happyheartsstaff: (Default)
𝐻𝒜𝒫𝒫𝒴 𝐻𝐸𝒜𝑅𝒯𝒮 𝒮𝒯𝒜𝐹𝐹 ([personal profile] happyheartsstaff) wrote in [community profile] funnyhearts2019-01-29 02:26 pm
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INAUGURAL TEST DRIVE MEME




TEST DRIVE MEME: WELCOME TO HAPPY HEARTS


You wake up in a padded box. It rocks, gently, as though suspended in mid-air. You begin to stir, confusion or distress pushing you to try to sit up — and then the air begins to smell sweet, and you fall back asleep.

You wake up in a padded box. For a moment, you are beatifically calm. You don't know how you got here, or why, but that isn't really all that important. You don't need to know where you are. You're just... here. And here is a wonderful place to be.

But there is a niggling suspicion growing in the back of your mind. A suspicion that here is not somewhere you wanted to be. That it is not where you're supposed to be. You remember... chasing a white rabbit (or was it a person)? A mirror? Bright light, and green ivy crawling over your skin... Before you can worry too much, the box jolts, and then settles, and after a long moment the walls fall from around you to reveal —

A hotel lobby?

"Welcome to the Happy Hearts Hotel and Casino," says an attendant behind a desk. "We're so pleased you could join us for our grand opening gala. We have your room keys and Empathies here, please make an orderly line and we'll hand them out once we've confirmed identities. After that, feel free to explore the hotel! We highly recommend starting with the casino. Everyone's a winner here in Happy Hearts!"

Is this normal? It doesn't feel normal. And hey — you could swear you had shoes before!


I. THE CASINO FLOOR


As you pass through the entrance to the casino floor, an attendant passes you a small bag of chips. The casino is loud and bright and filled with games of every kind — you want to play poker? They've got a table for that. Sabacc? There's a table for that, too. Slots, pachinko, and bingo are also available. The attendant in the lobby wasn't lying, either — everyone who plays wins. Everyone, every time.

Servers wander the floor with trays of shotglasses full of multi-coloured liquids, offering them to every oyster "Compliments of Her Royal Highness." If you're expecting alcohol, though, you'll be surprised — these drinks are teas made of the distilled emotions of every oyster in the hotel. Each colour tea corresponds to a different emotion, and as soon as you take a sip, you feel overcome with that emotion.
JOY — the distilled essence of happiness, this tea makes even the most rough and tumble of oysters giddy with happiness — for a moment. The effect fades into a sense of general contentment after a few seconds, and that itself fades away slowly over the course of twenty minutes.
ANGER — this tea, anger in liquid form, can make the most even-tempered of oysters ready to absolutely blow a gasket. For twenty minutes, anyone who drinks this tea will find themselves much more easily annoyed, frustrated, and all around irritable and snappy.
SADNESS — distilled sadness is a potent tea, capable of turning a stoic, stalwart oyster into a blubbering mess in moments. Events that may have previously only been a minor disappointment become the end of the world, every repressed unhappiness comes to the fore, and for twenty minutes, any oyster who drank a sadness tea can hardly keep themselves together.


II. MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME


If gambling isn't to your interest, there are many other areas of the hotel to explore! For the moment, only The Pool Of Tears and the Pig & Pepper buffet are available for oysters to peruse, but the staff will assure anyone who asks that the other facilities will be open by the next day. Unfortunately, that means no one can buy any swimsuits from This Elegant Thimble, but the staff aren't going to kick anyone out of the pool for jumping in in their clothes! The Pig & Pepper serves lunch foods from across all different cultures, offering something for everyone, and some things you've never even heard of.

Maybe you just want to be alone — well, that's what you have your room key for! Oysters room on the second and third floors of the hotel, one to a room. You were assured your room would be exactly what you'd always wished for — and for some, that's right! It's exactly as you would have decorated it yourself. But for others, their rooms are totally wrong. A grizzled cowboy can't have a pink room! Hotel staff are firm, though: every room is exactly as its owner wants it to be. Search your feelings, oyster. You know it to be true.




III. YOU'VE BEEN NAUGHTY


Curiosity is not, on its own, a trait the staff want to discourage. Oysters are free to search for ways out of the hotel, but they won't find anything — there are no doors anywhere in the lobby or the casino, the windows are impenetrable, the walls don't crumble no matter how hard anyone hits them. The elevator between floors has no service hatch, and there are no stairs to take. The hotel is, at least so far as anyone can tell, a completely closed system.

Now, in light of this, Happy Hearts knows some oysters can be a little... reactionary. Especially when cornered, especially the ones with powers or abilities beyond the average human. With this in mind, any oyster found to be destructive or combative won't be punished. Not yet. They will, however, be quickly incapacitated by hotel staff, drugged to incoherence, and brought discretely to a hidden back room. No one notices these oysters disappearing, nor the doors they must have been dragged through.

