happyheartsstaff: (Default)
๐ป๐’œ๐’ซ๐’ซ๐’ด ๐ป๐ธ๐’œ๐‘…๐’ฏ๐’ฎ ๐’ฎ๐’ฏ๐’œ๐น๐น ([personal profile] happyheartsstaff) wrote in [community profile] funnyhearts2020-04-22 10:38 am
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TEST DRIVE MEME 001 (#2)

HAPPY HEARTS HOTEL

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 just a few of the other games on offer. 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 of 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 general sense of contentment and affability 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 drinks a sadness tea can hardly keep themselves together.


II. MAKING WAVES



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 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!

There are four main attractions to The Pool of Tears: the pool, the jacuzzi, the wave pool, and the lazy river. The water is always just the right temperature, clean and clear and refreshing. It feels as if the sun shines down from above you, warm and comforting. Scattered through the pool area are clusters of modern lounge chairs, just waiting for someone to come relax in them. The Pool is, in a word, serene.

But not for long. The waves generated by the wave pool begin to get choppier, and larger, until it becomes clear that the generator itself is malfunctioning — too late, however, to avoid the tsunami that crashes through the whole Pool and leaves it flooded. Thankfully, no water escapes into the rest of the hotel, and the hotel staff work quickly to rescue those trapped in the Pool and drain the flooding — but you better hope you can tread water until they get to you!




III. EAT ME, DRINK ME



The Pig & Pepper buffet serves lunch foods from across all different cultures, offering something for everyone, and some things you've never even heard of.

On offer with these lunchtime dishes are cookies and biscuits and scones of all kinds, held on tiered trays with signs that proclaim Eat Me! in delightfully whimsical calligraphy. Nearby, hotel staff man a small booth for doling out cups of fruit waters from large pitchers, which have Drink Me! painted playfully on their sides.

It takes a while to feel the effects — perhaps you've even left the Pig & Pepper by the time it happens — but those who eat the cookies and scones inevitably end up growing in size, whether a few inches or feet, and those who drank the fruity water similarly shrink. Eat enough and you might strain the ceiling; drink enough and you'll be the size of a thimble! It's not permanent — if no one else can help you figure out how to get back to normal, the staff certainly will — but it's definitely inconvenient!




IV. WELCOME HOME



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.

On each bed are the Oysters' personal effects, minus weapons, as well as a towel folded in the shape of a heart, and a single foil-wrapped chocolate. If eaten, the chocolate is delicious, and incites a feeling of tender warmth in Oysters — not lust, but a desire for closeness. Why spend time in your room, when you could go find a new friend in the casino?





Welcome to the (second!) 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!




ยฉ tessisamess


fwizz: (pic#13933649)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 11:52 am (UTC)(link)
Business, though.

The development of tech capable of travelling long-distances in space got derailed around the beginning of the 21st century for us. Different pressures sounds on the money.
stargazed: (into this unexplored world)

[personal profile] stargazed 2020-04-23 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
That's around when it got on track in my version, so certainly very different. Was there a particular reason it was derailed or did something just make it a lower priority?

[She's thinking "active reason someone might not want to do it" versus "something else just became more important to progress", considering her own world's circumstances.]
fwizz: (pic#13933668)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 01:23 pm (UTC)(link)
A bit of column A, a bit of column B: war. [ which, as far as things go, miguel can't imagine will be a total shock. ] From what I understand, priorities in the aftermath didn't really include 'exploring the universe'. More 'rebuilding and restructuring society'.

[ there hasn't been much conversation about when they're all from — miguel's noticed a few differences between reactions to the empathy devices, which could be put down to 'different worlds'. on the flip side, it could also be— ]

What year is it for you?
stopinthenameofawe: (Melissa [Cheers])

[personal profile] stopinthenameofawe 2020-04-23 02:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Just because Melissa has a deep distrust and dislike of anything not human doesn't mean she won't work with them. What is the point of being entrenched in vampiric society if you can't use any connections there for her personal goals? Which is to say, while she is far from comfortable with Crowley's presence, that grin just gets a slight smirk in return.

"Filing cabinets contain quite a bit of useful stuff in them," she says dryly, "I can't imagine why they wouldn't have places their employees go when they're not around us."

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Hell seems like a better deal.

I imagine it's cruel, but the sort of cruelty you can trust versus a stringent set of pencil pushers.

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Of course.

How would you use such a device?

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't mind me. I'm a bit nosy.

But it's important to surround yourself with those you trust.

Or at least those you can count on to act, or react, when it matters most.

CASINOOOOO

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 03:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[Char has been winning his way through games all day. Granted, it's less about showing off and more about trying to gauge his captorsโ€”who they are, what they want, any weaknesses he can surmise. He's not making much progress, but he's certainly popular with the crowd. At the moment he's spinning roulette and watching the wheel go round, and round, and round...

And then he's interrupted by a beautiful woman, which he shamelessly smiles at with too perfect teeth.]


Of course not. I'd welcome your company.

[Fittingly, Char doesn't look a day over twenty himself. So they're a pair of young faces in a sea of so very many.]

Please, call me Char. And you are...?
crystallomancy: (Default)

[personal profile] crystallomancy 2020-04-23 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
What's life without a losing streak, you know... Thanks for the answer, mods!
fwizz: (pic#13933649)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)
You gave that away with the request for resumes.

