S. Tech - not just fancy manifestations, but your words and actions, your persuasive skill and acting ability, all the skills that make you effective with S. Tech - you and your partner for this exam have to bury the needle. The problem is, you have to do it in both directions - positive emotion, maxing things out with cuteness, fondness, or warm feelings - and negative emotion, hitting empty on the meter through sadness, anger, or fear. Any sort of against-the-rules physical contact is an automatic F (if your partner reports it), but apart from that, it’s up to your imagination. You have fifteen minutes - that’s like Seven Minutes In Heaven and Seven in Hell, with one minute of cooldown in between.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

34: Infiltrating

Ohhhh, boy. Exams. Don't get him wrong, Right loves being able to use S. Link tech. He's always excelling at the positive side of it in class, and it's just fun to communicate and mess around with friends via S. Link antics. It's the negative half that he tends to have problems with. Really, he only does decent in that area if he's having one of his rare bad days - if he's sick, if he's had a fight with someone, and so forth.

So, to have this kind of exam... well, the touching thing's okay, so long as his exam partner doesn't goad him into throwing a punch. Or a hug, though that'll be harder to resist. Thus, when his partner comes in, Right grins as brightly as he can to help hide his nerves. "So, uh...no hard feelings when we get to the negative half of the exam, right?"

You know what's weird? Not infiltrating in this scenario. Sure, he looks like a teenager, and everyone's written him off as a rich kid transfer student, but Zed's still himself.

"What, the negative stuff?" Zed grins. "You mean you wanna start with the easy stuff first?" Because if there's any part of this that's going to be easy, it's the negative feelings. The darkness of it all. He's screwed if it comes to bringing light and positive feelings out of this thing, and he knows it.

"You think it's easy? I didn't think you'd be that way, since you're always grinning and talking about shiny things."

Yeah, a rich kid that Right's been trying - and failing - to be friends with. From his current POV, Zed's a rich guy who doesn't get the whole 'having friends' deal. Not a total asshole, but jerk-ish enough to rub Right the wrong way.

"Alright...you start."

"Nothing's easier for me to handle than the darkness." Sounds like he's a rich emo kid, no less. Zed gives Right a lazy shrug. "Look at you, you're pathetic. Do you really think you're going to amount to anything? So you've passed a few S-Tech tests here and there, made a few sparkly things. It's not like you can do anything else--I've seen your other grades." Not that Zed's own grades are much better.

"Except my English grades; they're awesome. And I kick ass in Gym class, too." Right's meter does tick up...but not much. "Besides, what about you? You're rich, and your grades aren't much better. And I got one thing that money can't buy ya - real friends."

"What are friends good for, in the end?" Zed crosses his arms.

...actually, he's got some now. Maybe. Possibly. The Questing Country bond stuff was confusing that way.

Right gives him a funny look. "You really don't know? Friends are there to help you when you really need it. It doesn't matter how rich and powerful you can be. If you lose all of that, or if you really get hurt and your family can't be there for you, your friends will stick with you through all of that. They'll help pick up up, patch you up, and give you all the support you need. Plus, it's easier and more fun to do things together with friends than by yourself."

*Ding-ding!* Right's meter is now going up on the positive side instead of the negative one.

"How did that even..." Zed squints at the meter, scowling a bit, as his own ticks downward a notch. "I have plenty of fun by myself. The art room had glitter."

So if anyone is wondering where it all went, mystery solved.

Right stares at him in surprise. "Wait, you're the one who used up all the glitter? You're more of a jerk than I thought. All the girls needed that for their art projects - especially Kagura!"

"Well, then they should have gotten there first!" Zed remains unaffected by ideas that he shouldn't take things. "You snooze, you lose."

Charlene laughs. "Yeah, yeah. I get it, dude. We have to be dicks to each other to sink the needle in the negative direction. I've done this before."

She punches Right lightly on his shoulder. "So hard or easy first?"

Right grins grows more honest, and more full of relief, upon hearing that last part. There's hardly any flinching from the punch, and he simply shrugs in response. "Eh, let's start with the easy stuff first."

"Okay," says Charlene. She cocks her head to the side. "So, uh, how do you wanna run this? I think I can do the thing where you produce food out of nowhere. Like this, see?" And with a flourish of a gesture, there's a pair of pocky boxes. She takes the strawberry one and passes the chocolate to Right.

And that lights up Right's face like a Christmas tree as he immediately takes the box. "Wooow, you can do that! That's awesome!"

*Ding!* His meter goes up a notch on the positive side as he starts to dig into the Pocky, two or three sticks at a time.

She snickers at him and munches her own sticks with little methodological bites. "Yeah, Hammerspace is pretty useful. What have you learned how to do?"

"Let's see...I learned how to do Storytelling and Instant Wardrobe Change..." Right tilts his head to one side as he thinks (and munches) for a few moments. His eyes then lights up - as does the instant lightbulb over his head. "Oh, yeah! I figured out how to create my own Personal Soundtrack!"

She sparkles at the thought. "Ooooooh. Show me, show me!"

Test Drive #11.

Right - Ressha Sentai ToQger

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also infiltrating

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charlene is thorne's real name and since she's supposed to be in high school when infiltrating...

Ahhh, I see! I'm not familiar with her canon, so thanks for the clarification

she's an OC that's an ex-tabletop PC so technically she doesn't have one

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