In this room, troublesome oysters sit, paralyzed, across from a woman in red. She smiles, and offers candy from a bowl on her desk, and laughs to herself when she remembers the oysters can't take one.

You're new, she says, kindly, so it's understandable that you're having trouble adjusting to the hotel. We promise to do all we can to make your stay here as fulfilling as possible, so you have nothing to worry about. Your experience is our top priority.

She plucks a candy disk from her bowl, and unwraps it slowly.

But you must know: if you endanger our other guests again like you have today, there will be punishments. We pride ourselves on the emotional experience we offer our oysters, and we can't let anything get in the way of that. For everyone's safety and happiness, you understand.

She pops the candy in her mouth, sucks for a moment, and smiles broadly.

That's all.

The oyster is brought, still paralyzed and incoherent, back to the hotel. No one notices them return. The paths taken through the hotel to bring them to the woman in red fade from their mind as soon as they arrive back on the hotel floor. They're left in the lobby to sit and think until the paralysis wears off.

And then they can go back to having fun in the casino!


IV. HEY! LISTEN!


At the end of the day, every oyster's Empathy device buzzes, pings, and lights up — there's a message waiting for them!
A woman with red hair and a teal dress, sat on a throne with her hands held delicately in her lap and her legs crossed daintily at the ankle, looks into the camera, smiling.

"Hello, my dear oysters! We're so pleased you could join us. I am Victoria Hart, the humble Queen of this realm, and I wanted to personally welcome you to the Happy Hearts hotel, and thank you for your gifts. We will not squander them, dears, as we will not allow your stay with us to be anything less than perfect. If you need anything at all, I'm sure hotel staff will be happy to provide, and I will be keeping an eye on all of you, to ensure your experience remains a positive one.

Welcome, darlings. This is the beginning of something wonderful."
The message saves to each oyster's Empathy, and an app pops up on the screen: the community bulletin board. The queen doesn't respond to any messages sent to her, but the other oysters might. It's worth a shot, right?



Welcome to the first TDM of Happy Hearts, a new panfandom roleplaying game here on DW! If you have any questions, please direct them to the first comment on this page. Happy playing, oysters!
thunderproof: ᴀʟʟ ɪᴄᴏɴs ʙʏ METAHUMANS. ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ. (Default)

[personal profile] thunderproof 2019-01-31 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
jeez that's a lot of tears. adalia hasn't really dealt with people crying around her before, but she's read books — touch is supposed to help with that, right? people like to be hugged and stuff, when they're sad?

she reaches out, tentatively, and pats at josie's shoulder.


If it's from the food, it'll probably pass. ❰ so there's that...? ❱ What did you eat? Did you drink anything?
polydeukes: (Default)

[personal profile] polydeukes 2019-01-31 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[She gestures to the plate in front of her, an assortment of half-eaten finger foods and half a cup of bright blue tea. But she's immediately distracted from the conversation when that hand comes down on her shoulder and she feels it, a spark of magic lingering just beyond her reach, and her eyes widen as she glances over.]

You're a witch?
thunderproof: ᴀʟʟ ɪᴄᴏɴs ʙʏ METAHUMANS. ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ. (Default)

[personal profile] thunderproof 2019-01-31 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
oh. well, that was a silly question to ask, wasn't it? adalia's reaching for the cup when josie asks her question, and adalia's fingers pause on the rim of the cup. no one's been able to tell that just by being around her before. she looks back from the cup to josie, nervous, but doesn't lift her hand from josie's shoulder. if this turns bad somehow, she can just shove a bunch of electricity into josie's shoulder and book it.

book it where, given the fact there are no doors or anything here, is a question adalia will deal with when the time comes.


How could you tell?
polydeukes: (Default)

[personal profile] polydeukes 2019-01-31 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oh that was ... a bad call. She holds up her hands, swiping at her cheeks as she does before shaking her head.]

I'm not ... I didn't mean.

[Breathe, Josie.]

I'm one too. But in order to use magic I need to draw it from enchanted things or other people - not permanently, but just ... sort of borrow it? When you touched me I could feel it, that's all.
thunderproof: (ϟ|seventy  third.)

[personal profile] thunderproof 2019-01-31 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
it takes a moment, but adalia relaxes, fraction by fraction, her grip on josie's shoulder losing its tension. it takes an even longer moment for the nerves in her expression to clear up, but once they do adalia just purses her lips and furrows her brow in confusion.

I've never heard of something like that before, ❰ she mutters to herself, finally bringing the cup of tea up to her face. she doesn't take a sip, but she sniffs at it, and when that doesn't tell her anything, dips her finger in and tastes the liquid that gathered on it.

and immediately feels terrible.


Oooh. Oh, I think I know what did it. Oh, that's awful, I'm so sad.
polydeukes: (Default)

[personal profile] polydeukes 2019-01-31 07:19 pm (UTC)(link)
They're pretty rare where I'm from, but both me and my twin sister are one.

[Because they're SpecialTM.

She makes a face when Adalia establishes it's the tea though.]


Got it. Don't drink the tea.