Yeah? And how are we going to establish that? I'm allergic to trust exercises.
stargazed: (completely absorbed i'm pursuing you)

space war canon party over here

[personal profile] stargazed 2020-04-23 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[Mikumo's plenty used to that kind of response, and she gives an enigmatic sort of smile back, if one that's more playful than distant, which is what she'd probably be without the shot of joy. Something about this just seems so much more interesting all of a sudden, and she doesn't want to turn down a good chance to learn something new.

So she steps up to the table next to him, watching the wheel spin for a moment or two before her eyes flick back to meet his.]
Mikumo. It's a pleasure to meet you.

[She's not usually that openly polite, but for some reason, she feels more like it right now. She doesn't linger on the thought long, though, hand tracing thoughtfully along the table edge as her eye goes back to following the spinning of the ball and board.]

This is roulette, isn't it? I know the general idea of this one, but I'm curious about the details. Since I've heard some of these games are more games of skill than the luck they claim to be about.
stargazed: (they're just a bore)

[personal profile] stargazed 2020-04-23 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah. The same pressure, then. Ours just went in a different direction, considering there was very little left inhabitable on Earth afterwards. [Definitely not a surprise, considering war is what pushed humans off her Earth.]

2067. How about you?
dedikated: (149)

[personal profile] dedikated 2020-04-23 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
How should I know?

[ Mmmmaybe you should have looked that up first, Kitkat. ]

There's a city outside. Got to be something.

[ Give her five days, tops, before she's actually trying to get there. A sparkly prison is still a prison, after all. ]
dedikated: (144)

[personal profile] dedikated 2020-04-23 04:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Sounds terrible.

[ Nobody asked you, Katherine. ]

Guess I'll go ask someone.

[ It won't go anywhere, but you do you, Katydid. ]
fwizz: (pic#13933629)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
2099.

[ once upon a time, miguel might have wondered about how things could have gone differently to make his earth worse than it was by 2099, but fortunately (quote-unquote) it's no longer a question: interference with the timeline and space-time continuum at large from the heroic age had given him front row seats to a whole host of unpleasant what ifs.

(retrospectively, it's no wonder someone from t.o.t.e.m had decided he shouldn't be allowed to exist in 2014.

oh well. all's well that ends well.) ]


I'd say I'm sorry your world reached that point, but I'm guessing it could always be worse.

[ like, travelling around planets for concerts doesn't sound like a totally awful gig. ]

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
They're a lot more fun in space.

Arm wrestling in zero-G is always a good time for everyone.

...although it can get a little out of hand, sometimes.

behold my awesome power as I SING YOU TO DEATH

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 05:39 pm (UTC)(link)
[Dipping his head, ever so courteously.]

Much obliged.

[Char, on the other hand, always favors his manners. Perhaps to a painful extent, but there's no trace of annoyance or displeasure now, even absent anything unusually joyful running through his veins. He makes room for her and points out the rules of the game, in that same smooth tone.]

You bet on a number, a color, or both. The wheel spins, and the ball drops. If you predicted correctly, you win.

[Char gestures, gracious, with his hand.]

Would you like to try? I'll bet you're luckier than you think.
fwizz: (pic#13933652)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I think we're operating under different definitions of 'a good time'.

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 06:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the floor is yours. And we have nothing but time to waste.

How do you choose to relax? If not among the stars, then by some other means, surely.
fwizz: (pic#13933487)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 06:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[ —uh, by dressing up in (not-)spandex and punching bad guys?

(nah, probably not the answer.) ]


Or with arm wrestling. Macho posturing isn't really my thing.

[ is what he sends first, before following it up — at length — with: ] Movies. Restaurants. Dates. You know, the usual.

[ hashtag nailed it, right. ]

[personal profile] grudged 2020-04-23 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[Don't worry. When you're a Gundam character, it's hard to be offended by anyone else's outfit. Especially when you went through an embarrassing hippy phase.]

Nor mine. But that's the cost of commanding a military operation, I suppose. You're really just a glorified babysitter.

Have you heard of a man by the name of Tarantino? He's still quite popular in my time.

I have to wonder about some of his tastes, though...


[#relatable #itwasntafootfetish #ITWASANARTISTICCHOICE]
fwizz: (pic#13933472)

[personal profile] fwizz 2020-04-23 07:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Rather you than me.

[ punctuated by the longest pause, because miguel is a guy that has absolutely no familiarity with the wizard of oz but has somehow managed to watch the fly. ]

Sure. [ no. ] He's the guy with the movie about ... the mob, or something, right?
sixrealmsofhell: (Default)

[personal profile] sixrealmsofhell 2020-04-23 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
You would be surprised what tastes good. Though this isn't much of a pizza as far as ingredients and more of a dessert in pizza shape.
crystallomancy: (070)

[personal profile] crystallomancy 2020-04-23 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
WAIT I LIED I JUST THOUGHT OF ANOTHER QUESTION... SORRY...

What would happen if one... say... mixed the emotion teas together... Would someone who drank sad and mad get smad.

(This is definitely also a Very Normal Question)
dedikated: (145)

[personal profile] dedikated 2020-04-23 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Stand by what I said.
Too sweet.
Hotel staff weren't helpful. Said to go to the buffet.


[ Not the same. Not remotely the same. ]