INAUGURAL TEST DRIVE MEME

[happyheartsstaff]

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!

Comments

[polydeukes]

[Josie perches herself at one of the tables in the buffet area, more of it than at it though because teenagers. She's dressed like something out of a hipster boarding school vibe, down to the sweater over her blouse with the logo of the Salvatore School and plaid skirt.

They didn't give her time to change into something less little school girl before she was kidnapped.

That being said, when she spots the purple hair, she pushes up and gives a bit of wave.]

[warmjellydonut]

[ Oh, wow. Clarice hadn't expected a teenager for some reason. Maybe this is a bad idea. But, then again, most if not all of the teenagers she knows can handle themselves in dangerous situations. That just hasn't been proven with Josie yet.

Clarice gives a little smile and walks over, looking a tinge awkward in that way that people tend to be when meeting for the first time. ]

Hey, so... Josie. Hi.

[polydeukes]

[One of the ways that Josie does take after her mom is that she's always one to breeze over any awkward with a smile. She's also totally aware that she's a teenager but she still wants to try and be helpful, if she can.

She wasn't raised to just sit on her butt and let other people do the work.

She hops off the table and nods.]

Hi. So where do you want to start?

[warmjellydonut]

[ To the point. Clarice can get behind that. Especially because they've done most of the small talk of who are you and how are you a freak already.

She glances back towards the buffet and, behind it, the kitchen door. ]

I'm not great at subtlety. But I can sneak. Think there's a back door?

[polydeukes]

Probably. I mean, they have to get all their supplies in from somewhere, right?

[She also follows her eyes towards the back door.]

Maybe through the kitchen? Food deliveries, right?

[warmjellydonut]

Right?

[ Clarice echoes the sentiment, but at the same time she's not sure. Everything about this place is so strange, so foreign, so (she hates to admit it) powerful, that she wouldn't be surprised if stuff just appeared out of nowhere.

Being a mutant opens your mind to some unbelievable things. ]

Let's try.

[ She heads around the cafeteria the long way, heading towards what she hopes is the back of the kitchen and some other avenue of entry. ]

[polydeukes]

[And Josie will follow her lead, using the fact that she's a tiny teenager to advantage and hoping that she blends in. She's not usually the one who's into these kinds of adventures.

That's more Lizzie.]

Do you do this kind of stuff a lot?

[warmjellydonut]

[ Clarice wrinkles her nose slightly as she tries to move casually but with a sharp eye for entries. ]

More breaking out than breaking in.

[ Way to make a good impression, Clarice. ]

Uh... home's complicated.

[polydeukes]

[She smirks.]

I don't think life is ever not complicated. But if you can break us out of here? I promise I won't judge.

[warmjellydonut]

Not out of the whole place, sadly. That's a bust.

[ She wrinkles her nose and looks disappointed. Understandably. She's tried several times and all of them have ended miserably. ]

But out the kitchen or harm's way?

[ She lifts her hands, palms facing in with a touch of space between them. Then, something in that empty space seems to crackle, quietly, with purple-shaded energy. ]

I'm your girl.

[polydeukes]

[She watches as the portal opens in front of them, and her eyes widen in surprise.]

That's so cool.

[warmjellydonut]

[ Clarice grins and, hearing someone behind them, lets the portal disappear. But the better idea she gets of where they are, the easier to create one again and let them through. ]

Maybe not a witch, but yeah, I'm pretty damn nifty.

[polydeukes]

[She waits for the person in question to pass them, before she shakes her head.]

We can't do anything like that. Astral projection, sometimes but not teleporting or creating doors to other places.

[So yes, even for a witch it's very cool.]

[warmjellydonut]

Huh. I always figured magic could do everything.

[ It's not common for Clarice to feel really special. Yes, being a mutant keeps her separate and apart, special in the way of an outsider, but not in a good way. Not in an admirable way. ]

[polydeukes]

Oh, no. There are definite limits and consequences. Most witches are in service of nature, so there's punishments for going against that.

[Like resurrections and immortality.]

[warmjellydonut]

Oh.

[ Clarice honestly hasn't thought about that. If there's something more to her portals, like she's tearing holes that need to be kept intact. ]

That's not the kind of witches you usually see on TV.

[polydeukes]

In my experience, nothing really matches up with what you see on TV.

[Her world's particular version of everything is just ... weird.]

[warmjellydonut]

Disappointed.

[ She gives a playful pout before her lips quickly twist into another dry smirk. ]

I was so hoping to find true love like the "The Bachelor."

[polydeukes]

[She laughs.]

Alas. You might just have to do it the old fashioned way, rather than auditioning a bunch of guys at once.

[warmjellydonut]

Yeah, so far it's worked out pretty well for me.

[ Don't talk or think too much about John right now, Clarice. He's a long way away, both physically and emotionally, from you. ]

But you got to admit there's something efficient and fun about that many men around you. If only for a while, before the testosterone starts choking you.

[polydeukes]

I don't know, I kind of like a variety.

[Comfortably pan, she likes the ladies just as much as she likes the dudes.]

If I were the lead, there should be guys and girls. Nice and egalitarian, you know?

[warmjellydonut]

[ Clarice takes her meaning with nothing more than a thoughtful purse of her lips and a nod. It's not like she's adverse to the idea of ladies herself, it's just never presented itself as a thing. ]

Yeah, but let's be real. The girls would be so much better.

[polydeukes]

Right.

[Boys are so dumb. Why are they so dumb.]

I feel like it would at least be more chill.

[warmjellydonut]

Much more. [ Clarice agrees with a light laugh. ]

But then again we can be more jealous, I think. Piss us off and you're in trouble.

[polydeukes]

... Also guilty.

[She's definitely got the jealousy problem from her mom, even if she doesn't like to admit it.]

But my mom says that's because we're taught not to say what we want.